Last Thursday I still lived in the Netherlands. Everything feels new. New country, new environment , new house, and soon a new job. All of this because of last june…
At the time, I was working at HelloFresh as a driver and Load-coordinator. After job-hopping a few times I finally found my spot here. I had a job that challenged me, I had nice colleagues and, since a few months I had a permanent contract. Everything seemed to fall in to place.
Then, I met Rixt. At the time we met she was back in the Netherlands helping her parents move. She went to Swedish-Lapland to work for Lodge-chain Explore the North for what was planned as a gap-period of a few months. That was 3 years ago and she hasn’t looked back since. Right now she’s starts her 4th season at Arctic river lodge working as head of cleaning and reception.
She has lived the life I wanted for as long as I can remember. I wouldn’t be the first one to say “that one day, I will move abroad.”. In my case, I wished to move to Scandinavia. My love for the Nordic countries and it’s beautiful nature has been part of my upbringing. My first steps where in Norway. And almost every year we went to Norway or Sweden for our holidays.
In my conversations with Rixt we talked about the fact that the lodge was still looking for people in different positions. At first I wasn’t sure if this was the right time. I just had a stable job where I felt at home and I wasn’t sure if throwing that overboard was the right thing to do. The smarter option seemed to wait a year and apply next year. However the thought of realizing my dreams kept bugging me. Then, when I read one of my favorite books, I came across this passage:
“The Idea came to me in a sleepless night: If this feeling won’t go away, perhaps I should. It seemed like a very logical thought. Going away, experience something new, break the rut of my regular job and my predictable life.”
Source: Linda Nijlunsing
Wildernisjaren; Leven met een pelsjager in alaska
As soon as I read it I couldn’t sleep anymore. At 5:00 am I was behind my computer to write my application for a position as guide. That afternoon, after reading it over once or twice, I emailed my application. After a few mails over and back and a online interview later I was hired. Unfortunately I still had to wait 5 months because the winter season starts in December and at the time I heard I was hired It was only July.
And so the waiting game started. Not just for my new job, in a new country, but also for Rixt. Because we really started to like each other, but she had to go back to Sweden because she had to work trough the summer. I had enough to do though. I still lived with my parents back home, the fact that I was finally moving out meant I had to sort through all the shit I collected over the 26 years I lived there. And I still had my job at HelloFresh until the end of October.
Then finally at the end of October it was time. After a week of goodbyes to friends and family, my mom dropped me of at Schiphol airport with 2 pieces of luggage with almost all the stuff I deemed important enough not to throw out. From Schiphol I flew to Stockholm and from Stockholm I flew to Luleå, Where Rixt and a friend/colleague of hers picked me up.
Tärendö, my “very-soon-to-be” new hometown is a very small village which hasn’t got any stores. So we first went to a few stores and to burger chain MAX (which is compared to Dutch McDonalds is literal heaven btw). Then finally, we went on the 3 hour trip to Tärendö. which went well… until we drove in to a ditch in the middle of nowhere. About 20 minutes after passing Överkalix.
Lucky for us, nobody got hurt, and the car, apart from being beached in the snow on the side of the road, was perfectly fine. The 1800 kg Volvo was stuck in the ditch and not going anywhere by itself.
Fortunately, Explore the north has a lodge in Överkalix as well. A few quick calls witch the manager there and they send a tractor our way, If he couldn’t get us out we could stay the night at the lodge in Överkalix. About half an hour later the Tractor showed up, We put a rope around the trailer hitch, I took the drivers seat of the car to drive backwards and lower the friction while the tractor started to pull us out and……. the rope snapped!
In our heads we saw the 3 of us with the tractor driver in his cabin on our way towards Överkalix. But lucky for us, the guy also had a chain with him. We hooked the car back on and tried again, We saw the tires of the tractor slipping on the road, but slowly the car started to move backwards and got the car out safe. After thanking the tractor driver we went our separate ways.
We still had an 1,5 hour drive ahead. Which we did extra slowly and carefully. And finally we made it to Rixt her house, We quickly got our stuff out, Thanked Rixt her friend and went inside.
My first few hours here were quite spectacular. And because of the long travel day and the adventure on our way back we were so tired that we went to bed straight away, unpacking had to wait until the next morning.
