Welcome To The Stepford Wives - Part I

So for all of you who think Norway is the perfect paradise on Earth, let us start by bringing some truth to the myth: it's not.

Norway, like the rest of the world, has its own problems and struggles with its own issues.

Before we show you the bright side of this country, we want to let you know about all the things that are not so appealing. Some of them are actually surprising for I'm sure that no one who has never experienced it would ever expect that from a top world country.

And so without further delay here's a few things maybe you should know before you come in order to prevent you from having a shock:

 

- Social Connections

Although in general people seem highly kind or educated, after a second look you will realize that 50% of the times selfishness speaks louder than civism. The social interaction is quite strange for people who are not from here for Norwegians may be very relaxed about some issues and at the same time they make taboo issues that would seem easier to bring up to a conversation. Usually you have to wait for them to suggest a social gathering, because if you are eager to get to know them and try to invite them for something that is fun for you, they will not even reply to it. Probably they will start with a social gathering with a cake, and if you receive the invitation means that they are willing to get to know you more. That`s a start... In time they will try some after work gatherings, like the lønningspill, which basically is receive the pay-check and celebrate that with going for drinks! Now we`re getting to part that can be very confusing! Be aware! When getting to this, they will get rid of all of their inhibitions and become very friendly and want to get to know you deeply. Probably you will misinterpreted some conversations and their behavior... but take it normally! Usually it's the booze helping. The next day it`s like nothing happen and everything is back to normal.

Norwegians don't have the touch of welcoming you immediately. They're distant and a bit cold. As time goes by you will enter in their daily routine and they will increasingly be likable. However you don't feel like they're full of smiles or always available to help like you may seem to feel in other cultures. That doesn't mean they will not be happy to help, but their general attitude it's not jubilant. Sometimes you feel like the dialogue doesn't flow.

- Drinking

The drinking chapter is quite curious... It's something common to the rest of the world, where alcoholic drinks are envolved, everyone loose their inibitions with it, but if for some cultures you can appreciate alchoolic drinks without meaning that you want to get completly wasted, for norwegians, that thought doesn`t exist! ... ok probably exists... but quickly is forgotten...

Please don't interpret this wrong! It`s something good, because norwegians are more fun and open when drunk. But you do have a shock when that happens and you have an even bigger shock in the next day when it's like nothing happened.

Usually in other cultures after a drinking night it's like people create bounds and they kind of become attached. Well, that doesn't happen here at all. You may feel like you're their best friend on the drinking night, but on the next morning they may even pass by you and barely talk to you. Get used to that.

Drinking is like the forbidden fruit here, maybe because the law is so strict about it. People can't drink and the tolerance for alcohol is zero. So the restrictions are high as well as the prices of the drinks.

You can only find alcoholic drinks in specific stores that are only open within a specific daily schedule (Wine and strong drinks only can be bought in wine shops. They are open during very short periods of the day, like from 10 AM until 16PM during the week and on Saturday close even earlier (15PM). You can get beer and apple sider, not over 4,5% of alcohol in regular supermarkets, but also until determined hours (20PM during the week and 18PM on Saturday. Sundays: NO WAY! Outside these schedules you can only find drinks at bars.

All these leads to a wild drinking culture during the weekends. Since it's not common to have a drink during the week days or the meals time, they kind of loose it when they are "allowed" to take that path. It's either all or nothing at all. Consequently the state of mind and behavior changes totally with this struck. It's like a power ranger (for better and worse)!

- Public Transports

If you think you're going to find the ultimate public transport experience, good connections all over and perfect timings, well, think again. The public transports in Norway are one of the things that most amazed us. We were totally shock when we found out that the schedules are terrible, the correspondence is bad (or inexistence) and the punctuality may depend a lot on the traffic.

So to start with if you work in an industrial area and you wish to leave your job in the middle of the day, you better have a car. Public transports usually are only truly available early in the morning and in the afternoon. In the middle of the day there are almost no options (or no options at all) that include those routes. This is quite amazing, since people feel obviously compelled to buy a car (in spite of the unbelievably high prices of the vehicles).

Another disappointing fact is that in some cases you may have to change bus to reach your final destination because most of the industrial areas may be a bit displaced from what's considered the main routing. This wouldn't be an issue if the public transport would have a proper correspondence. But this is so unbelievably bad that (although in the transports company website you may have the existence of a correspondence between two lines) sometimes one of the line is arriving to the station and the other line is leaving without waiting to make the proper correspondence. We've never seen this happened before anywhere else, but we've seen it several times here, perhaps due to schedule's obligations (although some of the lines are incredibly short – there's a particular industrial line that takes 5min routing which also makes us wonder why don't they extend the main line for 5 more minutes) or for lack of communication/knowledge of the drivers (since most of them are not Norwegian). But this is so ridiculously unbelievable that sometimes there's actually a line arriving while the other one starts departing, not waiting for the first one (when they were supposed to be correspondent).

Regarding punctuality the transports are usually very punctual, however if there are major traffic issues they end up losing the schedule (and consequently some of the correspondences). These major traffic issues mostly occur because the road connections or options are not as good as expect. We'll address to that in the next point.

 

- Roads

Just like the previous item, if you're expecting to have amazing roads that connect the entire country, you're in for a surprise. Not only Norway lacks of roads as the few ones they have are quite bad. Well, in this case, there's a very logical explanation for this: according to what we were informed the Government tries to keep the car's purchasing at the lowest level, so they don't invest in roads. We're not sure if this is actually true, but it seems to be the common believe amongst most of the citizens here. And it is true that they strongly support electric cars. The one thing we don't understand is why don't they invest in better public transports if they wish to keep the cars out of the roads.

And do you know that Norway is the bottom 2 countries in Europe that have fewer highways...? It`s Norway and Albania! And the size of both countries (not speaking about the financial health) can`t be compared. They say that a highway damage the landscape, and ok Norway is a beautiful country, but com'on!! To make 200km between two cities you need about 5 hours?? (Yes: you do have the fjords and that makes it difficult to actually build roads and you have the extreme weather conditions that wear off the road surface, but still…) That`s what happens in Norway. Even better... to travel by car from the south to the north you need something like 3 days... Insane, right? You know what Norwegians do? Either travel by plane or if is a Norwegian who likes to drive (minor percentage of the population) go through Sweden, because they have highways and therefore: save time!

 

- Snakker du norsk

Yes: in Norway everybody speaks English. You may think that that will solve all your social issues when interacting with people here, but in fact if you are planning to live here you should learn the language. Although everybody speaks English, the social gatherings are usually in Norwegian and if you work at a place where most of the people are Norwegians they will of course speak Norwegian between them (especially during the social gatherings). So it is not only important that you speak Norwegian, it is imperative that you do so in order to fit. They will not make the effort to address to you in a group gathering.

Some of them have experiences abroad (usually in Australia or the States that don't represent a language barrier), but others don't and you will also notice a slight pressure from some people. They don't only expect you to learn it as they expect you to learn it from day to night. It's a very hard language for a non-Nordic speaker and it does take time. It will especially take a lot of time if you speak English. All the people that we know that didn't speak English ended up learning Norwegian after some months because they didn't have any other choice. So after the first hell of not understanding anything they had to struggle in order to survive. If you speak English the process will be much slower (or may never happen depending on whom you gather yourself with) because you will be able to speak English all over so it will be an extra effort to speak and especially understand Norwegian.

Another particularity of the Norwegian language is that there are so many dialects that you will feel totally lost (and consequently unmotivated) because you will not be able to understand what most of the people say for a long time (even when you know the words and you are able to talk fluently). You will find it much easier to understand people from Oslo or non-originally Norwegian speakers because they will talk closely to what you are learning.

 

-          Houses

The houses are different from what people are usually used to have/see.

In some aspects it's lovely, in others not so much. The bedrooms tend to be extra small, sometimes only the amount of space necessary to fit a bed and, although half the year there's light almost during the entire day, the windows don't have proper curtains or blinds to protect from the light. It makes it quite difficult to sleep in those conditions and, of course, you don't rest as well as in a dark room.

It is also common to see apartments in the basement, which is not something that you were expecting to spot in a Nordic country. Available housing space is very small and since it is so expensive to build here they tend to use all the meters they can for dwellings.

 

-          Efficiency

In spite of what's the common belief around the world Norway is not an example of an efficient country.

They do have a lot of rules, but most of the times that seems to hold them back instead of moving them forward. When everything is so institutionalized people get very used to follow the same rules over and over again and they don't know what they should do when something happens outside does standards. That creates inefficiency and generates some lack of organization. They are not able to respond when a new event occurs.

In public places there's also some lack of sympathy and professionalism attending the public. We're not sure why we verify this point, but we believe that it is related with the Norwegians general incapacity so smile and be effusive.

 

These are some of the main points that you should be ready for if you decide to move to Norway. We'll address some of them in more details later on.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have. We'll be glad to help J