We left the house at 07:15 Friday morning, just a little early, considering I slept until 09:00 or 10:00 the entire rest of the winter break. The tickets on the ferry were sold out in the morning so we drove most of the way, or I should say that my host dad drove, while me and my friend sat in the backseat and talked a lot. Then we took a little ferry across the fjord (they didn't even call it a boat ride or a trip, they called it "the crossing" - because you just crossed the fjord). Then we drove the rest of the way in to Sweden and to the Nordby shopping center.
It is traditional for Norwegians to hop on the ferry to Sweden and go shopping at Nordby. But, the Norwegians go to buy meat, alcohol. tobacco, and chocolate and candy. This was my first trip to Sweden, and my host dad's first trip on a "harrytur". A "harrytur" is directly translated: tacky trip. So people aren't very proud of going on these trips, but things in Sweden are so much cheaper because they do not as high of a tax as the Norwegian products do.
Nordby has a rather large grocery store where the Norwegians buy all of their goodies. It reminded me of a shrunken version of a Costco. So I really enjoyed it because it reminded me a lot of home. Other than the fact that there was a reindeer statue thing standing near the bread and all the signs were in Swedish. But, I only bought a lot of chocolate: some Swiss, some Swedish, and some American. All of it was very tasty.
 |
| The giant chocolate bar.........that I wish I would have bought. |
 |
| Only in Scandinavia: they have a reindeer guarding their bread. |
 |
| The other store in the Nordby shopping center that sold only chocolate and candy! |
After we left the shopping center my host dad drove us to an island where we could see Norway by standing on the shore. It was quite cool (both in literal and physical terms). I thought it was neat to see Norway while standing on Sweden and it was -4 or -5 degrees Celsius that day...
Then we drove to Stromstad and ate lunch at a cafe, then went on to the ferry (we got to take the big one home). This ferry went directly from Stromstad until Sandefjord, so it worked out just about as perfect as you could have hoped for. Then we rode the ferry back. It was kind of funny: on the ferry they had a tax free store. The stores open about 15 minutes after the ferry leaves and there were people waiting outside the stores, waiting to buy perfume, chocolate, alcohol, or clothes, that they did not have to pay the Norwegian tax on.
 |
| THE FERRY |
 |
| On the ferry!! |
It was a short trip in Sweden, but I had a blast.
No comments:
Post a Comment