Month: September 2021

Categories
Norway

There was a washing machine on the cat

Some English translations of some Norwegian conversations I have had recently.

Cashier: Would you like a receipt?
Me: You’re welcome

Boss: What color is a warning triangle?
Me: What is a warning triangle?
Boss: You know when you get a tire puncture, and you have to pull over on the side of the road…
Me: What is a tire puncture?

Coworker: What color is a Dalmatian when it is born?
Boss: Mike, do you know what “born” means?
Me: What is “born?” Not “foot?” (The actual word, født, sounds a bit like the English word “foot”)
My boss and coworker try various ways of explaining until one of them says the Norwegian word for “birthday”, and then I get it.

Cashier: Would you like some jam with your waffle?
Me: We would like to sit outside, please.
Cashier: *holds up jam* Jam?
Me: Oh! Jam! Yes please.

Pharmacist: Hi, how can I help you?
Me: I like you that. *points to Jigglypuff tattoo*
*awkward laughter as pharmacist looks up the prescription*
Pharmacist, in English: We don’t have this one in stock.

Teacher: What happened in the last episode?
Me: Jonas and Maria moved from Oslo to a new city. There was a cat. There was a washing machine on the cat. The cat was dead. Then they met their neighbors.

Coworker: In “The Matrix”, what color pill is taken to find out how deep the rabbit hole goes?
Me: In the Matrix, the pill… rabbit?
Boss: Mike, do you know what “rabbit” means?
Me: Not the same as dog? (The Norwegian word for “rabbit” is “canin”)
Boss: No. (In English) Rabbit.
Me: Rabbit is white!

Categories
Norway Science

Driving a Mirai

I got to ride in a hydrogen-fueled car the other day. Technically, I can’t admit to driving it – if I’m understanding Statens vegvesen correctly, I’m not allowed to drive with a foreign license after being a Norwegian resident for longer than three months. But I will say that when the car was returned to its owner, the driver beeped at the owner and yelled “Get in, loser,” a reference to a popular American film that was completely lost on a slightly older Norwegian man. He stared, puzzled, trying to work out who the hell was driving his car.

This car is a Toyota Mirai. It’s powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, which takes hydrogen gas from a tank onboard the car and oxygen from the nearby air, and reacts them to produce electricity and water. The electricity either powers electric motors to turn the wheels or charges a battery, saving the energy for later. The water is vented out the tailpipe. This makes the car quick, smooth, and eerily quiet, and it doesn’t emit carbon dioxide because it doesn’t burn gasoline.

Categories
Norway

The Alliance Party

So far, Norway has surprised me twice with things that I was surprised the US didn’t come up with first. The first is “Bacon Ost,” which is a bacon-flavored cheese paste that comes in a tube. The second is paying students to agree not to take the coronavirus vaccine.

My homework for my Norwegian class was to read two articles of my choosing from klartale.no, a Norwegian news site that uses very simple Norwegian to help those with disabilities, or for those who are learning the language. I know there is an election happening now, because I almost walked into the voting booth at the mall, so I hoped to learn more about it. Instead, I found myself feeding the entire article into Google Translate because I could not believe what I had just read. The “Alliance Party”, a far-right party in Norway, showed up at a school and started handing out 500 kroner bills to students who agreed to refuse the vaccine.

Now that I’ve had a moment to think, it seems to me just like the schemes many cities in the US used to encourage people to get the vaccine: handouts of free shots, stickers, doughnuts, coffee, whatever, for whoever showed up with a filled out vaccine card.