My absolute favourite thing about
travelling is getting to know the culture of different places, and not just the
obvious cultural differences that we can read in a guidebook, but also the
other little differences that can be so small in significance but yet so
intriguing.
While I've been in Norway so far I have been both shocked and amazed at some of the little differences, here are some of them:
Food:
Contrary to the stereotype, Norwegians do not eat a lot of fish, in fact most I have spoken to don't even really like fish! I thought they would be eating fish/seafood 5 days a week and then meat on the other days, but a lot of them eat fish maybe once every now and then, but not every week. However there are still some whom love fish and it will be there first choice when eating at a restaurant. Still though, I was a little surprised to discover this attitude, especially when we're living in a city known for its fishing industry.
Norwegians really love the mix of sweet and savoury together; one of their favourite snacks (from the ones I have so far met) is called "Smash" which are crisps covered in chocolate. I tried this and found it too savoury, I would of preferred it the other way round - but fortunately they have amazing chocolate here for me to get my fix of sugary sweetness. One of their meals I find really strange though is their waffles. They will eat waffles (not potato waffles, but the sweet kind, like Belgian waffles) with strawberry jam and SOURED CREAM. Now when I first heard about this I did think maybe it's not the same soured cream that I was used to having back home, maybe it was different here. However after talking more with my Norwegian friends I realised that in fact it is the same soured cream - as in the same soured cream you put on Nachos or fajitas etc. They absolutely love it here! Apparently it tastes amazing so I am going to try it at some point to see if in fact it does taste nice. (NB: after talking with my brother about this he suggested I should ask them if they had maple syrup here, I did and said why would they not prefer to use maple syrup instead but apparently they find it too sweet). A part of me is still thinking that maybe the soured cream is a little different... or at least I'm still hoping since I will be trying it soon.
Smoking:
While some Norwegians do like smoking cigarettes here, there is something else they have to give them their nicotine hit, and it is something that I have never seen or even heard of before. It's called Snus (pronounced like 'snoos'), and when I first saw it I thought it was chewing tobacco. Basically it is the size of a piece of gum and looks like a pouch with tobacco inside, then when you want to use one you put it inside your mouth (up in the gums, most people I saw do it put it under their top lip) and it stays there for however long the tobacco lasts. You don't chew it, but instead just let it rest inside your mouth. It seems to be quite popular here, and although I don't promote smoking, I can see the advantages if you were a smoker because you could get your hit of nicotine inside instead of having to walk outside in the cold to smoke a cigarette. Although I am wondering if it stains your teeth faster than just smoking would, since it rests against your teeth and gums for maybe an hour to 2 hours. This was a huge shock for me to see though, since I had never heard of such a thing. There were two occasions where I was shocked from this unknown 'snus': the first was when I had encountered it for the first time; I was talking to a guy from my mentor group and as I was speaking to him I noticed that he took something out of his mouth that was brown and the size of gum and he put in a box. I was immediately taken aback as I thought he had been chewing on gum for so long that it was now brown! It didn't register in my mind at all that is was a product called "snus" - and I didn't want to ask what it was in case it was in actual fact old gum he had been chewing on. As I saw more and more people do it though, and take out fresh, new pieces, I eventually asked what it was.
The second time I got shocked from it again was during a pub crawl when a guy came over to talk to someone sitting in the same group as me, and I noticed as he was smiling and talking that he had brown gums above his front teeth. Again in my head I was immediately thinking that this guy had bad gums and they were eroding away to blackness - then it clicked again that, no, in fact it was just snus sitting behind his lips. As you can tell, I'm still not totally accustomed to it yet, so every time I see someone who looks like they have brown teeth or a swollen lip I have to remind myself that it's actually snus they have in their mouth.
Christmas:
In Norway (and in other Scandinavian countries too) they celebrate Christmas Day not on the 25th December, but actually on the 24th December. I found out from my housemates a few of the traditions they have on their Christmas Day - so they don't open their presents until the evening before they go to bed (whereas we open ours on the morning of the 25th), one of their traditional Christmas dinner meals is rice pudding (now I don't know if they call it this, but when it was explained to me it sounded like rice pudding because it's rice in milk and they sprinkle sugar on it too) but this is for dinner not dessert which personally I found odd since I would consider it more a meal for dessert, and they also watch a particular Christmas film (I think it is a children's cartoon) that is on every year in the evening of their Christmas Day.
I remember the day I was talking with my housemates about their Christmas celebrations, and I said to them "That's really weird you celebrate on the 24th..." and one of my housemates replied to me "Well in our eyes, it's YOU who is weird for celebrating Christmas on the 25th!" It made me laugh because everyone who is used to particular events in their culture would find it weird if another culture did it differently. I find it nice to experience something different to what I am used to though.
I think perhaps maybe because the Western countries of the world all have many similarities we don't really expect that they would have any significant differences to us, but I think it's amazing to come to a new place and discover these differences - whether big or small - and come back home with more knowledge of the place than if you just read a tourist guidebook on the country. I am looking forward to many more moments I will have here where I find myself saying in shock "that's weird... but so interesting!"
While I've been in Norway so far I have been both shocked and amazed at some of the little differences, here are some of them:
Food:
Contrary to the stereotype, Norwegians do not eat a lot of fish, in fact most I have spoken to don't even really like fish! I thought they would be eating fish/seafood 5 days a week and then meat on the other days, but a lot of them eat fish maybe once every now and then, but not every week. However there are still some whom love fish and it will be there first choice when eating at a restaurant. Still though, I was a little surprised to discover this attitude, especially when we're living in a city known for its fishing industry.
Norwegians really love the mix of sweet and savoury together; one of their favourite snacks (from the ones I have so far met) is called "Smash" which are crisps covered in chocolate. I tried this and found it too savoury, I would of preferred it the other way round - but fortunately they have amazing chocolate here for me to get my fix of sugary sweetness. One of their meals I find really strange though is their waffles. They will eat waffles (not potato waffles, but the sweet kind, like Belgian waffles) with strawberry jam and SOURED CREAM. Now when I first heard about this I did think maybe it's not the same soured cream that I was used to having back home, maybe it was different here. However after talking more with my Norwegian friends I realised that in fact it is the same soured cream - as in the same soured cream you put on Nachos or fajitas etc. They absolutely love it here! Apparently it tastes amazing so I am going to try it at some point to see if in fact it does taste nice. (NB: after talking with my brother about this he suggested I should ask them if they had maple syrup here, I did and said why would they not prefer to use maple syrup instead but apparently they find it too sweet). A part of me is still thinking that maybe the soured cream is a little different... or at least I'm still hoping since I will be trying it soon.
Smoking:
While some Norwegians do like smoking cigarettes here, there is something else they have to give them their nicotine hit, and it is something that I have never seen or even heard of before. It's called Snus (pronounced like 'snoos'), and when I first saw it I thought it was chewing tobacco. Basically it is the size of a piece of gum and looks like a pouch with tobacco inside, then when you want to use one you put it inside your mouth (up in the gums, most people I saw do it put it under their top lip) and it stays there for however long the tobacco lasts. You don't chew it, but instead just let it rest inside your mouth. It seems to be quite popular here, and although I don't promote smoking, I can see the advantages if you were a smoker because you could get your hit of nicotine inside instead of having to walk outside in the cold to smoke a cigarette. Although I am wondering if it stains your teeth faster than just smoking would, since it rests against your teeth and gums for maybe an hour to 2 hours. This was a huge shock for me to see though, since I had never heard of such a thing. There were two occasions where I was shocked from this unknown 'snus': the first was when I had encountered it for the first time; I was talking to a guy from my mentor group and as I was speaking to him I noticed that he took something out of his mouth that was brown and the size of gum and he put in a box. I was immediately taken aback as I thought he had been chewing on gum for so long that it was now brown! It didn't register in my mind at all that is was a product called "snus" - and I didn't want to ask what it was in case it was in actual fact old gum he had been chewing on. As I saw more and more people do it though, and take out fresh, new pieces, I eventually asked what it was.
The second time I got shocked from it again was during a pub crawl when a guy came over to talk to someone sitting in the same group as me, and I noticed as he was smiling and talking that he had brown gums above his front teeth. Again in my head I was immediately thinking that this guy had bad gums and they were eroding away to blackness - then it clicked again that, no, in fact it was just snus sitting behind his lips. As you can tell, I'm still not totally accustomed to it yet, so every time I see someone who looks like they have brown teeth or a swollen lip I have to remind myself that it's actually snus they have in their mouth.
Christmas:
In Norway (and in other Scandinavian countries too) they celebrate Christmas Day not on the 25th December, but actually on the 24th December. I found out from my housemates a few of the traditions they have on their Christmas Day - so they don't open their presents until the evening before they go to bed (whereas we open ours on the morning of the 25th), one of their traditional Christmas dinner meals is rice pudding (now I don't know if they call it this, but when it was explained to me it sounded like rice pudding because it's rice in milk and they sprinkle sugar on it too) but this is for dinner not dessert which personally I found odd since I would consider it more a meal for dessert, and they also watch a particular Christmas film (I think it is a children's cartoon) that is on every year in the evening of their Christmas Day.
I remember the day I was talking with my housemates about their Christmas celebrations, and I said to them "That's really weird you celebrate on the 24th..." and one of my housemates replied to me "Well in our eyes, it's YOU who is weird for celebrating Christmas on the 25th!" It made me laugh because everyone who is used to particular events in their culture would find it weird if another culture did it differently. I find it nice to experience something different to what I am used to though.
I think perhaps maybe because the Western countries of the world all have many similarities we don't really expect that they would have any significant differences to us, but I think it's amazing to come to a new place and discover these differences - whether big or small - and come back home with more knowledge of the place than if you just read a tourist guidebook on the country. I am looking forward to many more moments I will have here where I find myself saying in shock "that's weird... but so interesting!"
