Good thing about Life in Norway: Holidays in Sweden…

We went to Sweden a lot for holidays when I was a kid. Almost every year, in fact. A few years we went to Denmark instead. That was good too.

I know this doesn’t sound like it’s a benefit of being Norwegian, but believe me there is a logic here. Sweden – or at least Värmland – is a good place to spend your childhood summers. It’s familiar because it’s a lot like Norway, on the other hand it’s sufficiently different to be exciting – and it is, after all, a different country. They speak a language you can understand – and they understand you – very reassuring when you’re off exploring in case you get lost and need to ask for help. In addition, most Norwegians have been reared on Swedish tv-series based on Astrid Lindgren’s books, and they all have an atmosphere of summer, holidays and fun. This, combined with all those long summer days of doing nothing, makes it very weird nowadays when I have to deal with Swedes at work, as I unconsciously associate Swedish with holidays and dealing with it in a work-context is all wrong.

I collect a lot of stuff. Books, of course, but also… uhm, no, better not start. Let’s just say I have a hard time getting rid of things. However, some collections are odder than others.

We all get spam (if you don’t, well, I was going to say ‘Thank your lucky stars’, but I actually find spam quite amusing at times, so maybe not). Most of us are frequently offered to have our penises enlarged (100% guaranteed – not very difficult is it? 100% of 0 is 0 as far as I remember from maths), our mortgages remortgaged, our visa gold card approved and the chance of a lifetime to help move money from some African country (normally Nigeria) via our bank account, for which we will receive ridiculous sums of money as ‘commission’. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you answered one of the latter type? Well, someone did (wonder and answer, that is) – it’s a classic.

Whenever I’m abroad I tend to marvel at how difficult it is to get hold of proper, wholemeal bread. Most places you get some sort of ‘brown bread’ as an alternative to the fluff that is white bread, but more often than not the thing that makes the bread brown is just colouring rather than any fibre content. Well, that’s one thing we know how to do in Norway, bake bread with enough fibre (wholemeal flour, whole wheat corns, seeds of various kinds – especially sunflower seeds – that’s what I normally add when baking bread).