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Fires in Norway

Posted by kari 1 Comment
Dec 25 2010

I have always been astounded by the amount of coverage branner (fires) get in the Norwegian media.  I swear in every Norwegian newspaper I open, there is an article about a brann.  I used to think that perhaps there isn’t enough other interesting stuff to share with the public, so stories about branner naturally get a lot of attention.  I don’t actually think this is true.  After a bit of research, I feel a little silly having not thought of this on my own.  There are so many branner (for such a small population) because so many buildings are made either partially or completely of tre (wood)!  Of course there are going to be more branner.

It wasn’t until the 19th century that large cities began to establish their own brann departementer.  The Oslo Fire and Rescue Services Department (Brann og redningsetaten), for instance, was founded in 1861 and protects over 500,000 inhabitants.  There are over 400 employees and 8 brann stasjoner within the department.  Oslo is a unique capital city with regards to firefighting.  Workers for the Fire Department can expect to be called to a small one story building in downtown Oslo or they could be fighting a forest fire within the 90+ mile radius of forest land.

Before the 19th century and even afterwards, Norwegians had to deal with highly flammable buildings (sometimes tre through and through), frost, significant heating to keep homes warm, etc.  The reason why I thought about writing about branner in Norway right now is because I recently saw an article in Aftenposten about branner and jul.  Jul is the høysesong (high season) for brann because of all the elektrisk belysning (electric lighting)and levende lys (literally ´living light,´AKA open flame) that people have in their homes to create the cozy Christmas feeling.  The time between lille julaften and nyttårsaften is statistically the highest risk for branner, but otherwise weekends in desember and januar during the winter are also very susceptible months for many branner.

In Oslo every year there are over 400 homes that are destroyed by branner, one quarter of which occur in desember or januar.  The more startling statistikk is that men living in Finnmark have the highest likelihood of not surviving a brann.  If you are interested in checking out the article and trying to decipher it and look at the graphs, click here!

Use caution especially during julesesongen whether you have a trehus or not!

Air travel in Norway

Posted by kari No Comments
Nov 23 2010

Gardermoen Flyplass

Inside of Gardermoen Flyplass

Norway is an extremely long and narrow country.  If you look at the map, you will see that it really isn´t very far from Bergen to Stavanger, Ålesund, or Trondheim.  It takes a long time to drive to most places in Norway, whether it be on the coast or in the mountains.  However, as the crow flies, it shouldn´t take more than about a few hours to get from one end of the country to the other.  Unfortunately, the number of flights available that fly directly from Bergen to another city is small.  Same goes for flying from Tromsø to Trondheim (which is of course a longer distance) or many other combinations of cities.

Gardermoen on the map

I was told that I was lucky to get a direkte rute (direct flight) from Tromsø to Bergen.  Usually flights are directed towards Oslo, where you will have a (hopefully) short overgang (layover), and then you will bytte fly (switch planes) to head to your final Norwegian destination.  My friends that work on cruise ships often board and depart out of Ålesund.  They live in Tromsø.  It would make sense for them to  just fly directly south to Ålesund, but instead they have to fly to Oslo, where one can sometimes expect to have an overnight overgang before one can proceed on to Ålesund, or wherever it may be.

I guess the reason for all of this hassle is simply that there aren´t enough people who want to go from Tromsø to Bergen at the same time.  But there are a lot of people who want to fly from Tromsø to Oslo, so it´s easier and cheaper for the airline to send you on that flight, and then fill up a plane of people who want to go from Oslo to Bergen.  This is quite irritating, as you can imagine, but such is the market, right?

For those of you who have not flown to or inside Norway, you may be wondering how many flyplasser (airports) there are and where they are located, and which flyselskaper operate in Norway.  There are no less than 46 flyplasser in Norway, one in every major city, and many small cities.  It is simply essential to have flyplasser located close to just about everywhere due to the difficult and lengthy travel time via another mode of transportation other than flying.  The most well-known flyselskaper that operate in Norway are:

SAS Braathens

Norwegian

and Widerøe

God tur (Have a good trip!)

Curse words in Norwegian

Posted by kari 1 Comment
Nov 2 2010

Although I am fairly well versed in Norwegian banneord (curse words), I’m going to try my best not to share them all with you in this post, for I feel it may be inappropriate?   I’ll probably slip out a few though, so på forhånd (in advance), pardon my -ahem- norsk ;)

Think about your own culture and what the origins of banneord are.  In the U.S., most are derived from excretory or sexual words, as well as religious terms.  We seem to create and use banneord based on what kinds of words are taboo in our language.  While religion is not necessarily taboo in Norwegian, it has lost much of its importance among a large portion of the population, and I think this must have something to do with the fact that a lot of Norwegian derive from religious words.

The devil, Jesus, and hell are the sources of many banneord.  Faen (pronounced fah-enn, connecting the two syllables quickly and emphasizing the first) is another word for the devil (or fanden in gammelnorsk-old Norwegian).  Djævelsk (pronounced dj-ave-elsk the ´j´ is like a ´y´ in English and ´ave´ like how you would say the abbreviation of avenue) which means devilish, is another word-in this case an adjective-that is used often to describe something negatively.  Like djævelsk, the words jævlig and jævla are adjectives as well that mean ´devilish.´ Satan (sah-tahn with the emphasis on the first syllable) means ´Satan´of course and is also used as a banneord.  You will often hear ´Reis til helvete´ or ´dra til helvete,´ which means ´go to hell.´  These are all very common Norwegian banneord derive from religious words, but have no religious meaning whatsoever.

There are, unsurprisingly many banneord på norsk that originate from sexual or excretory words, but I do not care to mention them in this post.  Simply google ´Norwegian curse words´or something of the like and you will surely find them.

What I have always found interesting about banneord in Norway is that is seems to be much more acceptable to use them in everyday conversation with people who I would never dare to use them in front of at home.  If I said what is kind of the English equivalent in front of certain people, I would get unhappy looks to say the least.  I mean elderly people, people in the workplace, a significant other´s family who you just met, etc.  Until recently, I was quite surprised by this seemingly appropriate use of banneord by most people.  I must say also that it seems much more acceptable to use banneord in northern Norway than it does elsewhere in the country, especially in the south.

Anyways, I recently came to understand that you can´t simply translate banneord from English to Norwegian or vice versa.  The Norwegian banneord that I have shared with you in this post would not carry the same weight if you said them in the US.  Would you agree that you wouldn´t flinch if someone said, ´that devillish woman!´ I know I wouldn´t.  To be sure, I might be a little confused about why the person used that term, but I wouldn´t the meaning wouldn´t quite get across.  So, I don´t think a lot of banneord in Norwegian are quite as harsh or carry the same strength that a lot of American banneord do.  I would be careful about using banneord that derive from sexual or excretory words though.  Those are rett og slett (plain and simple) inappropriate and most adults do not welcome those words.

Everyone needs a lesson in banneord when it comes to learning a foreign language;)

Northern Norwegian

Posted by kari 2 Comments
Sep 28 2010

Although I learned bokmål in college and lived in Oslo for 8 months, I came out of it all speaking nordnorsk (northern Norwegian) and I constantly have to explain why.  My best friend from college is half norsk, half amerikansk-norsk far og amerikansk mor. His father comes from a small bygd (a country settlement, smaller than a city, bigger than a village) a couple hours south of Tromsø.  The two of us studied in Oslo together with another one of our very good friends.  He and I decided to speak only norsk when it was just the two of us and would speak engelsk around the other international students who couldn´t speak norsk, or were very limited in their vocabulary, etc.  So, I guess I just kind of naturally adopted the nordnorsk dialect (one of them, to be more correct).  I must say though, that I adopted it med vilje (with will, intentionally) as I find it easier to speak and much more pleasant to the ear.

I will share with you some of the differences between bokmål and nordnorsk.   Nordnorsk is one of the 5 main dialects in Norway; that being said, there are MANY different nordnorsk dialekter.  I still have no idea why, but recently I was told that I sounded like I spoke a particular dialekt from a bygd I had never even heard of.  Another time someone actually guessed of which dialekt I spoke (where it comes from) because of the bred r (literally wide ´r´) they heard.  I find this fascinating.

Some of the main distinctions that are found in nordnorsk are pronouns and question words.  While in bokmål, one says jeg (I), hun (her), hans (his), dere (their), deres(theirs possessive), I say eg, ho, hannes, dåkker, demmes. In bokmål jeg is pronounced phonetically like my while in nordnorsk eg is pronounced similar to ag as in agriculture.  The word for you in bokmål and the nordnorsk I speak is the same in written form, but like eg, deg is pronounced like ag but with a d.

In bokmål the question words are hva (what), hvem (who), når (when), hvor (where), hvordan (how), hvilken (which) and in nordnorsk they are ka, kem, katti, kor, korsan, kordan. The word for not is also different- bokmål is ikke and the nordnorsk I speak is is ikkje pronounced similar phonetically to isha.

The biggest difference lies in intonation or tonefall.  While bokmål is very much song-like, nordnorsk is more avlsappet (relaxed) and has a milder tonefall, which is why I find it much more pleasant both to speak and listen to-no offense to anyone that speaks bokmål-just a personal preference!  If you´d like to see the many numerous different forms of nordnorsk and other dialekter, there are many websites you can go to, but good old Wikipedia has some good tables to look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_dialects

Cost and Standard of Living in Norway

Posted by kari 2 Comments
Jul 9 2010

Many of you probably know that Norwegians get taxed pretty heavily (36% is average).  Anyone who has been to Norway and had purchasing power quickly realizes that the cost for products and services in one´s daily life seems exorbitant compared to what we pay here in the United States (or most other places in the world, for that matter) for the same things.  What a lot of people don´t realize is that the standard of living in Norway is one of the highest in the world, and the cost for that has to come from somewhere.

I remember paying NOK 100 for one øl (beer) in downtown Oslo-this is over $15.  You can buy two pitchers of øl for this price in many bars the U.S.  Needless to say, having forspill (pre-parties) is very common before one heads to the bar.

Unfortunately, it’s not just drinking alkohol in bars that is expensive.  Eating out is quite dyrt (expensive).  For what you pay for a whole pizza in Norway (no joke, a little more than an øl), you can eat a nice entree at many American restaurants.  Kjøtt (meat) is much more expensive relative to other food than kjøtt in the U.S, as is most other mat (food).

In addition to mat og drikker (food and beverages), the cost of actual living space is veldig dyrt (very expensive), especially if you want a place close to a big city center, such as Oslo.  I just rented a leilighet (apartment) in Tromsø and I must say, although I haven´t physically seen any of the spaces yet in person, prisene (the prices) seem very high for what a seemingly similar leilighet would cost in the U.S.  That´s my American mentality speaking though.  I´ve done some reading up on this since I spent probably 24 hours searching databases for leiligheter, sending emails, requesting more pictures, etc.

Even if the leilighet is very small and is umøblert (unfurnished), you still have to remember that the building standards are very high and therefore (newer) hus (houses) and leiligheter are top quality.  They are well insulated to withstand the kaldt klima (cold climate).  It is very common to have varmekabler (heated cables) underneath several rooms in a residence to provide warmth through the floor.

Although it´s hard to keep in mind when you are not a native Norwegian spending gobs and gobs of money visiting or living in Norway (and not earning Norwegian wages), there is a balance in the seemingly insane prices of goods and services.  Norwegians earn more money on average than Americans, are taxed more, spend more on their cost of living, but also have an excellent welfare system that perhaps wouldn´t be possible were it not for high taxes or prices.  Some might argue that healthy individuals who don´t study or have children and just work all their lives don´t benefit from the social services provided them, but let´s face it, most people get sick and have kids, and many pursue secondary education.  Therefore, in my opinion, if you are a Norwegian living in Norway and earning Norwegian wages, the system truly maintains a healthy balance.

houses in the Bergen hillside

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