Lessons in Norwegian 2: Wonderful Trondheim Offroad

Visit Norway once and you won’t forget it! If you’ve been lucky to experience the Norwegian atmosphere you will often come back to it in your memories. At least I feel this way – memories of my 5-month stay in Norge recur once in a while to remind me of a great time in beautiful nature and peace.

Trondheim can easily be called a jewel in the crown of Norwegian cities and towns. Norway’s old capital, the administrative center of Sør-Trøndelag, Trondheim is a fjord-studded town, not too big in size but very rich in culture brought by students from all over the world.

Tempting and picturesque, this city is home of extremely kind and hospitable people, who are open to the world and newcomers. Unlike the Dutch, I think that the Norwegians are much more soft-hearted, considerate and warm. I have to admit that I expected to meet typical Northerners – dispassionate, reserved, cold, even depressed. For the months I spend in the country, however, I found them to be people of peculiar attitude to the world combined with a unique modesty to the extent of being suspicious.

There are many ways to make the most of your time while in Trondheim. The place is extremely clean, pleasantly hilly and damp, cut by the Nidelva River. Because of its wealth of rivers, you can drink tap water, which is super tasty and chilly.

It seems like everyone rides a bike here, even during the winter months. Walking is popular too, not only because distances are short, but also because of the pricey public transport fares. In the weekends you can wonder where’s everyone gone… Well, unless they are taking some rest from a cruel binge, the Norwegian youths are up in Bymarka – the fields and hills near the city.

With a criminality level of 0,001%, you can take a walk to Bymarka even in the night. You can delight in an overnight stay at a hytta i Bymarka (a hut in the forest), listen to the elk (moose), spend the night in a tent, or even get lost in the woods.

A walk in Bymarka requires serious equipment – a camera, a warm sleeping bag and tens of plastic bags*. This will do! Exploring the marshy landscape, you will walk along pathways and muddy bridleways, see the sun shining in brilliant pools, try and steer clear of boggy trails, fall down and get wet. Big time frantic rush!

“Breathtaking” is not strong enough to describe the scenery. The swampy ground is combined with towering rocky mounds, hills which take your breath away while you’re climbing and once you are up above – a hidden lake that also reminds you of a swamp however pristine.

A southerner might find this landscape surprising, mysterious, lonely. The feeling that grabs you by the throat is pure awe. Climbing up and down you’ll see huge fir trees, you’ll catch your sleeves on dry leafless branches, you’ll hop on stones covered in moss, weathered hills with a lonely tree on top.

So, this is Trondheim offroad – a brand new world of beauty and amazement. And when you go back home, everything looks unreal…

*Five ways to use a Norwegian plastic shopping bag (a.k.a pusa)
1. be good to nature and reuse it multiple times for shopping, especially as taxes on shopping bags are constantly on the up;
2. pack your wet clothes on the way back from a trip to Bymarka;
3. put one on each foot before you put your shoes on; however good your trekking shoes or hiking boots are – they will always let some water in (there’s just so much water everywhere!)
4. use several as a termal insulator to put under your sleeping bag – it will prevent some cold and damp from the ground creep into your sleeping bag; not too convenient, but useful;
5. use it to store the mushrooms and blueberries you pick up on the way home.

Lessons in Norwegian 1: Bottoms Up!

The first thing I can see from the plane is unusual relief, fjord-studded as if it was Slartibartfast who designed it. Hills with thousands of fir trees, so many hills that I wonder if there’s an airport at the horizon. And when I touch down – light and gentle beauty; the air smells of freshness, naughty chilly on my nose, while everyone’s wearing sandals and short-sleeve T-shirts. After all it’s 17°C and it’s summer.

The sky can hang overhead so blue only in a place as clean as this. There’s water everywhere. I can see no factories, or tall buildings. The skyline is rich with low houses in all hues you can imagine. Velkommen til Norge!

Norway is a wonderful place to bring your children up, to work and enjoy social prosperity, to live in peace and comfort, or just wander around in astounding yet mysterious nature. Norway is the quintessence of the social state, where the Government takes care of most things, education and health care are free and at the end of the day, the sky-high taxes result in immediate social benefits. Norway is a great country. I could easily move there right now.

As with many modern states, Norway, too, faces a serious yet universal problem among youths – alcoholism. One in six Norwegians aged at least 15 has some sort of alcohol dependence. Every Friday and Saturday night those otherwise normal, modest, pretty intelligent people turn into depressed, screaming kiddos, stumbling along the paths, unable to have fun as most of you would imagine.

To shed some light – in the Norwegian culture there is a sort of an exaltation that is visible in language too. The evening starts with a vorspiel (spirits, including home-made or moonshine), combined with just as much beer (øl), wine or champagne. And this is before the party has even started. A Norwegian comic strip pretty much sums it up: “The Norwegians don’t drink more than the other nations – they just drink it all at once.”

So, one wonders, why Norway, a country one can easily call perfect in terms of social and economic development, faces such a cultural phenomenon. The answer of such a question requires serious digging into Norwegian culture and tens of years living in the country, which a tourist lacks. Still, some things are easily observed.

The popular stereotype describes Norwegians as gloomy, depressed people, who are hard to strike a conversation with. Such a stereotype is probably plausible, or at least it used to be. Today, the young Norwegians lack the qualms of those who brought them up.

You might look for answers in an attempt to shake off the Viking’s heritage of temperance. In a way, this drunkenness is a yearning for liberty free from the bans and the rigid code of behaviour, dating back to the Viking times, when life was much harsher than today.

In a similar line, others believe that drinking is an attempt to forget the Viking history and embrace the world with modern amiability, a craving for entertainment and joie de vivre.

Stress shouldn’t be underestimated too. Peer pressure at school is just as important. Norway owes a lot to its subjects’ work ethics, to the spirit of solidarity and cooperation, which one can see anywhere – from the local supermarket to the professional relations. Pressed for time, facing rigid laws, huge taxes, difficulty in finding a job… and here he/she is – a young and promising Norwegian, stumbling along, wasting money on alcohol.

One wonders, perhaps this trend originates in Norwegians’ proverbial self-consciousness? My friends tell me that the Norwegians find it embarrassing to discuss important issues when they are sober. Sorrow, cares, love hardly make it to their agenda before they say “Bottoms up!”. Perhaps this is an oversimplification of the issue. But you can see all over the place young, chatty blokes and lassies, who are eager to explain to you anything about life, the universe and everything, once they’ve made their way to the pub…

Despite (or out of spite) the restrictions that the authorities have imposed on the access to alcohol, the Norwegians drink on and drink like it’s the end of the world.

May the respected reader not take it for granted that the Norwegians drink more than he/she does, and all you can see while in Norway is drunk people. Not at all! The situation is very very different, but I’ll share more later on.

To Be Continued…