I feel very welcome in Norway.
People are very welcoming.
I feel like it's my home.
I like the weather, I like the snow, I like the cold, I like the darkness, I like the northern light.
You know, I'm a black viking.
Dried fish upon first try is not very good.
But you just have to give it time.
I sat in a prison cell, six by nine cell, for five years of my life.
I wanted to see the world too.
I just bet on myself and went for it all.
My name is Robert E. Yarber.
I'm 41 years old.
I'm a bartender, bar manager in Tromsø, Norway, which is 220 miles above the Arctic Circle.
Obviously, the natural beauty of Norway is unmatched.
A lot of people think that's crazy.
You know, oh, but it's so cold.
You would never go there for the weather.
I went there for the weather.
I wanted to live in the cold.
I wanted to live in the North.
I'm Jon Snow.
The North remembers.
I'm a bar manager.
I'm at Hablik Hotel.
It's a hotel and cafe.
It's a really nice bar.
It just looks very regal when you come in.
A typical day in my life looks like going to work.
I try to stay in shape, go to the gym.
I meet friends.
It might be go to a cafe, have a chai latte.
If people are visiting, my family might be in town, I might do some touristy things.
Urge.
It was actually made by Coca-Cola for Norway, and then in the States they called it Surge.
Very popular in Norway.
Tromsø is also known as the Paris of the North.
It's becoming more and more a tourist town.
You have foreigners, you have tourists, you have the University of Tromsø, so you have students.
You know, there's recently, there's a McDonald's here, the world's northernmost McDonald's.
Being so far above the Arctic Circle, it gets very cold in Tromsø.
We have 24-hour sunlight, the midnight sun in the summer.
We have the polar night in the winter.
We have the northern lights in the winter from September to March.
The cold, it could be negative 10, negative 15, negative 20.
But as they say in Norwegian, there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.
My rent is 9,900 kroner a month.
It's roughly around $1,000 a month.
I pay more of a premium in order to have my own place.
As a result, I don't always have a ton of extra money to spend.
This is my home.
It's very cozy.
This is my cozy kitchen.
One of the cool things about Norway is Scandinavian architecture.
It always seems to maximize your space and give you the most of what you have.
So then we have a bedroom. which is not very big, but it's big enough for me.
I'm actually not quite sure how they got the bed in there.
Probably can never come out.
So this is my bathroom.
One cool thing is that I never lived in a house with heated bathroom floors until Norway.
This is a very standard in Norway.
I make roughly 260 Norwegian Kroner an hour, which is about $26 in the US.
My work-life balance in Norway versus America is a lot different.
My typical work hours per week are around 35.
Your work schedule legally has to be out two weeks in advance and it cannot be changed for you or against you without your consent and permission.
That's really freeing.
It's something I'm not used to.
In America, I'm used to schedule comes out Sunday for Monday.
The one thing I missed about living in the US is cash money tips.
I make less money overall, but I make more consistent money.
In Norway, you get paid once a month.
Tips aren't really a thing.
You do make a living wage.
No issues there.
It took a lot of money management training to figure out how to get paid once a month and to be able to pay all my bills and still have food and money come at the end of the month.
I pay, you know, 32 to 34% taxes, as does everybody else.
And depending on how much money you make, you could pay up to 50% taxes.
But that tax money goes to work by paying for surgeries when you need it, paying for medication, paying for rides to the hospital and back.
You know sick leave.
It just shows that it's a country that really cares about its people and isn't trying to use everything to make money.
Sometimes services are required and those services just require money.
Everything doesn't need to earn money back, if that makes sense.
I don't have of a live by the moment guy.
I should be having a savings but and maybe it's just trauma from being in prison for so long and just wanting to see the world.
I've now traveled to 44 countries.
I spend my money on traveling.
If i got extra money, i'm traveling.
I just want to see the world.
I grew up wanting to be the next player in the NFL.
And I had my first knee surgery my junior year of high school.
My second knee surgery on the same knee about 18 months later, my freshman year of college.
And you know, the football dreams faded away.
There's fisticuffs happening and I managed to get out of the house.
I make it to the car, I'm sitting there and I'm like, man, I could get in the car and drive away.
This is my best friend at the time.
It's my roommate and he's still in there all by himself and nobody to help him.
So I opened up my trunk.
I'm in co-ed softball league.
I got two baseball bats.
My 21-year-old mind is like, you know what?
Grab both of these baseball bats.
I'm going to run in this house.
I'm going to save them.
I'm going to be the hero.
They call the cops on us.
Then I went to prison.
I went to the Oregon State Penitentiary, which is the only maximum security prison in the state of Oregon.
I did four years there.
When I got out and I was trying to get a job, I couldn't get a job.
So I tried for all the jobs I wanted to get.
Couldn't get those.
Tried for all the jobs I didn't want, couldn't get those.
And then I ended up selling cocaine for a couple of years.
Then I get caught up again for that.
Now I'm getting delivery of cocaine, possession of cocaine.
And the judge, she gave me 18 months, which with good time was 14 months.
I got out for the last time in March of 2014.
And that's the very last time I've ever been in trouble.
I told myself, and I did, I would never sell drugs again.
That's a losing game.
I definitely was scared straight.
I had been in the service industry ever since I had my second knee surgery dishwashing hosting serving, bartending.
And so that's pretty much what I was doing.
You know, I was in a relationship and I had promised her that I would take her to Norway.
We broke up and I figured, you know what?
I did a lot of research about this place.
I don't have no real reason to stay here.
I'm going to go.
I sat in a six by nine cell for five years of my life.
It felt like It felt like a lot of life had passed me by.
I wanted to see Paris, London, Berlin, swim in the Mediterranean, check out the Dead Sea.
I wanted to see all that stuff with my eyes.
I didn't want to watch it on TV.
I wanted to see it in person.
To get a skilled worker visa in Norway, you have to show that you have skills.
And it's very difficult to get one as a bartender.
I went to European bartender school.
I took their course.
I did a whole bunch of different courses.
And you know I had a lot of certifications from the best number one bartender school in the whole world to show that I was very skilled at what I do.
I'm preparing to take my Norske Prove, which is the Norwegian language test and social studies test, so that I can become a permanent resident.
I live in Norway.
I'm committed to one day speaking everything in Norwegian.
Living in Norway long-term is the ultimate goal.
When I came here, I wanted to become a permanent resident.
I wanted to become a citizen.
That's always been the goal to be able to have the next line of my family be half Norwegian citizens, half American citizens, to give them the luxury and freedom to be able to travel and work all over the United States and its territories and all over Europe.
I would like to get my Norwegian driver's license so I would be able to drive all around Europe.
So that's a goal.
Other than that, I guess I would like to buy a flat one day, maybe 20% down.
So, you know, I need to start saving.
