NORWAY III

Before heading to Bergen to start my exchange Semester I heard and read quite some articles about Norwegians and their typical not most open behaviors. One of that articles said, „Norwegians don’t smile at people in the street, or ask a stran-ger on the bus how are they doing.“ But honestly also in Austria nobody would really ask someone on a bus, how he is doing. This fits more for the United States. Nevertheless, most of the articles revealed that Norwegians are definitely not the most open and friendly human beings in this world. Norwegians tend to be really unfriendly and unsocial they say.
Of course during my first days in Bergen I kept in mind that people are not that open.
But for me, the opposite proved. My ESN buddy was Norwe-gian and he told me that Norwegians can be really strange. When you go out with them and most of the time they are su-per drunk they are the funniest people. But the next day when you meet them again they are completely different. I made the experience that Norwegians seem really withdrawn. But as soon as you make the first step they start to trust you and you can find real friends. I had one really funny story during my first weeks. I went for a hike with a stranger, I met randomly on the street. Actually, it was not really a stranger it was a retired Nor-wegian who enjoys it to talk to people. I was in my city look on the way up to a viewpoint. But suddenly behind me, I heard somebody saying „Hei, hey, where are you going Floyen?“ I replied „Yeah, I don’t know, are you going there? Yes, I can show you if you want. I ended up going with a really cordial retiree for a 2.5h walk up in the mountains of Bergen. There was snow up there and walked along a wonderful mountain scenery with lakes up to the mountain Floyen and then back to the city. I felt like it was a really nice present I made to him by not seeing the bad side of going for a walk with a stranger. My Canadian friends from university declared me for insane going for a walk with a stranger. They were like, „He could have killed you“. Luckily my gut instinct was on the right choice and luckily we are in Bergen and not in Toronto.
Just a few weeks later I had struggled with my printing account at the University. The printer room is on the first floor and my studio in the 7th. So it is not fun to hike back up there to ask somebody for help. Especially when the elevator was once again out of order. I decided to ask a random girl which was at that time in the printer room if she could help me. She was Norwegian, and NO she was definitely not rude, she was super cool. We ended up staying in contact and a few days later
she invited me to have dinner with her flatmates. Out of that random printer talk a friendship started to grow. To be honest, I would have never expected that. My doubts about making real Norwegian friends disappeared.
So in my point of view, it is not true that Norwegians are rude. They need their time to freeze up. For me they are, the less stressed people ever. That is a habit that I really enjoy compa-red to our extremely rushed society. In Norway you can totally relaxed get off the bus without getting run over. Furthermore, you don’t have to feel bad if you don’t talk all the time. It is really common to have some kind of talking breaks. Conversa-tions can be really comfortable if you can handle some silence in between.
I really appreciate Bergen and the people I met there. I can’t believe how quickly a little city like Bergen could feel surroun-ded by the right people and cosy bedroom home.

Barbara Ruech, SS20