Spent Christmas 2008 in Costa Rica and New Years Eve in Panama and I'm now back to the harsh reality of my life in Norway. I landed back at Bergen airport in the mid afternoon and it was already dark. The plane doors opened and the familiar surge of cold air consumed by body and shortened by breath. Returning from a hot country I always find the coldness a refreshing change but I still had to pull my jacket closed and stuff my hands deep into my pockets. Brr..
The luggage hall in Bergen is no different to any other airport luggage hall in the world right down to the scrum that gathers around the carousel. There is one thing however that sets a Norwegian airport apart from any other in the world and that is the sickly smell of pølse. The Norwegian passion for putrid smelling hotdogs that contain lips and ears fills airports and newsagents the country over.
On my way home I started to think about where I had left my car before my trip. I live in the old part of town where the streets are narrow and the parking a challenge. I have often forgotten where I have parked my car but this time my car was definitely missing. Now if I had been in the UK I would definitely have assumed that my car has been nicked.. but not in Norway - cars just don't get nicked here in Bergen... or so I thought.
The luggage hall in Bergen is no different to any other airport luggage hall in the world right down to the scrum that gathers around the carousel. There is one thing however that sets a Norwegian airport apart from any other in the world and that is the sickly smell of pølse. The Norwegian passion for putrid smelling hotdogs that contain lips and ears fills airports and newsagents the country over.
On my way home I started to think about where I had left my car before my trip. I live in the old part of town where the streets are narrow and the parking a challenge. I have often forgotten where I have parked my car but this time my car was definitely missing. Now if I had been in the UK I would definitely have assumed that my car has been nicked.. but not in Norway - cars just don't get nicked here in Bergen... or so I thought. According to the Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002) (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention), Britain sits proudly at the top of all countries in Europe with a staggering 350 thousand car thefts in 2002. As I expected Norway sits way down at the bottom in 13th place with 25 thousand car thefts in 2002. However, a closer look at that data and I discovered that per capita Norway isn't as squeeky clean as I would like to believe that it is.. and it actually ranks number 3 of European countries for car theft per capita... just slightly less than the UK. So in reality, if these statistics are correct the I am just as likely to be a victim of car crime in Norway as I am in Britain. That's scary!
My car had on this occassion been towed away but instead of feeling relieved for the safe return of my trusty golf I was raging that I had to pay the equivalent of 160 pounds for the release of my car and to add insult to injury the car was frozen shut and had a flat battery. Welcome home.
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