Oslo
Friday is taco night!
Oslo is just like America, just a little bit different. There’s a safety net. And it’s cold, there were flurries just now. And they read the “New York Times” and watch Netflix.
Huh?
That’s what Helle said. She checked the “Times” on a regular basis. With all the scuttlebutt that newspapers are history, that they can’t survive, the truth is today’s informed generation wants to know what’s going on, and they do that by tuning in to those with boots on the ground. Opinion may rule on American TV, but in the rest of the world, everybody wants facts.
In Canada too!
The only ones uninformed are Americans.
So the fastest way to get here was via United. Through Newark. There was only one seat left when I booked, by the window. I don’t know about you, but if you confine me, then I’ve definitely got to pee. And my social anxiety has me worried about bothering my seatmate. Once upon a time, I used to ask to switch, but that was before everybody decided the aisle was desirable.
And I read the newspapers, I had a lot of time, the plane left LAX an hour late. I was getting spilkes, was I gonna miss my connection?
Whew, I made it. But then we sat on the tarmac in Newark for two hours. One runway was closed for construction, another for weather and only one was available to come and go so I finished my periodicals to get ready to delve back into Ben Fong-Torres’s Little Feat book and finally we hit the air.
Flying into Oslo… It was like frozen tundra. Small hills, plenty of snow.
But at least there were trees! Vetle’s father grew up in Norway’s northernmost town, where there are no trees and no mountains, it’s just flat, it’s a sixteen hour drive from Oslo, you can see the Northern Lights.
And my driver kept telling me how expensive Norway was. He was an English bloke who couldn’t stay away from a Scandinavian blonde and now he’s a resident, and was a fount of information. Transplants always make the best guides.
He told me it was all about the oil. That’s why Norway hadn’t joined the European Union, it had too much money. And with everything imported, everything is so expensive, ten or fifteen bucks for a beer, at least that’s what he said. But my limited investigation proved it to be so, as I was dividing by six, trying to figure out what things really cost.
After checking into the Thief, yes, that’s the name of my hotel, I took a stroll towards the Fortress, the fourteenth century military bastion, and therein I saw a sign for the Norway Resistance Museum.
I’m a sucker for World War II history. I grew up just after, as did England’s classic rockers, it affects our world view.
But I did not know Germany occupied Norway, because I’m an American, from the greatest country in the world, where everything is better and most people can’t even name the Presidents on Mt. Rushmore.
Yes, the Germans launched a surprise attack, back in 1940, before the U.S. was even in the war. And Norway was unprepared. And the Germans took over. And there was a Norwegian who turned, a sympathizer who wanted to set up a German government.
And the truth is, Norway was occupied for essentially the entire duration. There was occasional help from the British, and eventually some boats from the Americans, but it was a matter of standing up to the powers that be, hoping they didn’t shoot you or send you off to a camp.
They had radios. And underground newspapers. (Do you remember underground newspapers, they were all the rage in the late sixties, long before Tumblr!)
And the Germans just could not defeat the people. They purged the underground newspapers, but they reappeared. Because with their backs against the wall, people tend to stand up for what they believe, it’s hard to convince them otherwise.
And the truth is we in the U.S. are unafraid of Canada and Mexico, they’re not going to invade. But in Scandinavia, Northern Europe…the countries are all so close!
Makes me feel so alive. Traveling opens your horizons, broadens your world, makes you see how tiny you truly are and how you think you know everything, but you don’t.
And after getting kicked out of the museum because I read the sign wrong, I thought they closed at five but it was four, I emerged into rain.
You’ve got to know, I haven’t lived in the east for oh-so-long. Grey skies and precipitation, they’re anomalies in Southern California.
My shoes are soaked and my pants are sticking to my legs and I’m loving it, fighting the elements, living the hard life, it builds character.
So after showering I went to dinner with Helle and Vetle. They both had iPhones. Vetle tethered mine to his so I could use the net to download the transportation app.
Yes, that’s how they do it here. You pay online.
There are so many things that are better here.
But Helle would still like to spend time in the States, believing it’s just too safe in Norway. Kind of like how Canadians say the country’s a giant high school, with everybody knowing each other and anybody who stands out being torn down.
But I told her it wasn’t that different. Except for a lot more land and a lot more poor people. And the middle class is struggling for money, the government doesn’t pay for public college and refund 60% of your living loans when you graduate, you’re on your own.
And I asked Helle and Vetle what true Norwegian cuisine would be, what the national food is.
And that’s when they told me TACOS!
Huh?
Started in the nineties, Tex-Mex became the rage. Even our Swedish waitress, who moved to Norway for the increased pay, agreed.
You can buy Santa Maria salsa in the grocery store!
And you can watch “House of Cards” on Netflix. And “Game Of Thrones” on HBO Nordic.
You see it is a very small world. And the truth is excellence translates. Whether it be the iPhone, which they believed had a 70% penetration, or Spotify, which they both subscribe to, or the aforementioned “New York Times.”
Same as it is back home.
Only completely different.
