Oslo, so far, seems like what would happen if you designed a city entirely for competent introverts. As an incompetent introvert, it is both lovely and a trifle daunting.
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Do they still have 95% one way streets?
I lived there waaaaaaay back early 90es, walked everywhere, occationally took the bus, then my family came for a visit, with a car, and suddenly I couldn't find my way round. It was crazy...
Also pricy as all hell.
Lots of one way streets and always roadwork going on. Driving is discouraged. And the prices are indeed horrible, even more so in recent years. (A black coffee at a bakery will set you back at least 40 NOK and frequently more.)
Much of the gold rush insanity was in Dawson City, even then. And, it is tiny, by "real city" standards. Have had to rescue the occasional tourist (Clay Cliffs) and they get fished out of the Yukon River every summer. Occasionally new cautionary signage appears, but not much given the topography.
Maybe Reykjavik, but Reykjavik had a lot of tourists, so there was a certain amount of idiot-proofing everything. Oslo has idiot-proofed nothing and assumes you’re a sensible adult who will figure shit out.
we saw a fair bit of less-idiot-proofed things once outside of Reykjavik and I was half worrisome, half elated?? 'here is a thin piece of string to remind you that if you walk too far you will plummet to an icy death'
Reykjavík was very calm when I was there, but I did arrive the day after Iceland knocked England out of the European football championships so it’s possible most of the locals were quite… tired.
I arrived with my family the day before they did that! On the day of the game there was a slow-motion soccer (football) game in the street, a cross between a dance and a game and a drama. It was lovely. Then yes the whole city partying in the streets after the win.
I was once on a hike in the mountains with people from 12 different countries. The guide, impressing on everyone to stay safe: “There are no signs. There are no fences. This is Norway!”
LOL remember the little easily-stepped-over ropes around Geysir and how we stood there staring at them and having the horrifying realization that Iceland expects people to have basic common sense? Terrifying.
This is a very Norwegian attitude to things generally. Many famous mountain top view points with pretty impressive drops don’t have fences for similar reasons.
Reykjavik was very calm and quiet when we were there. It was May, and I think the rest of the tourists hadn't shown up yet.
I love a good shoulder season.
Yeah. I lived in center of A'dam for a year, it was wild. So anywhere in Den Haag feels calmer to me, but we definitely passed on an apartment by Nordeinde and I have no regrets.
Centre of Amsterdam is... not a calm choice. Also very very very expensive, usually.
I live in a high apartment building now, so i don't get that much outside noise, even though I'm in the centre. Noordeinde would have also been _rough_, i think!
Maybe it's not still like that, people are saying it's gone down hill but they say that about Dublin too and I live in Dublin and there's been no vibe change whatsoever, if anything it's gotten calmer
What I loved in Cork is things like, you go to cross a road and the cars are like "after you" and you're like "no after you" and they are like "no, after you!" and then you both laugh and the people in the cars waiting behind also laugh
if anyone gets impatient people say "Dublin driver!"
Whenever I am in Ireland in general I just want to lie down and kind of seep into the ground and remain there forever. No other country has calmed me down so much.
People may not feel it, because it's all relative, but compared to the stressful, screaming, hunger games in the US where we're all afraid all the time of some financial or healthcare horror, the Nordic countries and many parts of Europe are Extremely Chill 😆.
I believe you. Yes I do. And I actually quite like Stockholm (but other places in Sweden are even better, for example Uppsala and Göteborg/Gothenburg).
Oslo is aggressively introvert, but you are allowed as a visitor to break through. Walk up to any one of the hunched scowling creatures and ask to help you out, and we’ll happily walk you to the end of the earth. We just need to make EXTRA SURE being polite wouldn't impose on your privacy first.
this is very very very true. i'm very happy to help but have to be extra-super sure you don't find it creepy or invasive before i offer to walk you 10 blocks or buy you a tram ticket
i need to warn you that later tonight every person you encounter outdoors will be drunk, and it'll be the same tomorrow night. the city will still be fairly safe, but watch out for electric scooters.
That’s much more sensible, as well as more in keeping with the general Nordic ethos of pragmatic self-efficacy. I am delighted to know it for next time I’m there (hopefully in September).
...what kinds of competence are we talking about? Because while I am incompetent at a number of things, some of them are mitigated by my tendency to also be absurdly cautious (read: anxious).
No, no, I’m not actually competent, I’m highly specialized. Like a bird-of-paradise. I may regularly win “best tailfeathers” but I fall out of the tree a lot.
If that's your standard for competent, the world is held together by people desperately trying to leverage their narrow specialties in concert with other people with different narrow specialties to form a Voltron of approximate competence.
My theory is that we're not really an individualistic species; we're a tribal species and we're not 'designed' to be good at everything an individual needs to truly thrive. We're only competent in the context of a larger group.
I clued in on that when I was in high school, and read Ian Stewart's Billy the JOAT stories. (Those stories are a big reason why I am mostly a generalist, and why I worked on being able to write readable articles about tech.)
I’m an introvert and someone suggested Oslo to live in. Not only is the language terrifying, pics of the fog and snow in winter reminds me of Silent Hill too much.
Coming from the UK I think to myself “huh, so this is what the UK could have been if we didn’t repeatedly punch ourselves in the nuts for the last 30 years.”
I wanted to move out that way for exactly that reason. Either Norway or Finland, because from what I understand it is the cultural norm to mind your own business. Which here in the States, it's the opposite. And it drives me nuts. Like let me sit in my room for ten years alone if I want to.
Speaking as someone who was born in Finland but has lived abroad for almost three decades, the calm, the intelligence and the competence always really strike me in any Nordic countries nowadays.
I used to have cold urticaria! Miserable. Then I got diagnosed with celiac disease and went gluten free, and started taking daily antihistamine for general sneezy allergies at the same time. Hives stopped! 20 years later, off antihistamines now, still fine.
No, not really. But in downtown Oslo this is the norm, yes. However, heating can only deal with so much, so there will still be snow and ice during a typical Norwegian winter.
Though on one hand you are right, i would also say on the flip side most people in Oslo are almost more approachable than in any other city. You can start a discussion anywhere, you just need to approach in the right way rather than focusing on conversational talk
Competent introvert is the dictionary definition of Norwegian.
Icelanders and their national motto of "Þetta reddast" = "It'll work out" call them boring :)
Well, yeah. Look at Norway. It's fjords and mountains. Your next door neighbor might be a week's travel away. Did you expect us to NOT turn out socially awkward?
We had a Norwegian housemate move in and give us a book called something like the care and feeding of your Norwegian. One of the chapters was something like Conversation with your Norwegian, does it happen?
Answer: no
Next chapter
At Uni in England I had a Norwegian friend who was chatty and a German friend with a mostly English sense of humour.
That's like throwing two natural 20s
I assume there was another chapter named “Conversation with Norwegians (with alcohol)”? Which is an entirely different discipline where the challenge is to not end up in bed together before the conversation is over.
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I lived there waaaaaaay back early 90es, walked everywhere, occationally took the bus, then my family came for a visit, with a car, and suddenly I couldn't find my way round. It was crazy...
Also pricy as all hell.
KEVIN: Yeah?
ME: No, think about it. When was the last time you were in a calm city?
KEVIN:
KEVIN:
ME: Eh?
KEVIN: I’m thinking.
(Unless the price of a drink anywhere in Oslo means there's no night life.)
I love a good shoulder season.
But do keep on asking that question, because all of us sometimes ARE The Idiot, sadly.
I live in a high apartment building now, so i don't get that much outside noise, even though I'm in the centre. Noordeinde would have also been _rough_, i think!
Maybe it's not still like that, people are saying it's gone down hill but they say that about Dublin too and I live in Dublin and there's been no vibe change whatsoever, if anything it's gotten calmer
if anyone gets impatient people say "Dublin driver!"
(And here in Aarhus, we have special Viking-warrior traffic lights, which never fail to amuse me through the wait.)
and that's why we get so drunk, drinking in norway is an *investment* and not something we do just casually.
Are extroverts the glue that brings the skills together?
Of course, a few months of the year, you'd get about 20 seconds of daylight, and 20 seconds of nighttime 6 months later.
Icelanders and their national motto of "Þetta reddast" = "It'll work out" call them boring :)
*compares the standard Aussie "She'll be right mate!"*
Huh. 🤔
Answer: no
Next chapter
--Hi, I would like my cab ride Norwegian style
--What's that?
--Just drive, no music, and don't talk
Our Norwegian was a DJ, after all. But he didn't talk at you while DJing
That's like throwing two natural 20s
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