6 months...

...in Stavanger

To celebrate our 6 months in Stavanger:

You Know You’re Norwegian When...

1. You can see mountains and the ocean, no matter where you are.
2. You have only two facial expressions, smiling or blank.
3. Your front door step is beginning to resemble a shoe shop.
4. You assume that a stranger on the street who smiles at or greets you is:

a. drunk.
b. insane.
c. an American.
d. All of the above.

5. Your native language has seriously deteriorated; you "eat medicine" and "go and lay yourself".
6. You enjoy the taste of lutefisk (jelly-like, bad-smelling fish) and cod prepared in any way, including fried cod tongues.
7. You can prepare fish in five different ways without cooking it.
8. You don’t question the habit of always preparing a “matpakke” (packed lunch).
9. You eat salt liquorish without wincing.
10. You vigorously defend whale hunting but do not eat whale meat.
11. You are not shocked to see babies left outside in their pram when it is -10°C.
12. You accept that you will have to queue to take a queue number.
13. You earn more than you spend.
14. You have two cars, a cabin and a boat, if not more.
15. You associate Friday afternoon with a trip to Vinmonopolet (State wine monopoly).
16. You think nothing of paying 50NOK for a bottle of 'cheap' spirits at Vinmonopolet. (US$1,- = NOK 7.50)
17. The reason you take the ferry to Denmark is:

a. duty free vodka
b. duty free beer
c. to party

18. The only reason for getting of the boat in Copenhagen is to eat pizza.
19. It no longer seems excessive to spend 500NOK on alcohol in a single night.
20. You care who wins the "Hvem fanger sommerens stoerste fisk" contest.
21. You rummage through your plastic bottles collection to see which ones you should keep to take to the store and which can be sacrificed to the recycle center.
22. You think there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.
23. It feels natural to wear sport clothes and backpack everywhere, including the cinema, bowling alley, and to church.
24. You wear socks and sandals
25. You think it’s weird if a house isn’t wooden.
26. You think cross-country skiing is the only *real* skiing.
27. You know at least five different words for describing different textures of snow.
28. You don’t fall when walking on ice.
29. You fall 3 metres, and don’t get hurt. If you do, you’re not worried at all.
30. You associate Easter with cross-country skiing with friends and family in the family mountain cabin.
31. You are shocked if there are not 2 months of snow every year, at least!
32. You think riding a racing bike in the snow is a perfectly sensible thing to do (with or without snowtires).
33. You get a bad conscience because you are inside when it is sunshine.
34. You go swimming when the water is 12°C (53.6°F) and claim it's "refreshing."
35. An outside temperature of 9 degrees Celsius is mild (in mid June)
36. You have a barbeque party during rainy weather.
37. It's acceptable to eat lunch at 11.00 and dinner at 15.00.
38. Your old habit of being "fashionably late" is no longer acceptable
39. You expect all dinner parties and meetings to start precisely on time, if not before.
40. You can’t understand why foreigners haven’t heard about Bjørn Dæhlie.
41. You’re more afraid of customs officers than terrorists.
42. You miss your flight to shop at the tax-free shop.
43. You buy drinks at the airport at 6 am.
44. You buy tobacco just to get your tax-free quota, even if you don't smoke.
45. You’re proud to be Norwegian.

I had to post that. I already have the one for Asia, China and Beijing so one about Norway had to appear sooner or later!