Business Plan for Norway

My business plan that I wrote to apply for a Norwegian self-employed person visa arrived in the mail today.  I’m not the best at writing these things, so it took most of attention during July (the reason the blog was a bit quiet).  Not to mention I had to re-learn InDesign for making the layout, I guess I didn’t remember much after not using the program for 6 years.  As the business will be photography, I had it printed as a book, 28 pages total, from Blurb.com

My Plan is to start photography tours and workshops on the Lofoten islands, as well as live there.  I’m also going to work on a book that covers a year on the islands.

I only have one problem.  I can’t apply for the visa yet as I don’t have a residence in Norway.  But to get a residence in Norway, you sort of need to be allowed to live in Norway.  No one is likely to rent to me on a 3 month tourist visa.  And I have to apply for the visa from here in California, which can take 2-3 months to process.  And even if I managed to somehow find a place in Norway there’s no guarantee I’ll get the work visa anyhow, so it could end up just being a big waste of money, which I don’t have enough of to waste.  It’s all a big frustrating circle.  I called the Norwegian consulate to try and get some answers, but they weren’t especially helpful.  I actually got the feeling that she thought I was rather stupid for even trying.

I’m not giving up until I get a definite ‘no’ for an answer though.  And if I do, I’ll re-organize and apply again, and again, and again…  I figure that after a few years they’ll get so tired of hearing from me they’ll just let me in so I go away!

I’m thinking of heading to Lofoten in Sept./Oct. to take a look around and see if I manage to come up with any solutions.