Asides

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.

I remember a story a teacher told me once about a man who didn’t know what “lbs” stood for. He knew that 16 oz was one lb, that an lb was a unit of weight, that adult humans are usually around 100-200 lbs, that 2 lbs of chicken breast is probably enough to make dinner, but he always pronounced it “ulb” rather than “pound.” Does he truly understand the meaning, then? How is that even possible?

In Norway, like in the US, you can buy eggs in 6, 12, or 18 stk, and 12 stk is the most common. The price on the beer label is per stk, not per six stk like back home. Normally, each pack of lunch meat is 20 kroner/stk, but you can get 2 for 35, so I usually buy two. Some fruit you pay for by the kilogram, others per stk.

I’m pretty sure I understand what “stk” means. Something like “unit” or “item”. But I have no idea which Norwegian word “stk” stands for. And I’m starting to understand how Ulb Man must have felt. Do I really understand stk?

As I’m learning more Norwegian I start to notice some strange things. If I try to remember how to say something in Spanish, for example, it comes up half Norwegian and half Spanish. I complained to a friend of mine that my brain felt like mush while out shopping. “That feeling is your brain trying to make sense of a world in a different language,” he explained to me.

He asked me about what other things I’ve noticed that are different, and I listed off a few. Alcohol sale is much more heavily regulated and taxed, for example. You can buy beer and cider at the local supermarket, but only at certain times of day. Anything stronger is sold at the Vinmonopolet, the government-run liquor store.

Then, I tried to come up with another example, and I forgot the American English word for the smelly liquid stuff you put in your car to make it go. The Norwegian word, stolen from the Germans, is “bensin,” and my friend is a chemist, so I knew he would figure it out if I just said “bensin.” Here, they sell bensin for around 16-19 kroner per liter, which works out to about $8-9 per gallon.

I’ve picked up a surprising amount of Norwegian from Spotify ads, though it’s not very helpful. One ad for Hotels.com starts off with the phrase, “Når du bestille den reisen, tenker du, hva can egentlig gå galt?”, which means “When you order that trip, do you think, what can really go wrong?” Then there’s something about a zombie apocalypse and hotel buffet. All the ads for Spotify Premium end with “Trykk på banneret for å finne ut mer” or something like that. I’m trying to expose my ear to the language more. I can read and write simple messages now, but understanding spoken Norwegian is a completely different skill that must be practiced as well.

The language is starting to creep into my life in unexpected ways. I’m typing this on an American keyboard and find myself pressing the wrong keystrokes for all the punctuation marks now. I had my first dream with a Norwegian word in it: “næringsinnhold”, which means “nutritional information” and is listed on the back of every food product in a black and white box just like in the US. The rest of the dream was me holding up random boxes of crackers and announcing to the entire grocery store that I understood the word “næringsinnhold”.

I’ve even had one of those awkward conversations where I just randomly use the wrong phrase. I was paying for my things at the grocery store and the cashier asked if I wanted a receipt. “Kvittering?” I usually respond with “Ja, takk” so I can look over the receipt and learn the names of things and how much they cost. For some reason, this time I responded with “Vær så god,” which literally translates to “Be so good”, but is usually what someone says to you after handing you something you have paid for, so it’s sort of like “here you are” in the US, though it can also be used as “you’re welcome”. Now that cashier only speaks to me in English.

Many things in my journey to Norway have required copious amounts of paperwork. Applying for residence permits, importing a dog, flying to Oslo, quarantining, COVID testing… everything required a passport scan or a letter or something. Most of this paperwork has sat, perfectly organized, in a thick black binder that I packed before leaving the US. It seems that most places require the paperwork, but don’t actually check any of it, and just trust that the person has done the right thing.

The bank is the only place where this is not true. They actually found some discrepancies – in some places, my middle name is used, in others, not. I had to show my passport, and the letter from the Norwegian government specifying my fødselsnummer, which is kind of like a social security number. I had to give my phone number and email address, and I had to wait and come back to the bank a few days later after my documents and identity were verified. Once this process is complete, I can essentially use my bank account to log into anything in Norway, so I understand the security measures, but they can be frustrating.

And there’s a lot of waiting. Due to the combination of COVID restrictions limiting the capacity of the bank offices, and July being a popular vacation month, the lines at the bank have been long and the few remaining staff are overworked. On one visit to the bank I overheard a Latin American family using a combination of broken English, fluent Spanish, and someone on speakerphone who spoke Norwegian, trying to open a new account, with a very patient but obviously tired bank teller.

Another visit might have taught me some Norwegian curse words had I been paying closer attention. I was let into the bank to sign some paperwork. When I entered there was one more customer waiting in the middle of the lobby, arms crossed, obviously agitated, waiting for someone. The lobby is capped at two customers, so a line begins to form outside. While a bank worker is preparing my paperwork, another bank worker talks to the waiting man in Norwegian. The conversation gets louder and faster until finally the waiting man throws his hands up in the air, yells something involving the name of the bank, and tries to storm out the door.

The funny thing about most Norwegian doors is that they usually lock in both directions, and you have to push a button (a “døråpner”) to disengage the lock so you can leave. So the man slams into the door, which refuses to budge. He realizes his mistake, jabs the døråpner with his left hand, and tries again to leave, but there’s often a delay of a second or two before the døråpner actually opens the door. So he again fails to storm off. The bank worker politely smiles and holds the døråpner for him so that on his third try, he is able to leave the bank, looking a bit sheepish.

I was eating lunch outside with a couple of my coworkers the other day. While we were eating, a little brown bird flew over and hovered at eye level between the three of us for a moment, eyeing our sandwiches. One of my coworkers, a Canadian, proudly told us that he had finally signed a mortgage for a condo in nearby Ranheim.

“It’s been tough,” he said. “We have to compete with all these Norwegian college kids.” He picked off a bit of bread and held it out on an open palm, and the bird hopped right into his hand, snatched the bread, and hopped back down under a nearby table. “If you’re Norwegian, your parents can co-sign and put their house down as collateral, and then you aren’t required to put in a down payment. It’s the Norwegian hack.”

“The entire Norwegian economy is based on debt,” explained another of my coworkers, an Englishman. “There’s a wealth tax, so if you’ve got too much money, you get taxed. However, any payments towards loan interest is tax-deductible. Furthermore, your house only accounts for about ten percent of its actual value towards your net worth. It’s really quite silly, you’ve got all these young Norwegian families taking out huge loans to buy houses they really shouldn’t be able to afford, but it makes more sense economically to do that than to save your money.”

My first thought was that such a financial state is dangerous. What if an unexpected expense arises? Instead of asking the more general question, I chose a specific example. “What happens if you break your leg and suddenly have to pay $10,000 in medical bills?” I blurted out.

Everyone at the table laughed. “That’s not the way we do things here,” said the Englishman. “You’ll learn to think less like an American after a while.” He reminded me of one of my other new colleagues, who broke his ankle in a skiing accident and had to be airlifted off the mountain. He paid either nothing, or the maximum deductible, which is around 2000 Norwegian kroner ($250).