For the love of doxylamine succinate*

I have a secret. It’s a drawer in my bedroom filled with every American over-the-counter drug from Anacin to Zantac. Every time I return to the States, I buy bumper packs of pain relievers and cough drops, much to the amusement of the pharmacy checkout clerk. But I never really get sick so I don’t often open the drawer.

This past week, though, I have been ILL. Of course it’s nothing exotic like the swine flu, but just a plain old summer cold. It started in my chest and has now settled, days later, in my head, causing ferocious sneezing, hacking and wheezing.

I finally broke down today and wobbled to the local pharmacy, desperate for a fix of some OTC goodness. The pharmacist patiently explained the different potions, but the net result is she had something to make the cough stop, something to make the cough start, and some feeble saline nasal spray which I suspect does nothing more than wet an already soppy place. I kept asking, over and over, “But don’t you have anything that will help ALL my symptoms?” The blank look said it all.

Sensing her good humor might soon wane, I scooped up the ‘stop coughing’ cough syrup and went on my way. I figured between that and the contents of my secret drawer I could cobble together an approximation of what I wanted.

I am one of those annoying long-term expats who always spouts off lofty things to my fellow foreigners such as “You can find everything you need here in Norway!”, “There’s always a substitute!”, or “There’s nothing from the US I can’t live without!” Turns out I have been beaten and these sentiments are not true when it comes to cold medicine.

That being said, I came home with my second rate cough syrup and pulled out the recently emptied bottle of Nyquil I finished off two days ago. Reading each line of the ingredients of the Nyquil, I managed to scrounge a similar drug out of the secret drawer. After necking about 8 tablets of varying medications, slurping the Norwegian cough syrup, and topping it all off with a swig of Cognac** (hey, Nyquil is 10% alcohol, you know), I settled in and waited for sweet respite.

It didn’t come. Instead I ended up with a sore tummy, a fuzzy head, and the same sneezing, hacking, and wheezing as before.

So to every expat that I have every smugly rebuffed for bemoaning something they missed from home, I take it all back. While I do still think you can whip up biscuits and gravy or a Thanksgiving dinner with close Norwegian approximations, I have learned that there is, in fact, something I can’t recreate here. But I am receiving my just desserts as I lay in a pajama-ed heap on the couch listening to repeats of Murder She Wrote.

Perhaps I didn’t get the cocktail just right… another swig or three of whiskey might just do the trick!***
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* Doxylamine suucinate is the 'so you can rest' part of Nyquil. It's classified as a hypnotic, and since I never got into the hallucinogens during college, this is the cloeset I will likely come to a drug-induced state of bliss.

** Please note I have no medical expertise other than what I have read on Web MD, so I do not recommend this concoction.

*** To be fair, you can get cough syrup with codeine with a prescription from a doc here in Norway, but since I am allergic to codeine this is of little comfort. I am also allergic to visiting my doctor, incidentally.

What I like about Norway

I recently read a post on a message board from a new expat begging someone to tell him why he should stay in Norway. My short answer to that is this: if you don’t know yourself, you probably aren’t meant to be here.

But, as usual, there’s a longer answer as well. So I asked myself: Why do I like living in Norway?

1. Because my husband and dogs are here.
Sure, they could be anywhere, and I’d likely be happy in that anywhere as well. But the fact of the matter is that they are in Norway, so that’s where I want to be. When living as an expat it can be easy to feel isolated, and one of the most significant areas of discontent is often the loss of relationships ‘back home’. But if your most important relationships are with you, you realize you could be living in Norway, Namibia, or North Dakota and it wouldn’t really matter.

2. Because it’s safe.
I mean that in a small and big picture sort of way. For example, I never worry, no matter the time of day, about being out by myself walking my dogs. The worst thing that might happen is I get some boisterous shouts from a drunken reveler heading to a party. When I used to walk my dogs in the evening in Houston, I loaded up with pepper spray and an outward facing key in my fist and practically dragged the dogs around the block with the speed of an Olympic sprinter as I was so nervous*.

That’s not to say crime doesn’t occur here – it does. The figures are lower in Stavanger than Oslo (as makes sense based on population size), but when you compare Norwegian national averages to the US, the numbers are unsettling. Although Norway has more guns per capita than the US, the US has almost four times as many gun-related deaths**. I'm just sayin'...

3. Because there are stars.
Yeah, I know that the stars are up there no matter where I am down here, but I had never really seen them until I moved to Norway. My husband (who grew up in rural and therefore smogless England) looked at me in disbelief as I gleefully pointed out all the twinkling in the sky. Truth is, between the concrete and the pollution, I had never been able to see the stars so clearly. In general, the air quality here is amazing***.

4. Because I met myself.
That sounds pretty strange, but a lot of the trappings of my daily life back in the US prevented me from really being able to know who I was. I hid behind appointments and activities and politics. When I came here to Norway, one of the most difficult things was being alone with nothing else to distract me from myself. I realized that, at almost 30, I wasn’t entirely sure who I was – or who I wanted to be. It can be hard to have to meet yourself for the first time, especially when you are less than thrilled about what you see. But stripping away all the excess meant I could start to rebuild with a solid foundation. And, frankly, I was a bit of a pill before. Now at least I am a self-aware pill!

There are lots of other little things I like about Norway (like caviar in a tube, ferries, fjords, and May 17th, to name a few), but the bottom line is that Norway isn’t what’s holding me back or propping me up. I am responsible for my own happiness, not the place in which I live. Just remember the old saying:

“Everywhere you go… there you are.”

I’m stuck with me regardless of place, so I might as well make the best of it… and myself. So to the gent looking for someone to tell him why he should live in Norway, live here for the experience, for the stars, for the caviar in a tube. Live here because you WANT to live here instead of living here and always looking for that greener grass elsewhere. I can promise you’ll always find something wrong, but if you focus on everything this country has to offer, then you just might stumble across something right.

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* What I ever actually planned to do with the pepper spray and key I don’t know. Perhaps I could have just handed them off to my potential assailant as barter.
** I’m not making a political statement about gun control here but rather using these statistics to illustrate a point. It could be statistics related to any crime and you would note the same general trend, which is that there’s a lot in the US and a little in Norway, even when you look at it on a per-capita basis.
** Except when the fish food factory smell blows in from Hillevåg. If you live in Stavanger, you know what I mean!

The worst drivers in the world... well, at least in Norway

Stavanger’s Aftenbladet published an article today alleging that drivers in Rogaland are among the worst in Norway. And here, after I just berated the media for over-sensationalizing, comes a sliver of truth from the press. (You can read the article in English via Google Translate here. An imperfect translation, but you get the gist.)

Words like aggressive and impatient and uninformed were bandied about based on interviews with sociologists, insurance specialists and various other 'in the know' folk. And, frankly, I can’t say that I disagree.

Normal mild-mannered and gentle Norwegians become lotharios behind the wheel. They throw themselves in front of you at high speeds, fail to use their indicators (and mirrors, natch), and they cut you off with little to no notice.

I’m not judging my adopted countrymen too harshly as I have a wreck or two or nine in my checkered past. But after I paid out the gross domestic product of Swaziland* on insurance deductibles I had a ‘come to Jesus’ moment with myself and tried to sort out my bad driving.

I have had several scrapes in Norway, primarily to do with roundabouts. It would appear that no one ever taught my lovely Norwegian compadres how they work, so I am taking this chance to lay out the rules once and for all. (Hopefully this will absolve my need to shout at my fellow drivers when they break the rules of rundkjøringen from now on.)

1. You yield to the person on your left. It is not true that he who enters first, wins.

2. You do not wait in a roundabout. If there is not room for you to pass through the roundabout to your onward road, do not, for the love of cookies, enter the roundabout. If you do, you will just jam it up for everyone else.

3. Use your blinker to indicate where you will be exiting the roundabout. Whipping into the roundabout and careening off an exit with no notice is a recipe for a crash.

I know there are a lot more rules, but if we could just nail those first three, I’d be pretty chuffed. I know you can do better than this, Rogaland!
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*This is hyperbole. I do not know what the GDP of Swaziland is. Nor do I intend to look it up. Feel free to post if you stumble across the info though, and we can all learn something.

The sky is falling... or so CNN would have us believe

It’s all kicking off in the media with doomsday reports that Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips have all reported dramatic losses in their Q2 financials. Why does a blogging expat in Norway care about this? A few reasons – mainly because I love a good media frenzy. Also, Husband’s company is related to oil and gas services, so I like to pre-worry if Armageddon has arrived and the whole thing is going up in smoke. Another reason is that I am a professor in a business school, and they kind of like the faculty to at least pretend to understand these kinds of stories. Finally, I care because I live in an oil town and many of my expat friends are employed by the aforementioned companies, and I know that lower profits will translate in some way to expat contracts getting cut and me having one (or ten) less friends in town.

So I decided to do a little digging as that’s the kind of gal I am. Mind you, it was already established that I was rubbish at economics, but here’s my assessment of the situation.

Oil companies are reporting lower profits because the price of oil is declining.

Overly simplistic perhaps, but I did not see it mentioned in any of the articles I read. Famine, illiteracy, the impending resurrection, and Obama were all named culprits, but the simple fact that oil companies make money based on how much they can get for a barrel was painfully overlooked.

Have a look at the graph* below – it tracks Shell’s gross profit against the oil price**. (I use Shell as an example as I was too lazy to look at more than one company’s annual reports, but I suspect the trend is similar.)

See how the two trend together? So it should not be causing a media meltdown that Shell is down 70% in CCS (current cost of supplies) between Q2 09 and Q2 08. The media should actually be noting that these earnings are to be expected since we see the same trend in oil prices. But that’s not sexy enough. Frankly, if oil prices were trending down and Shell’s profits were trending up or staying the same, that would mean that an oil company is making money from something other than oil. Perhaps they invested in shares of Google back in the early days or have been quite judiciously investing their weekly allowance from dad.

The other issue is that 2008 was somewhat of an outlier in terms of profits, so we all got a little spoiled thinking the Golden Age would last forever. But Gatsby always dies at the end no matter how many times you read the book, and what we are seeing now is, for lack of a more astute phrase, a very sharp correction in the market.

Oil prices of $100 and more were not sustainable in the long run, and we saw those prices in part because 2008 saw a decline in the dollar, which is how oil commodities are priced. This decline in base currency meant OPEC had to raise oil prices in order to maintain existing profit margins. Throw in some unrest in major oil producing countries and increased demand from some larger national markets and you’ve got yourself an expensive barrel of black gold.

In fact, if you perform a trend analysis on gross profits in the same example used above, gross profit is still on a steady upswing.

I am not denying that we are in economic decline. However, I think this should be tempered with a little ‘big picture’ thinking and a recognition that these things are cyclical. So take a deep breath and resist the urge to run for the hills or sell out the portfolio. I don’t think we have to pawn the good china just yet. Perhaps someone should call CNN and let them know.
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*Apologies for the fuzzy graph. Frankly, I was pleased to get it from Excel into Blogger, so I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

**A few disclaimers about the graph. The numbers being thrown about in the media are CCS, but I used gross profit as this gives a little bit broader perspective. Second, the oil prices are annual averages adjusted for inflation, and Shell's gross profit is stated in millions. Third, Shell's gross profit for 2009 is simply GP for the first six months of 2009 multiplied by 2. This is most definitely not a FASB-approved accounting method, but, frankly, any other treatment required a lot of assumptions and even more math, and I have some West Wing to watch.

Ceteris Paribus

I wasn’t a great student of economics despite taking six classes at university. Economics and I knocked heads on many occasions, and I remember virtually nothing from my studies. I remember there were a lot of graphs, and anything requiring spatial awareness has never been my strong suit (as evidenced by the many dents on my car from thinking I was six inches further away or closer than I actually was).

One concept I do remember clearly is that of ceteris paribus, which is way of explaining a situation with one variable change but all other factors remaining the same. I don’t remember how this applied to economics, but the concept struck me then and now as a way of explaining how individuals respond to change and differing circumstances.

As an expatriate, moving to a new country is a huge shift in social, financial, and cultural circumstances. But transiting between home and host countries, whether for a holiday or in the permanent sense of repatriation, causes a shift in the individual, ceteris paribus.

When I visit the US, it is in many ways the same US I left. The US is ceteris paribus. I, however, am the changing variable. Every sojourn in a different place fundamentally changes a person, sometimes for the better and sometimes not. Taking this example the other way, when I moved to Norway, Norway was the same as it had always been. Me entering did not change the fundamental being of the country. But me entering did change the fundamental being of me.

I now hold opinions and ideologies I would have scoffed at ten years ago. But even without looking at my innate sense of values, my reaction to things has changed. When I first moved here, I remember thinking everything looked strange in terms of placement and architecture and aesthetics. Many things caused me pause, such as the fact I had to buy my alcohol at an open monopoly (Vinmonopolet is not just a clever brand – it’s all in the name, man). I thought the roads seemed narrow and so did the politics. I felt egalitarianism was a concept best left to theory but should never find a place in practice. Now, however, all of those things are part of my daily life, and I can’t remember ever feeling that they couldn’t or shouldn’t be.

I was reflecting on this as I have a great friend coming to visit from the US in a few months, and I wondered what her first impressions of Norway would be. I was racking my brain for the things I found odd when I first arrived, and although I can remember a few, nothing overly vivid springs to mind. Not because Norway has changed, but because I have. Norway is ceteris paribus, but I am not. This is the reason that people become accustomed and adapted to change. The situations remain the same, but our reflections on and experiences of them do not.

This notion is actually what makes humans so complex but so amazing. No matter our circumstances and no matter how much or often those circumstances change, we find a way to integrate ourselves and make it work. Now when I return to the US for a visit and feel frustrated and foreign, or when I return home to Norway and can’t remember the things that at first made me tear my hair out, I try to remember that I am the variable in the situation, not the place. You know, ceteris paribus.

Second vs. Thirteenth (COLA... and not the Coke kind)

As any expat worth their salt knows, complaining about the high cost of living in Norway is a favorite topic. We relish commiserating about how ridiculously overpriced everything seems, and cries of ‘I could buy ten sofas for the cost of this beer!” ring out from expat homes across Stavanger. However, there is always the slight annoying issue of fact. So today I present you with the latest cost of living indicators so we can really see how bad off we poor expats are… or not.

According to Xpatulater.com, “The cost of living indexes are based on pricing the same basket of goods in local currency and comparing them in US Dollars using exchange rates with New York as the base (New York = 100).” Get your head round that, and come with me…

Oslo used to be the second most expensive city in the world in which to live. Not anymore, peeps! Oslo dropped in the rankings from 2nd in 2008 to 13th in 2009. Why? Because the kroner has weakened against the US dollar, and because cost of living adjustment (COLA) indices are measured with a USD base, so currency fluctuations force locations up and down the rankings accordingly.

COLA is based on an index of 13 different ‘baskets’ of goods. By choosing similar products in each country and grouping them into categories, an ‘apples to apples’ comparison is possible. So let’s see where Norway falls in those baskets.

1. Alcohol & Tobacco: 2 out of 276The good news here is you will probably be too cheap or too poor to be able to afford a heavy drink habit. But do prepare yourself for sticker shock when the nice bartender slides a Guinness across the bar and requests you pay him 70 nok (approx. $11). No, he is not demanding a sum for the entire keg. Alcohol is just crazy expensive here. It has primarily to do with the alcohol laws, but that rant is saved for another time.

2. Clothing costs: 104 out of 276Truth is you can get some decent togs here for a slightly inflated price, but you’re really not that bad off. What I find, though, is I am paying J. Crew prices for Wal-mart quality. Note this and stock up on clothes at home.

3. Communication costs: 19 out of 276
It costs a boatload more for internet and phone calls. However, beat the system by electing for a phone box like Telio and making good use of Skype.

4. Education costs: 109 out of 276
You can live with this. Part of the reason this rank is high is because most expatriates do not take advantage of free public schooling. Sure, you can send your kid to an international school, but prepare to ante up for the annual tuition. One of the international schools here costs more per year than the private university I went to in Texas.

5. Furniture & Appliance: 48 out of 276The furniture here is pricey, but you can get some beautiful pieces. In Stavanger, I recommend Slettvoll, Living, and Helgø Møbler in particular. You can get great mid-priced goods at stores like Skeidar and Bohus. And there’s always Ikea, which comes with the bonus of enjoying an ice cream after paying for your coffee table. Appliances are actually about the same as the US if you get a sale. Check out Lefdal, Elkjøp, and Expert for appliances.*

6. Grocery costs: 19 out of 276
Food is expensive here. The same caprese that cost about $5 in Italy to make is about $10 in ingredients here. Norway has strict import laws on food, with general preference going to local products. The good news is that you can find almost everything you need, but at a cost.

7. Healthcare costs: 86 out of 276
Because the rankings are based on averages of costs from both the public and private sector, I think this figure can be a little misleading. If you take advantage of the public health system, cost is much, much lower than the US. However, private care is also available for some specialties, and this causes the ranking to be a little higher.

8. Household costs (housing, water, electricity, etc): 91 out of 276
Rents are basically in line with many large American cities, but the cost to buy can be a little shocking. However, if you are willing to do some work yourself, you can purchase a gem and spend a little elbow grease on getting it up to snuff. This is the route Husband and I have taken, and it means we can have a home exactly how we want it without the (as) frightening price tag.

9. Miscellaneous costs: 3 out of 276
This includes items like linens and general goods and services such as domestic help, dry cleaning, office supplies, newspapers and magazines, and postage stamps. The cost of some of these items beggars belief. Dry cleaning, for example, is shocking. Don’t expect a 99 cent per shirt special in these parts. Buy some Dryel, lose the housecleaner (or suck up the cost and use the time saved elsewhere - it is what it is).

10. Personal Care costs: 159 out of 276
Your toothpaste and shampoo will not be as expensive here as you think. However, luxury brands are a pretty penny, so stock up on salon goods and expensive makeup at home or at duty-free.

11. Recreation and Culture: 32 out of 276
Husband and I went to the cinema last week and coughed up 95 nok (about $15) per ticket. It makes you a little choosier about the films you see. Wait for the DVD, my friend.

12. Restaurants, Meals Out and Hotel costs: 11 out of 276
One of the sources of my greatest discontent, a meal out is nothing to be taken lightly. Expect to pay fancy prices for Chili’s quality food. There are some great restaurants in Stavanger, but they are dear. This one is a mixed bag for me, as I come from a land where we eat out at least once per day usually. But the cost here means I spend more time socializing at home, which can be equally rewarding without the high price tag. Another one of those 'it is what it is' conundrums.

13. Transport costs: 5 out of 276
My car here in Stavanger cost more than my first flat in Houston. Not because one is exceptionally great or one was exceptionally rubbish. It’s down again to import restrictions. An interesting thing is that the car market here is not terribly varied in price, meaning that a good mid-level model sedan is not that much less than a higher spec car. If the car prices cause a nosebleed, there is always an excellent public transportation system of which you can take advantage.

So that’s the skinny on how COLA breaks down for Norway. I still plan to moan about the high cost of this and that, but at least now I can focus on the things that actually are more expensive, and I can have cause to remember there’s always somewhere where I could be worse off!
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* If you can't read Norsk, no worries! You can use Google Translate as a web page reader. Not perfect, but it definitely helps. Just enter the web address and off you go.

Stengt vs. Closed (it's all the same to me!)

Last week I returned home to Stavanger from my summer sojourn in the States (say that three times fast!). After spending some time in a place where I could visit Wal-Mart at 3am (not that I did, but I could have), my memory must’ve fogged over about Norway in… dum dum dum… July.

July in Norway is like a black hole. You know it exists, it can be scientifically proven, but no one actually knows what happens to things unfortunate enough to fly into it. Some guide books warn you with innocuous little phrases like “Some tourist attractions may have limited hours in the summer months.” Lies, I tell you. Let me give the real deal when it comes to July in Norway.

Everything. shuts. down.

Last week I popped into my office. I was met with the wind whistling through the hallways as there was not a single other person there. Where were they all? Not at work, that’s where. Hey, it’s July!

After a lonely morning at the office, I decided to pop by the fruit and veg market for some dinner provisions. I parked the car, hopped out, and was met with a cheerful handwritten sign informing me that the market is on ‘summer hours’ so closed at 1pm. It was 1.15*. Hey, it’s July!

Growing a little more frustrated, I went home and decided to catch up on personal errands. I called my doctor’s office to make an appointment. Good thing it wasn’t anything pressing as Doc is away until mid-August.** Hey, it’s July!

My iPhone met an untimely death several weeks ago (due in one part to my own techno-stupidity and two parts to the evilness that is Apple). I took it in for repairs in June. June. Did I mention it was June? Repairs couldn’t be made, so I had to order a new phone. I hadn’t heard anything about it, so I rang the shop. “No, not here yet. Maybe a few more weeks.” Hey, it’s July!

The moral of this is that July = stengt. In some ways it’s a great break as long as you plan accordingly and don’t actually need anything beyond the usual groceries and gas. Dive through that stack of books you’ve been meaning to read, attempt to watch all of The West Wing from the beginning (my project of choice this summer), and just kick back and enjoy any good weather that might blow this way.

Hey, it’s July!

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* What I actually did in the face of that cheery sign was to let out a little screech and kick the orange crate next to the door in frustration. Too bad I was wearing flip-flops. Karma is, indeed, a cheap tart.

** In the interest of not misrepresenting the Norwegian medical system or Doc’s office, I was offered an alternate appointment with another doctor.