Also, if you want to have beer over the Easter weekend, you’d better stock up early. I found out the hard way that Norway takes Easter much more seriously than anyone else earlier this year. Wednesday night, I was thinking about stocking up at the Kiwi next to my hotel for food and drink for the rest of my stay, but thought, “Nah, I’ll go first thing in the morning.” And that’s how I learned the entire city of Oslo basically shuts down from the Thursday before Easter all the way through Sunday. I think there was a 4 hour window on Saturday to hit up Vinmonopolet and grab the rest of your food and beer from the larger shops, and otherwise you were at the mercy of restaurant prices.
We did luck out a bit in that we had stocked up on some aquavit and gin coming through the airport, so drinks didn’t hit too hard for us, despite being there for a music festival. The worst part was honestly the cost of eating out. We had some surprisingly good pizza, some absolutely terrible nachos, and then were quite pleased when the Kiwi opened up again on Saturday. This was also helped by the fact that even the worst rated budget chains still had consistently higher quality and service than anything comparable back home.
On the other hand, we were pleasantly surprised that Norway isn’t as ruinously expensive a place to visit if you just cook for yourself. Honestly, now I wish I could find knekkebrød and skinke for those prices back home, but skinke I would have to import or make myself, and knekkebrød has been relegated to the domain of health foods, so the packs I was getting for like 20kr would run closer to 150kr a pack back here.
Who knows, though, I might head back for a seasonal job next year, and I’ll just have to see how much of them and lefse I can smuggle back home when I leave if that comes to pass. Of course, if that happens, I’d have to survive moving north of Tromsø in February, so I should probably take things one step at a time for now.
Also, if you want to have beer over the Easter weekend, you’d better stock up early. I found out the hard way that Norway takes Easter much more seriously than anyone else earlier this year. Wednesday night, I was thinking about stocking up at the Kiwi next to my hotel for food and drink for the rest of my stay, but thought, “Nah, I’ll go first thing in the morning.” And that’s how I learned the entire city of Oslo basically shuts down from the Thursday before Easter all the way through Sunday. I think there was a 4 hour window on Saturday to hit up Vinmonopolet and grab the rest of your food and beer from the larger shops, and otherwise you were at the mercy of restaurant prices.
Yeah, what you don’t get by Wednesday, you’d have to be quick on Saturday to get, or spend your entire budget in a bar.
We did luck out a bit in that we had stocked up on some aquavit and gin coming through the airport, so drinks didn’t hit too hard for us, despite being there for a music festival. The worst part was honestly the cost of eating out. We had some surprisingly good pizza, some absolutely terrible nachos, and then were quite pleased when the Kiwi opened up again on Saturday. This was also helped by the fact that even the worst rated budget chains still had consistently higher quality and service than anything comparable back home.
On the other hand, we were pleasantly surprised that Norway isn’t as ruinously expensive a place to visit if you just cook for yourself. Honestly, now I wish I could find knekkebrød and skinke for those prices back home, but skinke I would have to import or make myself, and knekkebrød has been relegated to the domain of health foods, so the packs I was getting for like 20kr would run closer to 150kr a pack back here.
Who knows, though, I might head back for a seasonal job next year, and I’ll just have to see how much of them and lefse I can smuggle back home when I leave if that comes to pass. Of course, if that happens, I’d have to survive moving north of Tromsø in February, so I should probably take things one step at a time for now.