It’s just about 9:30 am in Amsterdam, and I just finished a quick breakfast and I am waiting for my flight to Detroit in about three hours. I was going to do some research on the internet for a Project Diaspora article I am working on, when I realized that I don’t really have enough power left to do that and my summary blog. I guess the research will have to wait.
So I was thinking would do a quick re-cap of the little-known, and/or unusual cultural experiences that I experienced while in Norway, that is should any of you find yourself traveling to this Scandinavian outpost. Here they are in no particular order:
Not all Norwegians are blonde.
They come in different colors and shapes. Gasp! Wait, what?
It’s a luxury to have a driver’s license.
Norway enjoys one of the best managed transportation management systems in the world. Balanced between adequate public transportation and private transportation systems. This balance in some respects is achieved via the highly stringent and expensive process of acquiring a license. It’s certainly not as easy as getting one in the U.S. Perhaps some people should be required to go through more strigent testing before being provided a license. Achieving the proper Norwegian driving exam requirements can take up to a year or longer and cost upwards of $1000 to complete. Oh, they drive on the same side of the road as the U.S.
Quick! Find the electrical outlets!
It boggles the mind why someone would put an electrical outlet in the ceiling, but it’s de rigeur here in Norway to put the damned sockets in the most unexpected of places… sometimes they are missing all-together. And apparently, it’s law that you can’t run electrical wiring between walls, as is common in the US, so electrical wiring messing up the interior esthetic is par for the course. Oh, and another weird thing is that no body seems to agree where to put the light switches. It was like a game trying to figure out where the light switch was for the bathroom everywhere I went. Not very funny at 3 am when you really have to take a whiz!
Wireless anyone? Anyone?
Wardriving with the iPhone turned into a bit of an exciting game. Norway has a ridiculous amount of free wifi, at least in the particular locales that I was visiting. I was able to easily connect for a quick email check in the library, the restaurants, the bars, the aprés-ski center, and even some of the major train stations in Oslo. Equally though, were the numerous locked networks that appeared in the iPhone’s wifi settings screen. I actually had to scroll through them sometimes!
Multi-lingua Franca
Just about everyone in Norway speaks or is conversive in about three languages. Norwegian, English, Swedish and Sometimes Danish. And America complains about having to learn Spanish and vice versa for the Mexican immigrants and English.
Recycling is the norm
Every ICA MAXI (Scandinavia’s larger grocery chain) in the country pays you to bring in your recyclable bottles and aluminum cans and it’s all fully automated. Bring in the stuff, feed the machine with the glasses and bottles one by one (it magically checks the validity of your trash, spits it back at you if it thinks it can’t recycle it), you get a fancy little receipt that acts like a coupon when you are ready to check out. Nice.
The Dollar is useless in Norway.
Norway does live up to it’s moniker as one of the world’s most expensive countries. You need a barrel-full of the Benjamins if you plan on enjoying yourself in Norway and eating a decent meal. Add it up: A glass of wine will cost you between $9 to $15 dollars. Yes, I said, a glass. A coke with your meal is about $6 to $7 dollars. The shortest bus ride to said restaurant will cost you a minimum of $5 dollars. A decent burger, with fries is $25 dollars. Wanna go out with your buddies? A watered-down beer will run you six to nice bucks. No thanks, I think I’ll have a cup of tea, no sugar, please.
That’s all for now, my battery is dead.
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I payed like… $5000 for my drivers licence.
It sounds really much knowing both Swedish, Danish and Norwegian – but they are all really alike – you know, like American and English, or English and Scottish – or PHP and Java. You dont have to learn them, you just understand them and may even be able to speak them after some practice. Usually we learn one additional language to English in school. I learned German.
The bottle machines is in every store in Norway, not only ICA. You can even get payed by delivering the bottle over the desk in a kiosk. One of our Sports clothes stores – Stormberg – has begun with the same idea with old Stormberg clothes. Its also the same with cars, when you send one in to be wrecked you get like almost $300 for it in refund. Right now it’s a campaign to get rid of more old cars, so the state gives you like $700 for some cars. It’s all a part of saving our enviorment…
And… I just have to mention it, a new battery for a macbook pro cost about $200 in Norway, and you can get it for like $100 in the states. An investment you should think about?