[anonyfox]

> where very few people want to live

just as a sole data point: been there a few times, and my personal ideal weather _is_ cool/gray/wet with ideal outside temperature of 15C. I can withstand the cold, but find it hard to tolerate heat (as in >20C).

Purely from a weather perspective, I'd move there. What holds me back is that I also need dense urban surroundings nearby with all the buzz it brings (cyberpunk style) - norway is lacking that, including Oslo. _Too_ quiet/beautiful/peaceful for my liking.

[NegatioN]

What gets most foreigners is usually the darkness in the winter, and not the temperature fwiw.

It's hard to describe, but many people end up quite depressed.

[Broken_Hippo]

I'd just like to add:

I'm an immigrant in Norway. The darkness is enough of an issue that told us know about this in the state-funded language classes and made sure we knew help was available. I'm in Trondheim, so December is full of 4.5 hours of poor sunlight each day.

If there were something else that really gets folks, it is that Norway's people are rather reserved, to a point, and it really makes some folks lonely. This combined with the dark winters really causes some folks to struggle.

Everyone gets used to the weather and quickly learns how to dress properly enough.

[grugagag]

How are you faring so far? Can you join some groups of less reserved/more gregarious immigrants and carry on together?

[Broken_Hippo]

For me, personally: I'm fairly introverted myself and generally had only a few friends near me before I moved, so it suits me well. Also: I've been here a decade or so and I moved for marriage - I've always had at least one friend here. I've worked a little bit. And then I got into board games (both immigrants and local folks), so I meet some folks that way. The person that organizes the games, though? They struggled a bit for a while.

[dev1ycan]

I know about this from living in Lima (Peru), the weather due to our geological position is always temperate, goes from min temps of 11 degrees to like 32 in summer (top), usually around ~18/19 degrees up to like 23 throughout most of the year.

You'd think climate is great, but it's ALWAYS "foggy", you can't see a clear blue sky like in the inner regions of the country such as Cusco, it depresses you, I can't imagine it being even darker.

It's why I simply can't believe nordic "stories" about being the happiest place, I simply can't believe with all the money in the world you'd be happier than at a tropical beach with half of that money.

[331c8c71]

> you'd be happier than at a tropical beach with half of that money.

Waaay too warm and humid. And no seasons. Thanks, but no thanks.

My ideal climate is proper 4 seasons with sub-zero and snowy winters. I am pretty sure I am not the only one.

[konschubert]

Living in northernmost Germany, I can confirm.

It’s not the cold or the endless weeks of rain.

It’s the days that barely feel like daylight.

[mattpallissard]

Living in Alaska I struggle more with the endless daylight than the short dark days. It messes with my sleep too much.

[dylan604]

There's ways to black out windows and darken rooms to counter all of that daylight, but when it's dark it's really hard to counter that when going outside.

Without actually personally experiencing it, I think I would have the opposite struggle. If it were dark for that long without clouds so I could have all of that extra time to view the sky I think it would be a much different situation though.

[grugagag]

Have locals adapted to this or they’re generally more depressive over the winter months?

[foobarian]

It's actually surprising how north the famous EU countries are. Already south France and Italy are about the same latitude as New England; Norway must be like Alaska as far as daylight goes. If it weren't for the warm Atlantic current the place would be a glacier.

[jackcosgrove]

In the northern hemisphere the prevailing winds come from the west, which is why west coasts are more moderate than east coasts. Winds coming from the ocean are more moderate than winds coming from the interior of a continent.

This is why New York is on the same latitude as Lisbon yet is much colder. Same for Tokyo and San Francisco.

Western Europe is about as far north as people can live in large numbers.

[input_sh]

The example that blew my mind once and I've been repeating it since: New York is as north as Madrid. Like, almost exactly, 0.3 degrees difference (or 20 miles, or 33 kilometres).

[VBprogrammer]

London is further north than St John's Newfoundland.

[coob]

His bless His Majesty’s Gulf Stream.

[NLips]

The entirety of Great Britain is farther north than the entirety of the contiguous 48 USA states.

[ethbr1]

So that's why they held onto Canada...

[snowpid]

The south of Alaska starts in Northern Germany.

[mnsc]

Living in Northern Sweden with "midnight sun", what gets me the most the few times I've been approaching the equator is warm nights that are pitch dark. So strange! And then I remember that this is the experience of the majority of the world. :D

[novaRom]

> my personal ideal weather _is_ cool/gray/wet with ideal outside temperature of 15C

15C day temps? morning/night temps can be much lower. Winters in Norway are much colder. If you are looking for stable day-night temps year around in that range, then there is no such place in Europe, well maybe except Ireland?

[mrspuratic]

June-Sept in most places in Ireland has a mean daily temp of around 15C, and around 6C winter time. It infrequently gets much above 20C, or much below 0C year round. 5 consecutive days of 25C is the meteorological definition of "heatwave".

As a predominantly temperate maritime/oceanic climate it's unpredictable and erratic, from 15C mid-winter days to 4C mid-summer nights :/

Plenty of grey and wet though.

[anonyfox]

no, more like ideal lunch time temp, lower is okay, above 20 and I start to feel miserable. Yes very cold is also okay :-)

The only thing that sucks is hovering around 0C for a long time, since this means oscillating between frozen/mud

[baq]

Only San Francisco has San Francisco weather...

[datameta]

Well, temperature-wise mid-April SF struck me as almost exactly like CDMX in early December.

[pier25]

For me it's the food.

Norway is a beautiful country. I love cold weather and grey skies but all that fish stuff is not for me.

[vidarh]

I grew up in Norway, and I hardly eat fish, and we hardly ever had fish for dinner when I grew up.

[KingOfCoders]

When in Norway, the only thing I didn't like was that sweet, brown cheese :-)

[nkurz]

You must not have tried the "Gammelost": https://norwayathome.com/?p=319

The sweet brown "Brunost" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunost) might not be your favorite, but I doubt it haunts you in nightmares. The Gammelost though will stay pungent in your mind for years. It's been years, and I still wonder whether I was the victim of a particularly cruel practical joke.

[dagw]

The difference is the Gammelost isn't actually a thing in Norway. I grew up there and never saw it. Whereas Brunost is staple food eaten every day by a large part of the population.

[vidarh]

There's a list of foods that are, I think, used to scare foreigners with for our amusement more than actually eaten. Of course some crazy Norwegians do actually like these, which gives us plausible deniability when said tourists and foreign co-workers question whether it's real. I'm sure you are fully aware, but for those unaware of Norwegian cuisine:

* Smalahove (whole, barbecued sheeps head; how whole depends on who/where, but the eyes and brain certainly need to be included)

* Lutefisk (fish half-dissolved in caustic soda, then washed out - or your intestines would have a really hard time - leaving what is best described as fish-yello)

* Gammelost, of course.

Then there are the less objectionable or outright nice things that we still serve to foreigners either knowing they're acquired tastes, or that we like spinning stories around to try to make it uncomfortable for our entertainment:

* Whale, presented as "Willy from Free Willy". Whale tastes fine - it's just a bit tough, and sometimes a bit oily and "fishy" (yes, I know, not fish; doesn't stop the blubber from affecting the taste)

* Deer and reindeer, which tastes great but squeamish people everywhere get more squeamish when the dish is introduced as "Bambi". When I worked for a US company in Norway many years ago, the US CEO came for our Christmas party and the CEO of the Norwegian subsidiary had of course ensured that the menu was moose, deer, and whale, so that our entertainment was to watch the CEO's reactions (he took it well).

* Sour cream porridge. I love sour cream porridge, but it is an... acquired taste, and people do not expect it if you put a bowl of porridge in front of them without warning...

* Salty licorice full of ammonium chloride. Yes, licorice with floor cleaner. I love it, but outside of the Nordic countries and the Netherlands, the only person I've made taste this who has liked it was a single co-worker about a quarter of a century ago. I keep bringing them to the UK at least twice a year and imposing them on unsuspecting people (in the UK, finding even lightly salted licorice is near impossible outside of specialty imports, so people here are caught entirely unaware of what salted licorice will taste like, and that is half the fun). For science, of course.

Norwegian humour when it comes to feeding people stuff they're not familiar with is pretty basic, along the line of "we're serving you a pet/beloved children character" or "we're serving you something likely to dissolve your intestines/an industrial byproduct that our children eat". Where my Nigerian in-laws worry about whether the food they're serving me is too spicy and fuss over it constantly, we try to trick people into trying weird things while we take pleasure in observing their reactions and/or try to stifle laughter.

[kristofferR]

Eh, large part of the population is relative. I'd guess 1/20th, or something like that.

[vidarh]

Im Norwegian, and I have never been in a house where anyone had Gammelost. There are people who eat it of course, but it's mostly a thing we scare foreigners with.

[Filligree]

Gammelost is just fermented cheese. No biggie.

[nkurz]

You've had it, or you are going by the written description?

I only tried it once, but it's the only cheese I've been unable to eat. Sawdust soaked in cat piss would be comparable but preferable. I was exited to buy it and brought it along for a hiking lunch. My wife and I both took one bite, and then decided to bury it under a rock. I felt sorry for the rock.

I still do wonder whether I somehow got a bad batch, or one that was spoiled.

[vidarh]

I don't eat that either. My girlfriend brought some back with us after Christmas - her first time trying Norwegian food - and it's still in my fridge...

[epolanski]

Why? Sounds odd for a country with so much sea to not have a fish culture.

Looking around the internet indeed there's very little fish in most popular Norwegian dishes, except for fish meatballs.

[dagw]

Why?

Honestly no idea. They just don't. Growing up the only fish we really ate was fish sticks and heavily processed fish cakes. When going out to restaurants I have no real memory of anybody really ordering fish. Even when I was living in down town Oslo (admittedly 20+ years ago), just getting ahold of fresh fish was hard. The only food store that had a fish mongers and sold fresh fish was the really fancy store in the most expensive part of town. There were maybe two fish stores in all of central Oslo that I knew of, one of which was a high end luxury food sort of place that also sold fancy caviar, foie gras and oysters. Compared to basically any costal town anywhere in Europe where fresh fish is plentiful and ubiquitous, it is really strange.

[epolanski]

I am so confused though.

Some data says Norway is the second country in the world by amount of fish eaten [1][2]

[1]https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-upda...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_seafood_c...

[dagw]

The only three possible explanations I can think of are

1) Things have radically changed since I last lived there 20+ years ago

2) My view is heavily biased by only having lived in/around Oslo and the rest of the country eats a lot more fish

3) Norwegians eat a lot of heavily processed fish based foodstuff (fish sticks, fish cakes etc), but hardly any fresh fish.

[vidarh]

There are fishing boats selling fish in Oslo harbour... Though a lot of it is probably more for tourists.

But it's more common on the West Coast, I think. Even people in Oslo get impressed by the (rather small) Bergen fish market.

Then again I've never willingly gone looking for fish other than smoked salmon anywhere.

[j7ake]

Actually Norwegian food is mostly a thick slice of buttered bread and a thin slice of cheese or meat.

If feeling luxurious, then maybe both meat and cheese on bread.

[dagw]

What fish stuff? I grew up in Norway and lived there for a chunk of my adult life, and honestly Norwegians (at leats in/around Oslo) seem to eat less fish than most other European countries I've been to.

[boringg]

I think globally norway cuisine is identified with cured or other fish etc. thats probably not what the local diet really eats probsbly (based on two comments in this thread)

[foobarian]

Cured fish is fine, it's the fermented fish that I draw the line on :-)

[boringg]

Thats right! Fermented not cured ;)

[jonasdegendt]

Norway also has a weekly tradition called "Taco Friday" that a decent amount of people participate in, so it's safe to say that generalizing food habits doesn't really work anymore nowadays.

[mywittyname]

Why not Taco Tuesday?

(I ask with all seriousness; I'm kind of hoping the answer is interesting)

[jackothy]

I grew up in Norway. The way I see it is that weekends are for spoiling yourself with the most delicious food. Another common tradition would be making pizza on weekends. Taco Friday is seen as a special weekend treat.

I know taco and pizza aren't really that special or fancy meals, but I guess they turned out that way in Norway since they came from abroad. They're still not seen as "fancy", but they are many people's favorite tastiest food.