The Norwegian Way?
The
Leaving a place where I’m so familiar with as to chase after a European dream. However, would the first impression still be incredible after 48-hour of long tired journey? – Jiann Chyuan
Burdening myself with a whopping 42kgs of baggage, which certainly contains a lot of discard-able food, for examples, Chinese herbs and Chinese cooking ingredients, I boarded on flights travelling for 48 hours to reach my final destination –
I did not torture myself in purpose by tagging with the excessive luggage. It is because the thought that it would be extremely wonderful to smell the love from home country occasionally in a land where I know no one is lovely.
After transiting at so many places (Singapore, London and Oslo), the memory of the first impression generated in this country, Norway, where I’m going to spend half year on, is blurry and indistinct. The only thing I really manage to recall is, for the first time of my life, I drank tape water without feeling worry of diarrhoea.
Ops, did I tell you it was happened in the toilet of
You are indeed observant to tell that I’m actually telling you about my first impression. But lest you suspect that the aforementioned blurry adjective is just a mask to cover my infamous short-term memory lost, I am struggling insanely hard to recollect details for the following description.
Prior to departure, I’ve read and heard a lot regarding the cold behaviour of Norwegian. I’m not going to lie that I did not worry at all. In fact, the worry had never stopped even after I stepped down from the final plane of my final stretch of the journey.
I tried hard enough to convince myself with the messages sent by Erling (Kah Yin’s Norwegian husband) that it is not as bad as what I’ve read. But the worry just couldn’t stop.
It was only after I talked to the first Norwegian then only the worry was melted away. Indeed, as a foreigner, taking the initiative to reach to the locals is vitally important. And so again, the first impression is, behind the cold and emotionless face, Norwegian stranger can actually be friendly and informational.
Reaching hostel at Steinan Studentby, greeted by a cute looking Norwegian stranger with English,
“Oh, so it comes a person who speaks English.” My heart tumbled. But it proved that first impression isn’t always right soon before the Norwegian-is-cold impression manage to mark permanently in my mind. This Norwegian stranger, the now my house mate, is surprisingly warm and friendly.
An example would be he invited me to do some grocery shopping, not once, but twice within two days. I’m not sure whether the invitations were only to get a companion (this statement is supported by the fact that from my observation, my this house mate doesn’t really need a companion in doing things). But I choose to think at the positive side. He was at least my life saver in market filled with words I don’t understand. Tusen takk.
Is it really all that nice? The truth is bloodily ugly. I did experience being rejected from communication with locals just because I don’t speak Bokmål. Perhaps these are only odd cases especially when I am dealing with old folks. Perhaps they just don’t understand English. It is nice to dig in for excuses at the beginning.
Want some general description of the city?
In summer, the night is short. I woke up automatically in the morning today after noticing that it had been bright outside, to only find out afterwards that it was only 6 in the morning. Yes, I still not get used to it. But I firmly believe this will not last long. There are certainly more things that are coming in a Norwegian way.
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