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For expats, Americans, or the newly relocated like me.

My blog was, initially, a collection of links to random things and whatever thoughts entered my pretty little head. In fact, that pretty much describes it even still. However, I got a job offer in Norway and set about looking for information on it, the way I would when I moved to any new city. There was little in English, and since I couldn’t read Norwegian, I got the scraps. Unfortunately, most of the info was intended for travelers, tourists, and students, not every day working joes like myself. So I’ve put together this list of things I would’ve found useful before I moved to Oslo and I hope you find it useful as well.

In the interest of fairness, I am an American, male, living in Oslo. Your experiences may differ.

Please note, as of the end of June 2008, I’ve gone back to the States. I’m posting this in the hopes that it may be helpful to someone. It’s probably hilariously out of date.

Getting Around

The trikk, T-bane, train, and Flytoget

If you’re trying to figure out how to get from Point A to Point B, try Trafikanten. It’s usually capable of giving you door to door directions and provides maps that will get you in the right ballpark, if nothing else.

The trikk is the tram, the blue things that tourists just love. The train is the “Tog” and will get you just about anywhere you need to go. The T-Bane is the subway system, which I never used much. Flytoget are the sleek silver trains that run out to the airport and cost a bundle, but they’re way cheaper than a taxi or anything else.

Taxis are possible, but hilariously expensive. Just for some comparison, if I decided to give myself a treat and cab it home from work, the minimum-distance fee they charged me was roughly 200 kroner, which is about $20 US (given current exchange rates). If I needed to come home from downtown, it could be 300-400, depending. By contrast, a monthly pass for all the public transit ran me about 700. For everything. For a whole month. Yeah.

If you’re thinking about cars, gas is hilariously expensive, cars are hilariously expensive, fees are hilariously expensive, and the cops are incredibly strict.

Banking

I use DnB for all my banking purposes. They made it easy for an expat that had newly arrived to open an account once I got my personal number, and they have always been polite, which is all I ask. Most importantly, they just put in English sections for a lot of their basic functions, so now I can be sure bills actually get paid, rather than just hoping for the best.

A lot of people I know use Skandia, which is an Internet bank that is apparently very good.

There’s also Nordea, but I’m told they make it difficult for expats and you get a bit of a runaround.

I’ve also seen something called “Sparebank,” which may be a perfectly lovely bank, but can be kind of hilarious, like, “Just popping out to my spare bank.” Maybe it’s just me.

It is important to note that although you can get a “checking” account, you will never get a checkbook or see a check. Norway embraced online bill paying long before the US did and, consequently, nobody knows what the hell a check is anymore. If you really, really don’t trust the Internets with your money, you can take your bill down to the post office (Posten) and they can help you pay it for a reasonable fee. However, there are some significant benefits, like wiring money is a matter of filling out a form and pushing butan.

One other thing to mention, and one thing I’ve heard from other ex-pats, is it may take time to get a proper debit card. When I arrived here, I was able to get a Visa Electron. It was basically a glorified ATM card: It would get me cash and was usable at some of the local merchants, but didn’t have an actual card number (so I could not buy things online). After 6 months, I could get a proper debit card and a real credit card, but bear this in mind if you do everything online like I do.

Language

I’m told everyone except the very young and very old speak good English and I’ve largely found to be true. It is not hard to get around without knowing Norwegian and everyone tends to be polite about it, so long as you are polite about it.

The government is very interested in making sure you know the language and you’ll find lots of handy info here on courses and so on.

Food

You can pretty much put together the standard western diet, if you like, though you’re in seafood heaven if you like that. Meat is fairly expensive as these things go, but then everything is expensive here.

Supermarkets

ICA–Best selection, highest prices. Usually, people call it the rich people supermarket.

Coop–Good selection, high prices. This is where I did most of my shopping.

Rimi/Rema 1000–Okay selection, good prices. This wasn’t too bad.

Minipris

I was not familiar with the concept of a minipris before I arrived here. They’re basically a small grocery store, bridging the gap between a 7-11/Narvesen, but most importantly, they’re open wider hours, usually about 7 or 8 to about 11 or 12. The two I’ve noticed are Kiwi and Bunnpris.

Gas stations here are much like gas stations everywhere, i.e. if you need something to eat at an odd hour, you can probably find something there, but you wouldn’t want to do it very long or very often.

Newsstands

7-11 is actually bigger over here than it is in the States, where I haven’t seen one for decades. Narvesen is the other big newsstand. In addition to being classic convenience stores, you can also pick up important things like prepaid mobile phone cards and, I’m told, bus/tram/etc. prepaid passes.

Sins

Alcohol and tobacco are insanely expensive, taxed heavily, and will give you a new appreciation for the Duty Free Shop when you see just how much you’re paying in taxes.

Cost of Living

If you ever wondered why your Norwegian friends laughed at you when you complained about prices, just wait until you realize you paid $200 US for a halfway decent pair of sneakers. The best advice I’ve gotten in this regard is “Quit doing the math or you’ll go insane.” Basically, everything is expensive, even things that shouldn’t be expensive. People fly to the US to do their serious shopping because it’s still cheaper to fly over, do it there, and fly back than do it here. We went to a mall in the US during one of our trips and it was like manna from heaven.

Drugs (legal)

The Apoteks will have everything you need and there’s probably one by you somewhere. However, if you’re used to the relative bounty of a US drugstore, you’re going to be in for a shock, since even high-grade OTC Tylenol is either prescription only or stashed away behind the counter (I haven’t been able to figure out which).

Rent and Apartments

I would expect to pay 8.000-10.000+ kr for a 1 bedroom place in the posh part of the city proper.
I would expect to pay 5.000-7.500+ for a 1 bedroom place pretty much anywhere else in the city proper, depending on the neighbrhood.

Rents go lower as you go farther out and, remember, the public transportation is good enough that you can probably commute and save a ton of money if your budget is tight. One of the guys I knew paid about half what I did and had a house to himself with garden, yard, etc. However, he also had a 30 minute commute and paid hilariously high Norwegian gas prices.

Furniture

IKEA is the first and last word in home furnishing, at least if you’re looking for decent stuff. There’s a bus that leaves from the Jernbanetorget area that will take you there and back for free. I’m not exactly sure how to describe where the stop is. There’s a sign up, when the bus hasn’t knocked it over, and you can do what I did and follow the occasional stream of Norwegians with blue and yellow bags back to the source. You’ll know you’re in the right place when there’s a gaggle of people standing on the sidewalk for no apparent reason, with a great deal of them holding the canvas IKEA shopping bags.

Or you could just ask, but where’s the fun in that?

Hardware Stores

So far, I’ve found two hardware-type store chains. One is Jernia, which is comparable to an Ace, and the other is Clas Ohlson, which is the next step up the hardware store ladder, and where you’d go to buy anything you’d need to fix stuff, wire stuff, or that sort of thing. Clas Ohlson also has a good selection of electronics and wiring type stuff, if you’re a nerd, and a great deal of office supplies (random, I know).

Holidays

Norwegians are very serious about their vacations. In the summer months, it’s not uncommon for people to disappear for a month or so. If you’re coming from the US and are used to that style of work, it can take some getting used to, especially since they really do tend to be “on vacation” (uncommunicative) rather than simply not in the office.

Also, please note that everything is closed on Sunday except some of the smaller shops like the minipris. Seriously. Everything is closed. Plan accordingly.

Money

Norwegian money is called kroner (or “Crowns”). To give you some ballpark ideas:

Train/tram/bus fare, 1 way with 1 free transfer–About 30 kr.

Flytoget fare, 1 way–About 160-200 kr.

1 English-language book–100-300 kr.

1 new PC/Xbox game–About 500-600 kr.

1 discount DVD–About 100 kr.

You may have noticed the money is very colorful and all different sizes. In addition to being rather charming, this also makes it so you can open your wallet, peer in, and find out exactly how much money you have, without flashing everyone your big bills. If you have not yet come to Norway, I got a nice stack of seed money from American Express for a far better rate than you’d get from a bureau de change. This also ensures you can get in on the hot hot Duty Free Shop action.

Public Toilets

This is one of those areas that don’t seem important until you absolutely need them, then it becomes extremely important indeed. There are not a lot of public toilets, though I’d check a large shopping center if you’re in need. Also make sure to carry some small change with you, as a great deal of the public toilets I’ve seen require paying a small sum (5-10 kroner) and some of them may not have attendants to make change if you are only packing big bills.

Some Important Notes On Stores

One thing I’ve noticed here is the wide array of merchandise in each individual store, even within chains. If you’re used to one Target being like pretty much any Target, it’s a bit of a shock to wander into a new and different ICA and discover entirely different merchandise, food offerings, layout, and so on. If one store doesn’t have it, another one just might, even if it’s a store of the same chain, so you can’t assume “Oh, Jernia must not carry that” like you can Stateside. This is why it’s very, very important to pay attention when you go out shopping and make note of things that you may not need now, but may need eventually.

A good argument against reading on the train or tram is also your ability to pay attention. Make note of shops that look interesting, or look like they carry what you need, as that’s one of the major ways of finding new stores. Go back later and explore, since god knows what you might find. I’ve found shopping is a lot less seperated than it is in the US, so you do have “shopping districts,” but they tend to be very mixed-use, so you may have a small cafe, a hardware store, a movie theater, a car dealership, a bank, and a clothing store all jammed together in one shopping center. For example, in the Oslo City shopping center, you will find clothing stores and toy stores, as might be expected, but you’ll also find a big hardware store.

One further way I’ve found to find new stores is to occasionally buy a newspaper and peruse the ads. Even if you can’t read them, you can usually tell what a store is offering by the pictures. A store with lots of pictures of food is likely a grocery store, to use one simple example. Most importantly, they usually have the store’s web address, too, so you can peruse their website and get an idea of what they carry and, most importantly, figure out where they hell they are.

Crime

The Norwegian attitude towards crime is best summed up by this conversation I had with a friend one evening.

“Oh, we can’t go there, it’s a really bad neighborhood.”
“What do you mean, ‘bad neighborhood’?”
“Well, a guy got stabbed there.”
“Oh, really? When?”
“Like three years ago. It was all over the news!”

Yeah.

That said, Oslo is still a major city, so you do need to act like you were in New York or LA or any big city, and not be stupid.

Newspaper

Aftenposten has an English language feed here, so you can keep up on anything blowing up, Russians attacking, etc.

The King

Norway has a king and royal family. If, like some of my relatives, you are worried about King Harald marching into your house to quarter troops and take your guns, not to worry, they are sedate, rather boring Scandinavian monarchs who probably don’t care about you at all.

The Climate

The snow and cold isn’t so bad to me, though there’s a fellow Southerner I know who refers to the snow as “That white bullshit.”

Also note, they cover some streets in sand to help with traction, and sand, dirt, and slush can ruin good shoes, so fine footwear in winter may be a no-no.

I’ll also include in here that the day/night cycles take some getting used to. For example, in winter, it is dark all the time. You get some grey light for a few hours, then it’s back to Dark as Hell again. In summer, however, it’s light all the time. While this can be nice, it also screws with you more than you might expect. Sleeping troubles are the beginning, but you’ve also got things like your sense of time. How do you know it’s getting late when it never gets dark, the sun never goes down, and it’s never nighttime?

I’m In Love With My Car

It’s important to note that gas is expensive, the lanes are terrifyingly small, good luck finding a parking place, and if you ever get a parking or driving fine, you’ll be paying big bucks or maybe going to jail. They’re very very serious about good conduct on the roads.