Parking and Partying

February 10th, 2008 Posted in General, Randomness

Yesterday I had the pleasure of viewing a real skiing competition from my window. Nothing fancy, just one time around a small hill. The fun part was the car parking they had organized for the public. In the Netherlands, they will often sacrifice a piece of grassland for the occasion, but not in Norway. Of course, all possible pieces of grassland are at the moment completely covered in snow, which would make parking there a bit tricky. Apparently this put an ice skating track – yes, really, with ice and stuff – on top of the list of most suitable locations. And the most surprising fact: I haven’t seen a single accident!

Parking on Ice

And now for something completely different. Friday night featured my first real Norwegian style party. Norwegian style means that you start drinking at home with some people, then you go out for about an hour or two, ending again at home for some final drinks. We just did half of this, but it was fun though! Unlike Dutch parties, where everyone expects free drinks, here you are supposed to bring your own liquor, which seems actually very logical to me. Around nine, you see lots of people in the city carrying plastic bags with bottles or cans of beer to all kinds of pre-parties. This can be very handy indeed, since this way you won’t die of thirst when the subway suddenly doesn’t run anymore. Another reason is that it is not very smart around here to buy a round of beer for a larger group of people. Why? Because you can’t afford it. The Albert Heijn is heaven, with 1/2 liter cans of high quality Alfa beer for about 60 euro-cents! Here you won’t get something like that for less than 2 euros. Not that this makes people drink less (which is supposed to be the case, according to the government), they just pay more for it. So, Dutch government, what have we learned here? An easy way to earn some money is by raising taxes on alcohol! Go make your profit, I say… But to sum up: the party was fun, the people were nice, and they like good music.

At the moment (about 10 in the evening) some guy is playing football very enthusiastically all by himself. On the football-field, which is bathed in light till after 10 each day, even if there’s nobody playing anymore. I guess electricity is cheap here!

  1. 3 Responses to “Parking and Partying”

  2. By Jacinta on Feb 11, 2008

    Nou ken ik Matthijs niet zo heeel erg goed, heb slechts een enkele reis Maastricht-Schiphol opgepropt naast hem gezeten, maar die enthousiaste solovoetballer laat op de avond……kwam die je niet bekend voor misschien??

  3. By Matthijs on Feb 12, 2008

    haha nee solovoetbal gaat me net wat te ver, ik ren liever een rondje rond het o-zo-prachtige meer van Sognsvann!

    trouwens Daan, niet deze belastinginformatie doorspelen aan de nederlandsche overheid (de AIVD volgt deze website sinds kort heb ik vernomen uit betrouwbare bron), je wilt toch niet dat als we terugkomen we ons blauw blijven betalen? Ik stem voor zelf-censuur van uw kant!

  4. By Simón on Feb 12, 2008

    You know? I would have never thought that the Norwegian party style were similar to the Spanish one… :P. Well, at least the fact of drinking before the actual party… In Spain, the people use to buy the drinks in the supermarket and start drinking in the street before they go into the pubs and discos. But I guess if you do this in Norway, your drink would get frozen before you do the first sip, hehe. But the spirit is the same… to be already happy when you are at the pub or disco :D.
    Another cool thing about the party in Norway is that the night is always “young”, xD. You can be partying days and days because it’s always night there, hehehe (well, at least until the spring). I would like that.

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