Common themes throughout the journey

Storyline: Scandinavia

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Although only 30 days from landing in Stockholm on June 5^th to departing from Copenhagen airport (CPH) July 4^th, this trip felt a lot longer and somewhat tiring. Usually, we stay longer in each place, often booking a week through short-term rentals. If we feel like it, we make some day trips or even book an overnight in the area of our base. Packing, unpacking and moving around doesn’t make sense to us for less than 4 days. But given the fact that we’ll likely never go back, we tried to jam as much as possible into our Scandinavian itinerary. After a while though, the fast pace got tiring. Blame it on our age. Or on the daylight.

There was a Canadian TV show ‘North of 60’, about life in the Northwest Territories. Excluding Malmö at 55.6° and Stockholm at 59.3° (eh, that close it could qualify) our trip was all north of 60°. At first, I was excited, constantly checking the sun at night. Especially in Tromsø. I’ve taken gazillions of photos from my window at midnight. Look at the reflections! But towards the end, it felt too much. Even in Malmö, which is still about 12° north of Toronto (43.6°) it was too much light for a good night’s sleep. And in most of the accommodations they didn’t have blackout curtains or blinds.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed it tremendously. The North there, is extremely beautiful: the big deciduous trees in bloom,

the little flowers around the rocks,

the frozen lakes inland (crossing the border between Sweden and Norway),

the cloudy skies reflecting in pristine waters, the mountains on the horizon or nearby,

the vast Norwegian coastal line, the fjords,

the constant breeze and motion. Because of the Gulfstream influence in general it is much warmer than the Canadian land at that latitude. More than 40% of Canada’s total area is located above the 60th parallel. However, it is mostly uninhabitable and hostile with about 0.3% of population living there.

Approximately 35% of mainland of Norway is north of the 60^th. Yet about one-tenth of Norway’s population lives there.

Homogenous society

Ever wonder why Scandinavian countries constantly top the list of the happiest countries in the world? Since we spent most of our time in Norway, here I’ll only talk about the Norwegians. My Stockholm post(s) will touch on the Swedish. Blame it on their sense of equality, no matter differences in economic class, or status.

Norwegians feel they are being well cared for by their government thanks to universal healthcare, free college tuition, generous pensions. They enjoy a healthy work-life balance, working an average of 27 hours per week. Also, Norway has a low crime rate and a strong sense of community among its citizens.

Yet everything is so expensive to us the tourist. High standard of living, a result of a combination of factors related to its strong economy, fueled by oil and gas production; extensive social welfare system, funded by high taxes; unique geographic and environmental conditions; infrastructure and 25% VAT all contribute to it. At the same time Norwegians tend to have more purchasing power for the goods and services they consume.

Lifestyle

Scandinavians dress casually. I literally envied them. Women no matter how big they are proudly wearing their long dresses and running shoes (Birkenstocks if hot). Or jeans and raincoats if cold and rainy.

Men in casual attire, usually blue jeans, sweater and running shoes too.  And of course, the typical Nordic anorak protecting you from the rain and winds.

As they say there is no bad weather, just bad clothing. I was trying a sleeveless dress in Malmö, Sweden and a lady, much younger than me said “It looks good on you”. “Yeah, but my old saggy arms all flap…” “Why do you care? How old are you? Look, I have them too and I am younger than you.

You are a woman. You have kids, your body shows it. And then you want to have a drink and a nice meal. You are healthy. Enjoy life…” Here in North America everyone is on one kind of diet other. Many look down on you if you are not thin and slim. Genes don’t matter to the skinny, who think everyone should look like them.

Transport

For short distance they all bike. Yes, with their long dresses or skirts. I remember when in 1993 I was working at a Danish environmental center, bundled together with a nuclear research centre in the middle of nowhere. End of January. Snow and gale-force winds. Women with their long woolen skirts on their bikes.

Beyond that most use public transport. Public transport is king here. We took a bus from Narvik to Tromsø – about 230 km. 94 stops. Some just minutes apart. Local people hop on and hop off.

Almost no cars on the road. Roads are narrow with no shoulder and rarely a pull out that will barely fit a small car. Trams, metro, light rail in the cities.

Trains and busses intercity. In Norway ferries and short flights are also popular. Regular public transport to the airports of course.

Literature

On a totally different subject, people here still read real books. There is a bookstore at every corner in a small or big city, in shopping malls, in alleys… there were more book stores than clothing stores. There were books in our short-term accommodations and in every hotel room, often piled on the only available table in that room.

Money

It is also a cashless society. We didn’t carry any NOK, SEK or DEK with us. We had read this before we left, but just in case I wanted to confirm it. There was a tourist information centre in the Stockholm airport. Perhaps the only live one. A polite Swedish lady told us that yes, we will not need any cash anywhere, even for the WC. And so armed with credit cards we crossed Sweden and Norway, got to the CHP airport and nowhere we needed cash.

Automation

I will only touch on a very narrow range of this. Mainly paying one’s fare for public transport.

There is no manned kiosk or service desk anywhere we went. I had purchased 99% of our intercity transportation from Canada. For Norway I had to buy them all through their government app Entur.

Everything was on my phone, so better not lose it. For Sweden I had e-mails with PDF, although they too had an app. But they also could e-mail my tickets, which in the end didn’t prove to be good (one of the many adventures), since for any change they SMS you. The problem as I will mention many times was that from Canada, I only could provide them a Canadian phone number. For this trip as for many before we either buy eSIM or physical one. They don’t seem to understand that it is way too expensive for us to roam. Because it is cheaper for them.

For local transportation one buys their tickets from a machine, enters their phone number and the tickets are sent by SMS to that number. No people, no information desks either. You observe what the rest are doing and do the same. Or ask your fellow traveller. People are polite.

There are many little switches in the accommodations. Some we never understood. But on hotel number three or four we took a photo of what we thought was an AC thermostat that we could never make work and showed it at reception. This was the heat switch for the bathroom floors! We appreciated it from then on.

Always ask

My accommodations were prebooked too. Where possible I’d sent a message with “quiet room, if possible”. They all were quiet. However, during checking in, I’d ask if we could have a free upgrade a bigger room and also if we could have a room with a view on a higher floor.

Worked every time! In every hotel that had rooms with views we were given such. We were also upgraded to a better room in each and every hotel. All it takes is to ask! In the worst case they’d say they don’t have any. But if they do, why not! People there were very nice. I don’t think this would work here. But I haven’t booked hotels in Canada for quite some time now.

Norwegians were supportive, Americans apologetic

Many will talk to us when learn that we are Canadians. I remember a lady telling us that she buys Canadian when she can. I don’t know what Canadian products are there, but for sure maple syrup was in every buffet. Perhaps some clothing. Oh and wine and spirits.

During our journey we met many Americans. They all said “I am sorry” or “We are so sorry”. “We didn’t vote for him.”

Scandinavia on a budget

And so, I mentioned only few times how expensive it was. Here are some tips. Prices mentioned in CAD.

1. In Norway: Don’t think of a restaurant if you are on a budget. A small cup of chips (French fries) can cost you up to $15. A glass of wine north of $24, a mojito north of $30, and all goes up from here.
2. A few times in Norway and Sweden we took out pizzas. Small sizes. They all were more or less around $25
3. We bought our wine from their liquor stores. One of the first tasks upon arrival, since especially in Norway they close very early and don’t work on Sundays. In Norway look for VINMONOPOLET, the equivalent to our Ontario LCBO. In Sweden it is called Systembolaget. We found good Australian and French wines for about $20. One can find beer (up to 4.7% abv) in their grocery stores in Norway. In Sweden beer is only sold in their Systembolaget.
4. All hotels there have pretty good breakfast buffets. We did go late (the days were long, remember) and fill up enough for the day. Some snacks with the wine were OK for the evenings.
5. In the short-term rentals, we cooked our meals. We looked for cheaper produce and went without the rest. We fond nectarines cheaper than at home and apples comparable, so these were our fruits. In Stockholm we used ICA Supermarket. In Norway Rema 1000 and Bunnpris were our grocery stores. Bakeries were too expensive for us, but they had fresh bread in the grocery stores. Kiwi, for certain foods. When nothing is open around, they have7-eleven similar to ours and in Oslo it was the Joker. Some places had Coop with decent prices.
6. During long train or bus trips we took our sandwiches. Sometimes we made our own. Sometimes when the prices looked OK, we bough them from the grocery store. Many locals do the same!