These are my first impressions of Norway and Norwegians. Due to the rule of first impressions, they are irreversible and there will never be another opportunity to change them.
Impression #1: Norwegian women are beastily strong.
As I boarded my flight from New York to Norway, I was heaving to get my carry-on into the overhead bin. I’d spent the night before strategizing on how to close it, since it looked a lot like a boa constrictor trying to swallow a dinosaur. At the final hour, my dear friend Jen ordered me to take OUT my new red Le Creuset cast iron braising pot, which weighs approximately 40 pounds all on its own. They do have pots in Norway. But even without it, the suitcase was bursting and unwieldy. A tall, blond Norwegian woman in her 50s saw me straining to lift it and intercepted me mid-heave. “I’ll put that up for you” she said, taking the bag out of my hands before I could protest. Then she flung it into the overhead with the ease of a WWF wrestler hurling an opponent across the ring.
I was impressed. But it takes more than a single incident to make an impression on me. It takes TWO.
After the flight, I retrieved my two additional checked bags at Oslo airport’s baggage claim. To be clear, they were both large, but one of them could literally fit my 6′2″ brother in it. He’d need to be chopped up, but still, he would fit. We later dubbed this one, The Coffin. The Coffin required payment of penalty fees to take its overweight ass onto the plane. I could barely even think about lifting it.
At the airport, Fab advised me to put all 3 of my bags on a luggage cart and wheel them to the train. After the train ride, he would meet me at Oslo station where we would take a cab to the apartment. Fabio had dealt with masses of luggage during his own move and would never leave me in a lurch, so even though I’d never dealt with behemoths like this on my own, I was sure I could manage.
I purchased my train ticket to Oslo at one of the kiosks because I really loathe talking to people if I can have a computer do it for me instead. The entire transaction was in Norwegian. I don’t speak Norwegian. I don’t read Norwegian. I wouldn’t have even known the words were Norwegian, and not Ukranian or Hindi, except that I knew for certain I was in Norway at the time.
Apparently, I bought the wrong ticket. I was supposed to buy a ticket for the express train, which efficiently leaves every 8 minutes and has no steps to climb up. Instead, I purchased a ticket for the local train, which leaves once an hour and has 4 king-kong monster steps leading up to the seating area. Me and The Coffin looked up at the towering steps in defeat. But the smiley Norwegian train conductor came to my rescue! HE would put the bags onto the train. I hoped he would take them off as well, but when I arrived in Oslo, neither the train conductor nor my honey were anywhere to be found.
As the train idled at the station, I managed to drag my carryon and suitcase #1 down the steps. ker-plunk. ker-plunk. ker-plunk. ker-splat. Two down, but The Coffin was still on board.
I waited for the other passengers to disembark, The Coffin leering at me from the top of the steps. Disembarking, a sweet, pixie-ish Norwegian asked - Was this bag mine? I said ’Yes’, as she made a move to lift it. ‘No! NO!’ I shrieked, ‘Don’t try! It’s TOO heavy! You’ll hurt yourself!’ To my astoundment, she gracefully picked up the monster truck sized luggage and placed it on the platform beside me.
Fabio arrived mere seconds later with beautiful pink lilies, but sadly for him, not too late to deal with The Coffin. After the cab ride, our apartment was on the 4th floor… no elevator. We could only hope to run into a Norwegian woman on the first floor of our building…
