My flight to Oslo was one of the best flights I’ve ever had—for many reasons. For starters, the quality of the airline (I flew Scandinavian Airlines—love them) and the company I encountered were both superb. Additionally, my Tuesday evening flight was practically empty. There might have been a grand total of ten people in the first section of economy. I had an entire middle row all to myself.
As luck would have it, a young man, also flying by himself and alone in his row, was seated just across the aisle from me. I was fussing with the televisions in the back of the seats in front of me, and I could not get mine to turn on, no matter what I did. I noticed the young man next to me was also fussing with the TVs in front of him, trying to get them to turn on and off. Nothing. I looked over at him.
“Any luck?”
“Nope, not at all.”
What started out as relatively standard plane-fare chit chat became one of the best inflight conversations I’ve ever had. Certainly one of the longest, rivaled only in substance and duration by the conversation I had on the flight back from Oslo with another Norwegian man. And people say Norwegians are reserved. (Don’t get excited, they are reserved—there were extenuating circumstances for both).
I quickly found out that my new friend, Howard,[1] a Norwegian from Oslo, had just finished a six-week stint in North Carolina visiting his fiancée. He wasn’t going to see her again for at least another four months until their wedding in Norway. I was devastated for him. He neatly declared, “Well, I can distract myself talking to you, or I can be sad about missing her. I’m going to distract myself.” How utterly Norwegian of him.
I am so glad Howard chose the distraction option because the advice he gave me about Norway cannot be found online (Howard, you should probably write a book). He gave me every single piece of information he could dig out of his brain about Oslo, Norway, Norwegians and Norwegian culture. However, the single most important tip Howard gave me was probably regarding the Norwegian winter wardrobe—snowpants.
Prior to leaving for Norway, I did a lot of research on cold weather clothing. I had to buy an entire winter wardrobe for Norway (because I threw all my clothes out after my ex-husband left me), so I spent a significant amount of time reading through winter packing guides. Several of them recommended bringing snowpants, so I purchased a lovely pair of Arctix women’s insulated charcoal grey snowpants (read my review here).
At the time, I was under the impression it was completely normal to casually walk around in snowpants. I mean, if it’s 11°F (-11.6°C) you might think snowpants would be appropriate. It made logical sense to me, but then I also decided to bring snowpants and a ski suit, because why not bring one oversized, outdoor, athletic piece of clothing when you can bring two?
The Norwegian winter wardrobe had been one of my biggest concerns. Beyond just staying warm, I needed to know what people actually wore. Do you bring three pairs of pants with you to work? Do you just wear all three at once? How many shirts should you wear at the same time? Do you wear a sweater over your wool base layer or do you put on another shirt first over your wool base layer and then add the sweater? And what about footwear? Did I need to buy spikes for my snow boots? Can I even bring those on the plane? Where would I buy spikes in Norway if I didn’t bring them with me? Is there ice everywhere in Norway, or is that only a thing in more rural areas? What are the sidewalks like in Oslo? How do people walk around? Are there special boots I haven’t heard of yet? What happens if my feet freeze? What if my face freezes??
And even if you figure out how to stay warm, how does one look cute wearing 15 different base layers while sliding down icy hills over and over again?
“It’s called function over fashion, Emily. Get over it.”
“Okay fine I.d., less clothes for me to bring.”
“Leave the heels too!”
“Really? The heels?”
“What, you’re going to wear them with your snowpants while you’re falling down hills?”
“Alright, alright. No need to get snippy about it.”
There’s a huge grey area between snowpants and heels, however, and I still had a lot of angst about my winter wardrobe. Luckily, I had a chance to ask Howard exactly what Norwegians wear during the winter.
“So, Howard, how do you wear a wool base layer under your jeans? I don’t think my wool bottoms will fit underneath my skinny jeans. Do you wear a size up in jeans during winter time?”
“No, you just wear them under your jeans. What do you mean your wool pants won’t fit underneath your skinny jeans?”
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to explain that Howard, have you ever seen a pair of skinny jeans? Okay, what about leggings, can you just wear leggings instead?”
“What are leggings?”
“What do you mean ‘what are leggings’? You’re joking, right?”
As you can imagine, I’m starting to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. What kind of jeans do Norwegians wear? Do they not know what leggings are in Norway? This leads me to possibly my biggest concern—how does one go about wearing snowpants? I asked Howard,
“Okay, so what do you wear under your snowpants? Do you wear jeans or a wool base layer, or both?” Howard looks at me, with a straight face, and says,
“No, we wear jeans. We don’t wear snowpants. Except if you’re in kindergarten. Then maybe you wear snowpants.”
I’m somewhere between horrified and mortified. Probably horrified. Furthermore, he says, you don’t wear ski suits for cross country skiing, that’s when you wear snowpants, and if you wear a ski suit it’s obvious you don’t really know what you’re doing on cross-country skis.
If that weren’t enough, downhill skiing is considered the lazy version of skiing in Norway, or it just doesn’t count as skiing at all. I’m not sure which is worse, frankly. Apologies to all of you downhill skiers out there. Just downhill ski quietly in snowpants when you’re in Norway. Because you’re allowed to wear snowpants when you ski, but not a ski suit. Don’t wear a ski suit for skiing. And never wear snowpants, unless you’re skiing. Or in kindergarten. Then definitely, maybe, wear your snowpants.
I only wore my snowpants once, on an expedition to see the Northern Lights. I promise, Howard, that was the ONLY time I wore my snowpants. But I totally wore that ski suit cross-country skiing, which is when you are permitted to wear snowpants, not a ski suit, but I wasn’t about to leave that Tipsy Elves’ ski suit unworn (read my review here).
I walked down the streets of Tromsø in that thing like a total boss, zero f**** given about looking like a tourist. You can’t walk around in that ski suit and not feel totally awesome. And I had no trouble finding my ski group. Or perhaps, they had no trouble finding me. Either way, it worked out great and everybody found everyone. But, for the rest of you, don’t ski in a ski suit. Unless you want to brazenly walk down the streets of Tromsø and strut your stuff in your ski suit, in which case, please get in touch with me so we can do this together.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, names have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals mentioned in this blog.