Puddle-jumpers
Norway is an incredibly expensive country to live in, so Norwegians usually do their major shopping trips in other countries. Those who live in Oslo hop the border to Sweden, but border-hopping is a bit more of a challenge when you live on Norway's western coast. A few of my housemates puddle-jumped instead to Copenhagen for a weekend shopping/sightseeing trip, and I decided to tag along.
Copenhagen is well-known for its vintage clothing stores, and we hit up more than just a few. I think "antique shop" may actually be a more appropriate term, since the stores we entered had everything from lamps to coats to dishes for sale. They were all set up pretty much the same way, with housewares in the front and racks of outdated fashions in the back. The items for sale were all of good quality but just old enough to give the stores a distinct scent.
I had been on the look-out for a good pair of winter boots, and I found the perfect pair in a second-hand shop in Copenhagen. They're tall and warm and covered in fur. The weather in Stavanger is actually not cold enough that I'll need to wear my new boots there, but I will definitely need them when I go back to Svalbard in January for my research.
After almost a full day of shopping on Saturday, we took some time on Sunday to see the city. We visited the famous Little Mermaid statue, the citadel, a few churches, and the Danish National Museum. Visiting the National Museum made me want to learn more about Scandinavian history, in particular the Viking Era. I find myself recently getting very interested in human prehistory, especially settlement patterns, ever since reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. I want to know how groups of people arrived and settled in different parts of the world. The more I travel, the more I realize that each society is the result of layers of history, and in order to truly understand a culture, you must learn how it developed.
I certainly didn't get enough time in Copenhagen to understand it fully, but I got to see some of the highlights. It was interesting to watch my Norwegian companions try to communicate, since Norwegian speakers can understand Danish but Danish speakers don't necessarily understand Norwegian. They would do fine for a few minutes but then have to switch to English. To me, Denmark felt a bit like a cross between Norway and the Netherlands, since the culture is distinctly Scandinavian but the landscape is excruciatingly flat. I'm happy to say I got to see the city of Copenhagen and experience the Norwegian custom of foreign shopping trips. It was a good weekend.
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| My new epic winter boots. |
Copenhagen is well-known for its vintage clothing stores, and we hit up more than just a few. I think "antique shop" may actually be a more appropriate term, since the stores we entered had everything from lamps to coats to dishes for sale. They were all set up pretty much the same way, with housewares in the front and racks of outdated fashions in the back. The items for sale were all of good quality but just old enough to give the stores a distinct scent.
I had been on the look-out for a good pair of winter boots, and I found the perfect pair in a second-hand shop in Copenhagen. They're tall and warm and covered in fur. The weather in Stavanger is actually not cold enough that I'll need to wear my new boots there, but I will definitely need them when I go back to Svalbard in January for my research.
After almost a full day of shopping on Saturday, we took some time on Sunday to see the city. We visited the famous Little Mermaid statue, the citadel, a few churches, and the Danish National Museum. Visiting the National Museum made me want to learn more about Scandinavian history, in particular the Viking Era. I find myself recently getting very interested in human prehistory, especially settlement patterns, ever since reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. I want to know how groups of people arrived and settled in different parts of the world. The more I travel, the more I realize that each society is the result of layers of history, and in order to truly understand a culture, you must learn how it developed.
I certainly didn't get enough time in Copenhagen to understand it fully, but I got to see some of the highlights. It was interesting to watch my Norwegian companions try to communicate, since Norwegian speakers can understand Danish but Danish speakers don't necessarily understand Norwegian. They would do fine for a few minutes but then have to switch to English. To me, Denmark felt a bit like a cross between Norway and the Netherlands, since the culture is distinctly Scandinavian but the landscape is excruciatingly flat. I'm happy to say I got to see the city of Copenhagen and experience the Norwegian custom of foreign shopping trips. It was a good weekend.
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| Us in downtown Copenhagen. Ironically, the only white girl in this group is the only non-Norwegian. |
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