Szilvia GombolaSpare no expense – visit Oslo
March 10th 2007 08:11
I am usually pretty sceptical of surveys, particularly travel ones like: Who would you most like to sit next to on a plane? Well, no-one actually.
What thing do you leave behind the most when traveling? Um, my home?
They are pretty stupid.
However, I came across a survey result this week that I just could not argue with. Oslo, the capital of Norway, was rated the world’s most expensive city.
The Economist Group survey compared prices in more than 130 countries, with Oslo coming out on top, or is that the bottom?
This survey of one person could not agree more. Oslo is one damn expense joint.
When you are traveling, particularly in Europe, you know there are times when you are going to have to fork out a few more dollars than you thought or wanted to. It goes with the territory. And really, if you want to save lots of money just stay at home.
By the way, eight of The Economist Group’s Top 10 most expensive cities were in Europe – Oslo, Paris, Copenhagen, London, Reykjavik, Zurich, Frankfurt and Helsinki. Toyko and Osaka in Japan rounded out the rich list.
Anyway, I reckon there is expensive, and then there is expensive.
Expensive makes you pause, raise your eyebrows, scrunch your nose, pout your lips and scratch your chin but you still buy it anyway. Expensive makes time stand still, gives you a headache from doing conversions over and over in your head trying to make it cheaper, makes you rub your forehead really hard, makes your mouth dry and you look down at the ground for too long but you usually still have to buy it. I am talking about essentials here, like food, dink and accommodation, not designer clothing or shoes. When you have shopped around and found out the going rate and it is still expensive, you are probably in one of the cities listed above.
I have been to a few of these cities, including Oslo for the first time last year. I think the skin on my forehead is just starting to recover from the excessive rubbing. We had been in Norway for a few weeks, mostly camping and in remote or rural areas. It was still expensive but manageable. We knew it was going to be even more expensive when we hit Oslo for our last couple of days but it blew us away. It was seriously expensive.
We tried to stick to our Norway-expense-minimisation-p lan of eating from supermarkets but wanted to treat ourselves to some form of sit-down, dare I say it, ‘restaurant’ meal for our last night.
Well, after much checking around we went all out for our last night in Norway with a visit to an Oslo pizza restaurant. It was a local pizza chain like any other in the world, lots of big signs, annoying radio and TV ads, bright little delivery cars and totally out of place and context pizza names like The New Yorker or Tex Mex.
The end result of this was one shared pizza and a two beers in glasses cost more than A$120. My recollection of the fine details is a bit hazy due to the intense head rubbing but I reckon the beers must have cost about $20 each and the pizza around $80. We knew this before we went inside, so the forehead was red raw by the time we ordered. But like I said, what else do you do. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Oslo, get ripped off.
In saying that, it was a really cool city. Great museums, parks, a beautiful harbour and stylish streets and lots of shiny happy people who, unlike me, can obviously afford lots of pizza and beer.
The bargain basement city on The Economist Group list was Tehran in Iran. I might stop in for a pizza and beer next time I am in the area.
What thing do you leave behind the most when traveling? Um, my home?
They are pretty stupid.
However, I came across a survey result this week that I just could not argue with. Oslo, the capital of Norway, was rated the world’s most expensive city.
Oslo
This survey of one person could not agree more. Oslo is one damn expense joint.
When you are traveling, particularly in Europe, you know there are times when you are going to have to fork out a few more dollars than you thought or wanted to. It goes with the territory. And really, if you want to save lots of money just stay at home.
By the way, eight of The Economist Group’s Top 10 most expensive cities were in Europe – Oslo, Paris, Copenhagen, London, Reykjavik, Zurich, Frankfurt and Helsinki. Toyko and Osaka in Japan rounded out the rich list.
Anyway, I reckon there is expensive, and then there is expensive.
Expensive makes you pause, raise your eyebrows, scrunch your nose, pout your lips and scratch your chin but you still buy it anyway. Expensive makes time stand still, gives you a headache from doing conversions over and over in your head trying to make it cheaper, makes you rub your forehead really hard, makes your mouth dry and you look down at the ground for too long but you usually still have to buy it. I am talking about essentials here, like food, dink and accommodation, not designer clothing or shoes. When you have shopped around and found out the going rate and it is still expensive, you are probably in one of the cities listed above.
We tried to stick to our Norway-expense-minimisation-p lan of eating from supermarkets but wanted to treat ourselves to some form of sit-down, dare I say it, ‘restaurant’ meal for our last night.
Well, after much checking around we went all out for our last night in Norway with a visit to an Oslo pizza restaurant. It was a local pizza chain like any other in the world, lots of big signs, annoying radio and TV ads, bright little delivery cars and totally out of place and context pizza names like The New Yorker or Tex Mex.
The end result of this was one shared pizza and a two beers in glasses cost more than A$120. My recollection of the fine details is a bit hazy due to the intense head rubbing but I reckon the beers must have cost about $20 each and the pizza around $80. We knew this before we went inside, so the forehead was red raw by the time we ordered. But like I said, what else do you do. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Oslo, get ripped off.
In saying that, it was a really cool city. Great museums, parks, a beautiful harbour and stylish streets and lots of shiny happy people who, unlike me, can obviously afford lots of pizza and beer.
The bargain basement city on The Economist Group list was Tehran in Iran. I might stop in for a pizza and beer next time I am in the area.
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