Things Norway Gets Wrong

Norway has recently been in the news as a suitable source of future American citizens. We agree that Norway is pretty awesome. But like anything, there are parts of it that are great and parts of it that are garbage.  With love, respect, and (most of all) irrational jingoism, here’s an accounting of the latter.

How to pack a lunch

Norwegians are big on open-faced sandwiches, which you would think would be a difficult thing to pack and take with you as lunch at work. You would be correct. Norway would disagree. An open faced sandwich wrapped in paper isn’t a sandwich, it’s just a mess.  Norway: your matpakke needs a second piece of bread.

Vowels

Norway has three vowels that don’t occur in the English language: o with a line through it (ø), a with a circle on top of it (å) and a and e smooshed together (æ). I had to google that last one and copy/paste because I don’t even know how to make it on my keyboard.

I actually kind of like these letters in the abstract, but their existence causes two practical problems for me. First, my vocal chords are not sensitively tuned enough to consistently make the sounds that these letters are supposed to make. To the best of my understanding, ø makes the vowel sound in shook, å sounds like gourd, and æ makes the sound in bar.

The second problem is that I don’t know the names of these letters. As in, how to spell out loud a word that includes one of those letters. This is a problem because the name of our street is Høgskoleveien. The first time I went to a Norwegian doctor, the receptionist asked me for some pertinent information, such as our address. I started spelling “H…this letter…” and demonstrated a circle and a line through it with my hands — after which she smirked and handed me a pad of paper to write it down.

The dastardliness of the Swedes

They seem fine.

Hot dogs

Norwegians seem to prefer the worst version of all foods. Take, for example, ice cream. Despite the climate, Norwegians love ice cream, but only eat Nutty Buddies and other individually packaged ice cream desserts. Or, this Jalepeño Smøreost squeeze-cheese that Gavin bought on an impulse purchase. (Gavin says it’s good, “but because the only other option is Norvegia, which is just squeeze cheese formed into a block.”) Apparently the smøreost is highly popular at his office.

This is especially true of hot dogs, which are served in a lefse (a tortilla made of potato flour) and doused in the sweetest ketchup you can find. You can get them at your local gas station, or at the very popular 7-Eleven. They’re not good.

The shower

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c_four3N9Q&w=560&h=315]

Would you prefer to have water get all over your bathroom floor every time you take a shower? If you were a Norwegian, you wouldn’t care. Maybe you would even like it.  The shower above is actually above average, though it’s still confusing.

Whether Gavin is in the FBI

As loyal readers of this blog might have guessed, Gavin doesn’t like to shop for new clothes. So, his choice of winter hat in Norway has the FBI logo on it and was purchased for him at the FBI gift shop about 20 years ago. He’s gotten a number of double-takes and a couple questions from otherwise stoic Norwegians (who are all aware of the FBI), but it took a situation with lowered inhibitions to see the Norwegian response in its full effect.

A couple of weeks ago, we were coming home late from dinner at some friends’ house, and got on a bus that was overflowing with college students. A group of very drunk girls saw Gavin in his hat and started taking snaps of him for their Snapchat story. At this point I leaned in and whispered Han er FBI Agent (“He is an FBI Agent”), to which they started swooning and screaming.  Snapchatting intensified.  Other riders wanted to know why the FBI was in Trondheim.  It all got out of control very quickly.

Mobile banking

Norway is big on mobile banking, and it seems to work pretty well for most Norwegians. You can buy bus tickets on your phone and easily transfer money between bank accounts. The church I attend even has three ways to tithe during the service — 1) put cash in the offering plate, 2) use the credit card reader at the back of the sanctuary, or 3) use the VIPPS app on your phone.

The problem with this economy is that it only works with Norwegian bank accounts, which are surprisingly hard to get for foreigners. For most small transactions, this is fine because we can pay with a credit card. But for a larger transaction (our rent, for example), the only option is to withdraw the full amount in cash (which we have to do over three days because of our bank’s withdrawal limits) and pay it in person at the Post Office. This incurs a $12 fee. It’s a good thing I have a lot of free time.

Shoe sizes

Life is hard if you wear a size 15 shoe. For Gavin, this used to mean driving to many different shoe stores, and if he was lucky, buying the one usually ugly pair of 15s in stock. Amazon has been a lifesaver to him in this regard, as most companies make shoes in larger sizes than are stocked in stores.

I have yet to see a Norwegian store that carries a shoe larger than size 47 — roughly equivalent to a US mens size 12.5. Norway doesn’t have the same in-country shipping infrastructure as the US (understandable with 1.6% as many people), and shipping from other countries involves really high customs fees. So Gavin is just kind of out of luck.

Whether or not to microwave fish in a public space

Cut the crap Håkon!