Shopping in Sweden

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Many Norwegians flock to the Swedish border and do some shopping as there are strip malls located on the Swedish border. Some of the cheaper finds in Sweden include meats, cigarettes, alcohol and well, from what I hear, porn. I remember seeing a competition in the last Alt for Norge season where they had to travel across the Swedish border and find the best deals compared to Norwegian products. It's a common thing for Norwegians to do over a weekend.

Traveling to Sweden on a shopping trip is all part of experiencing typical Norwegian culture. I had to experience it just once, which I'm glad I did because I don't really want to travel that far again just to save around 10% on juice, Coca-Cola, toothpaste and soap. The best deal I found was on bacon actually which I paid 19 NOK or a tad over $3 USD for 3 packs. I was also quite pleased to have found an entire aisle of American food in a grocery store called Maxi-Mat - and stocked up on pie crusts and Jiffy corn bread.

I spoke Norwegian to the Swedes and couldn't understand hardly anything they replied back to me with, so I had no choice to speak English. I also had a difficult time reading Swedish. For example, bringebær in Norwegian is hallon in Swedish, which both mean raspberry. 

While traveling to Sweden over the course of a day is good for some people, I prefer not to do it again unless I know I'm saving quite a bit of money. The travel time and commuting compared to the little money saved was just not worth it to me, but  suppose to some people it is and that's what makes it so popular for Norwegians to do.

Comments

Your father in law said…
"Traveling to Sweden on a shopping trip is all part of experiencing typical Norwegian culture." Objection, your honour. I would think this interest only applies to 10% or so of the population, so if you live in Norway and never waste your time shopping groceries in Swe4den, you are still well placed in the Norwegian majority:-)
March 21, 2013 at 3:16 PM
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