Norway Dos and Don'ts

It's much cheaper to eat at the 7-11 and other types of local convenience stores than the restaurants. Eat your big fancy meal at lunch and then get a hotdog or pasta for dinner. Yes, they sell noodles and pasta at convenience stores, as well as bacon wrapped hot dogs!

While in Oslo, check out the local pub "London Pub" located at C J Hambros plass 5 in Oslo city centre

Take a local ferry around the little islands in the fjord. Visit the Viking ship museum and the Munch museum. Have shrimps in the marina. For airport transit take the Fly Toget: fast, comfy and affordable

if you're shy of equipment or cash, well, first you gotta get to kinrkenes, but i'll show you how. Actually, not a lot i can do for you in the getting to norway part of things: flew on an airtech(.com) ticket, was $500 for the r/t. And it was a you-just-hitched-all-the-way-from-quito-to-here birthday gift from my mommy, who knew i was drooling over the world gathering. Too many references, too lazy to explain. ok, so, 1) fly to norway. 2) stick out thumb from oslo or wherever [pronounced uuh shluuh.... well, it's closer to that then ozlow ]. 3) head on north to tromso [which also ends with an "uh."]. 4) be sure to eat a tube of meat pate, which will only seem like it should be toothpaste to you, and otherwise have many open-faced sandwhiches, sometimes by knocking on someone's door and saying "Hi, can i have some food?" 5) hop on a passenger fairy, however it is you spell that. They look and feel more like cruiseliners, so you'll fit right in. When they announce that they're departing and that their non-travelling guests should get the fuck off, fail to. Live on stolen sandwhiches and cookies from the little shops, and notice with envy the actual-meal eating habit of the "formal" passengers who "paid." Remark how lucky you are the norwegians are effectively the richest people on earth, and norway has been nicknamed "The 51st State," though that's for political reasons i suppose. Some guy told me it wasn't American troops who actually found Saddam. Anyway they pay little attention to those silly little food and beer consumption infractions, such as forgetting to pay, that american police wish they could remove fingers for. Also they speak perfect english, and if you have the temperment for it as i did at the time, they're generally happy to hand out coins from their pockets, which are usually worth what in america is the price of a small sedan, though in norway will only get you approximately one-half dollup of mayonnaise, which can if absolutly nesessary be filling despite the lack of bread, meat, or well, sandwhich. I like sandwhiches. Sandwhich sandwhich sandwhich. 6) Disembark at port of your leasure, gloating in having been to the northernmost point in continental europe [so they claim], and the kola fjord, which is where they keep/kept those "boomers" you read about in that one clancyish novel: Russian nuclear-powered, ICBM-firing, underwater-hiding, three-football field long and maybe more than half a one wide, thingies. Just wikied that sucker, looks like i understated (whew) --- "Typhoon class submarine, Displacement: Surfaced:
23,200-24,500 tonnes
Submerged:
33,800-48,000 tonnes Length: 175 metres Beam: 23 metres Draught: 12 metres Propulsion
and power: 2× OK-650 pressurized-water nuclear reactors
→90 megawatt each
2×VV-type steam turbines
→37 megawatt each
2 shaft, 7 blades shrouded screws Speed: Surfaced: 12 knots
Submerged: 27 knots Test depth: 400 metres Complement: 163 Armament: 1× 9K38 Igla SAM
4×650 mm torpedo tubes
→ RPK-7 Vodopad AShMs
→ Type 65K torpedoes
2×533 mm torpedo tubes
→ RPK-2 Viyoga cruise missiles
→ Type 53 torpedoes [1]
D-19 launch system
→20× RSM-52 SLBMs " 7) have fun, be good, and be sure to ask your local russian fishermen if they're leaving to sea soon and if they're willing to take them with you. 8)doonerspithms

To have a drink in Roros, you need to befriend a local, which is not difficult if you can manage a few words of Roros dialect of Norwegian. There are no pubs, because they ALL make their own snaps at home, which they are happy to share, after a couple of hours exchanging grunts of mutual appreciation. You will not need a bed for the night, your body will soon find its comfortable place on the icy floor. Beats a cocktail party on the lower East Side any day.