It Only Took a Pizza

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I think most Norwegians have an impression on Americans that we're generally outgoing (not all of us) and generous. Just this weekend in Bergen my husband and I encountered a bit of a cultural difference. We ordered a pizza the night we were in Bergen and Arild asked the guy behind the counter if a medium pizza was big enough for one person or two people. The man told us one person, so we each got our own pizza. The pizzas turned out being too big for us to have our own and after we finished eating and combined our pizzas we ended up with over a full pizza left.

I hate wasting food. Anytime food gets thrown away at home I just feel guilty and have this icky feeling and it doesn't settle well with me. So my idea was to take the pizza downstairs and give it to our hotel clerk. I mean, it was more than an entire pizza left over! Arild told me, "A Norwegian would never think of doing that." We exchanged our confused looks and I said, "People do things like this in Kentucky!" He told me he totally agreed with me and he agrees what I was doing was the right thing, but seeking out a stranger and just handing them a pizza was not very Norwegian at all. He then said, "Hmmm... this is maybe how some people can find us cold and distant because we don't talk to strangers."  He said some things about outgoing Americans and their hospitality.

After some nagging him to walk down stairs with me and he refusing, I went downstairs explained to the clerk the pizza situation. The clerk was about my age, but he was a huge blonde, very Norwegian looking guy. I talked to him for a bit just in case he was skeptical about me, but I don't think it takes long to figure out I'm maybe one of the least threatening people on earth. I handed him the pizza, he looked extremely confused, kept asking me if I was sure I didn't want it. I told him," If you don't want it I'll either have to find someone else or throw it away and I don't want to throw it away." He thanked me. I'd like to think he enjoyed a free pizza and I think he did. So I went back up to our room and Arild welcomed me by saying, "Welcome back, Mrs. I'm-too-scared-to-speak-to-strangers!"

So this situation was interesting to me. It was a chance for me to get out of my shell and talk to these "scary Norwegians" I've been so shy to begin a conversation with. It only took a leftover pizza for me to do it. That's it.  My fear of talking to strangers has been blown way out of proportion and thanks to a pizza of all things I'm one step closer to being more comfortable with strangers.

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