Plan A, described in a former post, was to come out of my shell when I hit Oslo (I’m calling it Plan A instead of Plan B because Bergen lacked any plan at all and was a real failure). It has worked! Instead of being embarrassed at my visitor status and bad Norwegian, I have more boldly approached people with a smile (not on the train, of course) and started conversations in English. I still try, after my English greeting, to practice a little Norsk (which is Norwegian for “Norwegian”), with just as much applause from the locals as before. I have fun; they have fun; it’s good. I am feeling more connected, or at least as much as a fish out of water can be. Lesson learned.
And in Other News: it’s time again to break out the point form comments on things I have noticed. There are many such things. Grab a chair.
Rain
It has been better than Bergen, but still uncharacteristically wet, in Oslo. This has been fun to watch. The Norwegians are experts, absolute experts, in dressing for rain. Especially in Raintown, I mean Bergen, people just bundle up in head-to-toe raingear and act as if it’s all but sunny outside. I saw people gardening, hiking, running, cycling (not just in town either, but serious distance road-biking), commuting, shopping, sitting at sidewalk cafés*, you name it. They just put on their waterproofs (often including pants and boots) and go for it. In Bergen, the people are so waterproof they rarely even use umbrellas. Coming as I do from Victoria, a Pacific Northwest rainy spot, I still have yet to see anything quite like it. Even ducks seek shelter from the rain more than these people do. I am duly impressed.
The raingear they wear is also impressive. Gorgeous, even. The locals are unafraid to spend $300 to $600 for a high-tech rain jacket. They even look pretty stylish, with bright colors and modern fits. I saw a ton of expensive brands that you can’t even get back home. Another little piece of cultural education that I didn’t know to expect. My favorite thing is the rubber boots. They found a way even to make rubber boots (AKA gumboots or Wellingtons – I think) fashionable. The girls are all sporting rubber boots with a slight embellishment (hard to describe, but it involves a strap) that actually remind me of the stylish leather boots that all the ladies back home are wearing these days. I don’t know why, but it just makes me smile.
* -- for the record, I am typing this while I sit at a sidewalk café and it’s raining. I’m under an awning, of course. And in my Norwegian waterproof jacket.
And When There’s No Downpour
When the gore-tex comes off, the fashion here is still pretty cool. Norwegians, even in the city, dress in a manner fairly laid back but stylish. I won’t go into it in detail (yawn) but the professional men are wearing slim-fit suits without ties, and it’s really quite a cool look. I wish American lawyers could pull it off without raising eyebrows. I haven’t figured out how the women dress other than to notice that boot-cut jeans and pants either never made it here or went extinct some time ago. Skinny fit is the order of the day (with the exception of an odd prevalence of high-waisted, pleated shorts and pants -- this seems to stem from a genetic disposition the Norwegian women have to carry all their weight around their hips and stomachs. Or it may just be the favored style. I am not about to ask.). And the women seem to wear less makeup. Although I may be wrong about that, since I often fail to notice makeup in the first place. But the look here is more natural. Except for the orange skinned fake tans on many of the women (and men. But fewer men. At least that ratio seems the same as at home).
Finally, the shoes here are more casual in general. Canvas shoes predominate, especially in Bergen, which I found strange because most skate-style shoes have white bottoms. White bottoms in a perpetually rainy town. That takes dedication. Or a scrupulously clean town. I think they have some of both.
Last Fashion(ish) Note
Norwegians wear their wedding rings on the right hand, not the left. I read somewhere that this is common in Germanic and Eastern European cultures. This is also highly convenient for me these days, as my ring has been fitting better on my right hand than on my left, where it is too loose and will even fall off in certain conditions. Score.
(Love to Learn) Squared
I love to have learned that I love to learn. I am enjoying myself so much, and conversing with so many advanced students and professors (here, ALL university professors have doctorate degrees, unlike in the US where master’s degrees and law degrees plus some experience often suffice to land one a professorship) that I have come to realize that the thing I am best at is . . . school. Were it that the world needed more professional students! But that’s a topic for another day. For now, I simply note that I am scheming how to keep studying after my law degree is complete. Anyone who knows how to secure those choice doctoral fellowships, please be in touch :) But in the meantime, I am considering altering my academic course at Chapman. Because this epic summer of study will put me almost a semester ahead in my studies, I may be able to finish my JD degree in 2.5 years, and if things align just right, I could conceivably earn my LLM (an advanced law degree), or at least most of it, in only another semester. A very attractive idea.
I also love to write.
About things I love.
About things I love.
Right.
Sci-Fi Cities
The Jetsons have nothing on the Norwegians. Everything here is automated. More doors open automatically here than anywhere I have seen, other than the USS Enterprise. Even interior doors in buildings. At supermarkets, you walk through little gates that sense your presence and allow you through (an anti-shoplifting measure I imagine). The checkout clerks don’t count your change, either. They feed the paper money into a little machine that counts and stores it. Coins you must feed into another machine. Your change is dispersed to you by the same machine. Moreover, you purchase train tickets in a machine and pass them in front of a scanner when you get on the train or bus. You buy coffee by pressing a button on a machine (even at offices, there is no “coffee pot”, just a coffee machine), you buy tobacco (if you're into that) from a vending machine that verifies your ID, and even laundry facilities (at least at the universities) require a card with prepaid credits on it, which you swipe in a master control panel and select the number of the machine you are using. I’m sure there is more, but this is what I have seen and what I can think of.
* Note from the following day* : funny that today one of our guest speakers spoke on the Norwegian problem of its expensive labor market (the average wage in Norway is 58% higher than in the rest of Europe) that requires businesses to be ultra efficient. I put 2 and 2 together and deduced that a big factor behind all these automated things must be to increase efficiency. When you can only afford 2/3 the staff, expensive machines are still better than expensive staff. Got it.
