Talking to Norwegians

Norwegians have been reputed to be cold people, and some of the most difficult people to befriend. That might be true to an extent, but I know Norwegians to be curious and extremely warm on first impression , meaning they will smile, laugh, query, dance, drink with you and even give you their contact number/email address/facebook contact (and possibly more), but do not expect to ever see or hear from them again in the future.

Here are a couple of pleasant first impressions:

On a late Friday evening, after the usual fredagspils (customary Friday beer session), I was thinking of saving on cab fare and asked the girl in front of me in the taxi queue if she was headed in the same direction as me, and it turned out she was. We shared the taxi ride back. Turns out she was an auditor as well! Some money saved, and good conversation on the journey.

On a separate evening, I had missed the last train back home. Again, in order to save some cab fare, I approached a slim attractive blond and asked if she was headed in the same direction as me, and whether she would like to share a cab with me. Turns out she was headed back to the university close to my place, and agreed to share the cab, but had no cash and needed to draw some from the nearby ATM. I then suggested that since it was only a half hour walk in the Oslo snowy winter, why not walk the journey instead. To my surprise she actually agreed, and we walked and talked to our own residences.

Interesting thing I remembered from that conversation was how she had to redo a semester in university due to almost a year spent in bed, as she found herself very weak and unable to get out of bed to work and study (a disease you will probably not hear of in Singapore).

Another observation: I only asked her name at the end of the evening, meaning we had been sharing personal things such as work, studies, family, relationships, health and hobbies for half an hour with a stranger.

Are names important at all?

There were quite a few more random encounters, but the above 2 just remind me of the kind of friendliness that I have yet to receive in Singapore.