Houses

There are some interesting differences between houses in America versus houses in Norway.  Some were easier to get used to than others. 

In Norway, every room has a door threshold that sticks up from the floor anywhere from half an inch to several inches.  It’s hard to get used to stepping over it and I discovered it’s a great way to stub a toe.  Some people call the thresholds, “Troll Traps” because certainly, if a troll were in a house, he wouldn’t be smart enough to step over it, so when he stubs his toe, he’d yell, thus altering the occupant to his presence.  It was obvious when I was home, too.

Bathrooms in Norway don’t often come with towel racks or toilet paper holders. Those are stand-alone items that move with the occupant. 

No windows in a Norwegian house have screens, and all windows pivot open so the top half of the window is inside the house and the bottom half is sticking out.  There are too many lawsuits to make that feature practical in America, as walking around a house in Norway actually requires a person to pay attention so as not to bash in their head on an open window. 

Everyone in Norway hangs their bedding out the window on either very hot or super cold days to kill the dust mites.  It’s strange to see windows wide open when it’s minus ten degrees outside, but they do it. 

It’s safe to say that no house in Norway has wall-to-wall carpeting – most everyone has tile or wood floors but some newer homes now have linoleum.   Everyone takes their shoes off when entering a house.  Norwegians care deeply about the condition of their floors, no matter what they are made of.  Even at my son’s school, visiting parents must either take off their shoes as they enter the building, or put on little surgical looking footies to cover over their outdoor shoes. Norwegians all have “innesko” - inside shoes - that would never have stepped a foot outside.

Some of the most expensive differences we encountered while living in Norway were that all light fixtures, heating elements, appliances and closets also move with the occupant.  It’s hard enough to move into a house that is stripped of an oven, refrigerator, all lights and heaters, but ya gotta wonder why they made closets a portable item. 

Norwegians figured out how to cross the Atlantic 500 years before Columbus, so why don’t they just build closets into the bedrooms since everyone needs one anyway?  Go figure.

Alcohol

The sale of alcohol is highly controlled by the government in Norway, which is kind of ironic, since Norway has such a high rate of alcoholism.  Perhaps their tight restrictions on it create the increased desire.  The legal drinking age is 18.

I think it’s funny that all their liquor stores are called “Vinmonopolet” which translates as  “The Wine Monopoly.”  Duh.  The Wine Monopoly also sells hard liquor, but beer is sold in the grocery stores until 6pm weekdays and 3pm on Saturdays.  The stores lay huge tarps over the beer section when the legal selling hours have passed.  The Wine Monopoly store closes down at three on Saturdays so there is always a flurry of activity at that time, as those who like to imbibe, scurry about making sure they have enough alcohol to get them through to Monday morning.

The taxes on alcohol in Norway are insane.  To buy one can of beer in the grocery store starts at about five dollars, at the current rate of exchange for Norwegian kroner.  That means a six-pack costs thirty dollars, minimum, and it goes up from there.  It’s expensive to be an alcoholic in Norway.  Even the nastiest tasting bottles of cheap wine will cost at least twenty dollars, but most brands range thirty to a hundred dollars, for the same brands we can buy in America for five to ten bucks. 

Ordering a beer in a restaurant costs about ten dollars, and the cheapest bottle of wine will cost at least $100.

Several years ago we took Kory’s cousin and his wife out to dinner to thank them for all their hospitality they’d shown us during our three-week stay.  We all ordered a regular dinner with no extras, and they each ordered a bottle of wine.  That meal cost us $650.  I nearly cried. 

After that experience, we just started bringing over bottles of wine from America as a thank-you gift for our hosts.  We are allowed to bring in three bottles each, tax free, so every year we load up our suitcases with “cheap” wine from America. It’s like presenting them with precious jewels. 

We only had one problem one year when my husband didn’t wrap a bottle of red wine well enough, so it broke in transit, and got all over everything.  We knew we were in trouble when we saw the suitcase on the conveyor belt at the airport, wrapped in a plastic bag.  It was sad to lose that wine, because it actually was the most expensive one we brought, but at least we had the memories of it every morning when my husband put on his pink underwear.