James tells me that he feels the black dog today, and I can't look out of the window without comparing the squalid scene before me with Dusseldorf or Oslo. Neal feels the same way.
How to explain? We landed at what Ryanair calls Oslo (Torp) Airport. There is an Oslo airport, and it's in Oslo. Those brackets elide a distance of 110km: that deception was the last bit of non-Norwegian shenanigans we encountered for three days. Even the airport was lovely - clean lines, food which didn't, unlike British stations and aerodromes, treat you as a captive to be charged small fortunes for the worst kind of pseudo-food.
On the train, a Norwegian man started a conversation with us! He told us about his idyllic life on a western island, where he formerly worked for Rolls-Royce. Bucolic, friendly, everybody knows each other, everybody has a boat and catches their own fish etc. For a treat, he'd been to Britain to watch Manchester United and four other football matches, at places like Huddersfield. He does this kind of trip ten times per year. We began to understand what it means to live in the world's richest country.
Didn't I mention that? Norway is a massive country of mountains, fjords, fish and oil. It has a population of 4.5 million, about half of London. Unlike certain countries I could mention, the state didn't privatise the oil. Rather than using the cash to flog off the family silver (BP, BA, the railways, water companies, telephones etc. etc. etc., Norway invested some of the oil money in public works and services. Most of it, they've saved for when the oil runs out. Everybody earns a lot, and people pay a lot of tax, especially on alcohol and petrol (just under a pint of beer or a small cappuccino: between £5-8). Nobody minds. Nobody starts fights in pubs either, or vomits in the street. There's no litter. The police don't patrol the streets much because they don't need to. The trams are frequent and the city bikes are not only practical, they're cool - like Grifters. We saw a huge chunk of the city by bike, and the rest by going on a cruise around the Oslo fjord.
Perhaps it's a bit naughty to get so rich off dirty old oil, but the Norwegians are getting clever about that too: 99% of their power is hydroelectric, so it's basically free and as clean as it's possible to be.
So anyway, apart from this guy's claim that Oslo was overrun with East Europeans (er, no), he was friendly, helpful and kind. As was the train conductor and everybody else. They all spoke flawless English, which was kind of a shame as we all wanted to try to get by in Norwegian - it's very like Danish and comprehensible if you've a little German. It sounds beautiful too, very musical.
An example of local charm? We went to a small bar called Bonanza, on a big square. It turned out that it was the bar's opening night. In Britain, despite James and Neal being handsome and charming, people don't talk to us unless they're very drunk, and usually not then. In Norway, attractive strangers wanted to talk to us - and then did so in an interesting and intelligent fashion, without any of the predatory or ridiculous nonsense all this would entail in the UK, as though we were all grown-ups. It was a vision of mature equality I've never experienced here.
In Bonanza, two attractive girls approached us for a chat. Before long, and without any giggling, immature Anglo-Saxon immaturity, they were showing us the sex toys they'd purchased at a 'sexhibition' that afternoon. We chatted about various other things and then they left. Not long after that, we got talking to another group of ridiculously beautiful, intelligent women who invited us to join them at another party. They were all students or graduates, and although we ended up not attending the party, James made friends with one and the rest of us had genuinely interesting, friendly conversations - despite none of us being drunk or desperate. The very same thing happened to us again on the next night.
Norwegians all appear to be direct, outgoing, intelligent and good-looking, without any preening, posing or pretentiousness. They don't seem to need Dutch courage either. Weirdly, though, they all seemed rather down on Norway - as though it's a boring and ugly backwater rather than one of the most cosmopolitan and beautiful places I've ever been. They were really surprised that we were there on holiday! Sure, it was expensive - £350 for almost three days, plus flights, but I'd rather be poor, hungry and sober in Norway than drunk, stuffed and rich anywhere else.
