Norway Local Custom Tips by Saagar Top 5 Page for this destination

Drinking and alcohol in Norway

The cost of alcohol in Norway is very high. If coming here, bring your own, but remember the maximum duty free quota.
Government tax causes the high prices on alcohol, so wether it's locally made or imported the tax is equally high. There is no cheap local booze.
Restaurants out to make a fat profit mark up their wine two and a half to three-fold from the prices in the liquor stores. Beer up to 5,5% alcohol can be bought in regular grocery stores. Some odd places have beer shops, though.
The liquor stores is a state monopoly, and the prices thus state controlled. If this seems ugly, look at the other side of the coin: they buy their wines bulk, and is in fact one of the biggest purchasers in the world. Thus, they are able to negotiate extremely good prices on very good wine. In this way, by scouring the brochures of Vinmonopolet you can find 10-15 Euro wines that may cost the double in retail in their country of origin. The cost of wines will be from NOK 60 (E 9,-) and up. Bank on spending 12-20 E for a good bottle of wine, red or white. In a restaurant easily NOK 260-300 for the very same bottle.
Beer: light beer (2,7% volume) about NOK 3-8 plus refund fee per bottle 0,33L. For a regular pilsner (4,6%), a pint can, it'll be about NOK 23-28, in a pub from NOK 46-64, depending on the place you go. Hard liquor is around NOK 400 for a good cognac, 270-300 for a whisky, about the same for vodka, I suppose.
Moonshining is popular, illegal and the product sometimes of doubtful quality. 18 persons died over the last year due to methanol poisoning from consuming illegally imported/produced alcohol.
To dampen your spirits... Norwegians tend to be weekend drinkers, with the young ones drinking most. On average, Norway is the least-drinking nation in Europe (alcohol units per capita/year). Cost and availability and tradition are three reasons for this. Interesting alcohol culture in this country...

Website: http://www.vinmonopolet.no

The Norwegian identity...

Thierry Geoffroy-Colonel is a French immigrant to Norway who has cornered the Norwegian identity through humor and irony. His exhibition "Active Immigrant" showcases some of his attmpts at catching the Noregian identity, such as by having Norwegians stopped at random on sidewalks scream into test tubes, sealing the tubes and exhibiting them. Other "scientific" tests where conducted on how close Norwegians tolerate your presence before they back off. This was all filmed - hysterical! The films are part of the exhibition. And there is more... The core of Thierry's analysis is about the experience of isolation and how this is viewed in deifferent cultures.
See the exhibition at Internasjonalt Kultursenter og Museum, at Tøyenbekken 5, 0188 Oslo.
Open Tue-Wed-Fri 10-16, Thu 10-18 and Sat-Sun 12-16. Free entry.

The most common boy name given in Norway in 2003

... was Muhammed.

It says something about the sex life of Norwegians, whichever creed, and of a productive immigrant population, but most of all about a diversity of Norwegian names given at birth.
There is nothing of the Greek "Yorgios"-phenomenon in Norway, so many names compete for the top medal. Still, quite interesting, this Muhammed phenomenon.

The "Hytte"

You will come across the concept, dream as well as the physical appearance of the hytte. This is where many Norwegians live and breathe, while at home in the cities and town, they feel they eat and work and sleep.
There is something methaphorical about the hytte (it actually just means a small house for temporary settlement), and all the concentrations of the good life is built into it. If you want to meet the locals on the home turf, so to speak, accept the invitation to come to the hytte (rare, because this is considered very close to heart). The flat in a block in Oslo may be small and drab, but the hytte is where it all happens and interior design and hobbies and everything else blooms.
The good thing is that if you are not invited, you can always rent a hytte (July is the cheapest time to bargain for one in the mountains).
The origin of the mountain hytte is the summer farms that many farms had, and the memories of freedom young people had from there. Gradually, summer mountain farming has become redundant, and the houses used for holiday and weekend purposes instead. The last 40 years small lots of land have been sold or rented out for the establishment of thousands of hytter. At the sea coast, it was mainly the returning to the family farm during holidays that set off the hytte "industry" and the interest in having a small summer house near the ancestral farm.
Rapidly the growth of hytter everywhere is becoming an environmental menace.

Other Contact: See Norsk Hytteformidling

A great analysis and summary of "bads" in Norway

The little book "Something Rotten in the State of Norway" will give you a great insight in some key aspects of Norwegian society and culture.
These are some of the chapter contents:
- Crisis in Norwegian social democracy
- Self-realisation as dogma
- About the "moral force" of Norway
- Institutional racism
- The supermarket society
- Medicating of school children
- Between King Midas and King Stats Quo
- Architecture and symbolism.

Published by UKS: Forum for Contemporary Art No. 1/2-2001.

Other Contact: ISSN: 0803-1967

Website: http://www.uks.no

Torrfisk and Bokna fish

Dried fish is eaten mainly as snacks in Norway, but as it gives you a fairly foul breath afterwards, this isn’t too popular anylonger either. Colgate destroyed this culture. However, dried fish (torrfisk) is a huge export product, mainly to Latin America, the Iberian Penninsula, Italy and England in Europe, and Nigeria. It’s proper name in English is Stockfish.
The lesser quality ends up as pet food, especially dog food.

The dried fish is gutted, split along the backbone and hung to dry on “hjell”, drying racks. These are highly visible features of coastal communities in the west and north of Norway. See photo. Dried fish like this is unsalted. The salted version is klippfisk (see my tip on this, the raw material for bacalao).
Boknafisk is a variety with is only half-dried, and often hung on nails on the outer walls so sea gulls and cats don’t get to them. Maybe close to the kitchen window, too, so the way to the pot is not too far…. This fish is semi-dried and is destined to be poached. It has a fine, somewhat more concentrated taste than fresh fish, and features on menus in traditional fish restaurants, too.

Norway is slightly militaristic...

On your winding ways through this land you may come across (well, normally not during the main tourist season and the main Norwegian 3-week common summer holidays when the armed forces also take holidays - invaders please note!) a surprising number of military exercises, military personnel and military activity in general.
- It's partly due to the cold-war leftovers - they need to keep that surplus tank, bomber or truck running smoothly and keeping the rust off and generally attempt to be seen as active so the officers don't get threatened with redundancy.
- It has mainly to do with Norway's exposed postition in NATO as an outpost, an attractive coast from the point of view of sea defence and as a major source of oil.
- Recruits to the armed forces get 90% discount if they travel in uniform on public transport (hint - get to the flee market and buy some fatigues...)
- It has much to do with the decentralized structure of the armed forces, much like that of Switzerland. Everybody has to do army/navy/airforce service - in principle.
- 130.000 young men and women have army-issue automatic guns at home as a sort of stand-by quick-reaction local defence force or guerilla.

If many would-be soldiers seem very casual the way they treat their weapons and other equipment when they come sloshing through the train corridor or street or whatever dragging their automatics by the barrel, the reason is they would rather stay home and do the dishes, since the whole system is rather fictious as there is no enemy to speak of, and there is no real payment for the service.

When it's unbearably cold...

... you dress up in your well-worn anorak and don your skis and rush out into the woods, hills or mountains, and when you're sufficiently cleansed from the slight suspicion that you are becoming a coach potato, you light up a good fire and brew up a kettle of coffee and fry hot dogs on sticks.
This is Norwegian well-being, and many of us expect visitors to appreciate the same.
Well???
What was the purpose, you said?

Fish on the cliffs = klippfisk

On the coast you may come across a whole lot of gutted?fish laying around on the cliffs or nailed to outdoor walls...
This is the beginning of bacalao, a salted, dried fish. Normally, but not always it is cod fish, and bacalao has become equivalent to cod in Spanish and Portugese-speaking countries.
Normally this drying process is done electrically indoors these days, but you will still find the odd old fisherman who insists the fish gets better this way. I agree, so this is my particular outlet here on the photo (Ona island).
To eat this fish you first need to rinse it in wate for about 15-20 hrs depending on salt and quality. Then you do whatever you find suitable in terms of cooking-style: true baclao with tomatoes, salsa, onions and teh whole set, or I have even seen it BBQ'ed.
Direct from fisherman, expect the price of the dried version around NOK 100 per kilo, much more in the shop. But the weight increases three-fold when you prepare it.

Saltwater fishing regulations

This is the run-down on saltwater fishing regulations in Norway.

1. All fishing in salt water is free, provided it is for personal consumption and a reasonable quantity.
2 The exception is for anaedrome salomonides (salomon, sea-trout and sea-running arctic char) for which you need to pay a license (post office, about NOK 200).
3. Certain restrictions apply near river outlets where there is a salomon run (normally signposted)
4. There is a zone around aquaculture fish keeping nets where you cannot fish or come close with a boat (normally signposted).
5. There are restrictions as to what kind of fishing net you can use on the surface and near river outlets (to avoid catching salomonides).
6. For fish other than salomonides there is no size limit, but be kind and put back kindergarden candidates.
7. There is no distinct bag limit, but generally a reasonable amount of fish for consumption, storage and curing (smoking, drying, marinating etc) is accepted. Sale of fish is by definition not permitted, but few will mind to pay you for that extra surplus haddock you caught.
8. Local people frown upon semi-professional sports anglers who come with a trailer behind their car with tied-down gas-run deep freezers and start filling them up.

Website: http://www.dn.no