Long time no see! Once again, I have neglected my blog a bit, but at least I haven’t been completely idle in the last few months. In fact, I actually went to Norway at the end of January! I’m staying here up north with my friends for a bit. My employer currently has special regulations regarding remote work that allow me to work from anywhere.1

I’ve made some videos here in Norway that are up on my YouTube channel. Check out the Norway Playlist!

In one of the videos, I have listed some reasons why I made the decision to come to Norway. One thing that I haven’t specifically mentioned (and that I only realized after arriving) is that coming here, especially to the north of Norway, is a way of escaping the pandemic for a little bit. Here, the case numbers are so low that life is going on like normal. It’s not even mandatory to wear a mask (some, including us, do it though). Compared to Germany where public life has pretty much stopped, this is a completely different world.

Since life is pretty much normal here, it allowed me to keep most things COVID out of my life for the past few weeks. While I’ve been trying to stay positive and not obsess about the news, I think being in lockdown and constantly having to think about it has likely affected my mental health (despite being one of the lucky ones that don’t have to worry about losing their job). Not having this background process running at all times in the past few weeks has been so refreshing. I pretty much haven’t checked any numbers or news about COVID since arriving in Norway.

This is definitely not an option for most people (I don’t recommend traveling during times like these), but it made me realize that if even I’m feeling mentally drained by the pandemic, it must be so much worse for other people, and it makes me hope even more that things will improve soon.

How are you doing? Have you noticed the pandemic affecting your mental health? What do you think could help people to calm down a bit?

Stay well everybody, and talk to you soon!

  1. Without a special agreement like I had for my stay in Japan in 2019/2020. ↩