Apropos Rannveig’s trip to Newcastle, she bought a few essentials that are difficult or impossible to come by her in the great chilly north. Apart from the usual insanely expensive cosmetics (what’s wrong with good old Sorbelene, I ask you??) and some booze, she grabbed some doughnuts for me (that’s donuts for our spelling challenged cousins from the USA).
Rannveig disagrees, but you can’t buy a decent doughnut here to save your life. Not hot ones, not jam filled ones and certainly no pineapple ones. They have zero flavour (as in not enough sugarsugarsugarsugar) and generally look sad and undernourished. Oh, for a Krispy Kreme (that American problem with spelling again…) outlet here in Oslo, what I wouldn’t give to see that.
Come to think of it, there is a dearth of good quality sticky buns generally. Go to a baker here and you can buy the best bread in the world, no question. But try and get hold of a chocolate éclair or a rum baba or a vanilla slice and you might as well be trying the split the atom with a house brick. It’s not that the locals don’t travel or know about such things, they just don’t DO that sort of thing here. I’m just thankful that the café scene here picked up after we moved so we can at least get good lattes and food.
Oh, you can’t get Berroca. Or Zovirax. Or most other useful, non prescription drugs and potions. The pharmaceutical industry here is very tightly controlled and monitored (a good thing one would think) but the downside is that they lock out an untold number of products for reasons that remain suspiciously clouded in mystery.
This is turning into a rant. I’ll draw a line under it now. I’ll be fair and write a bit about good things that you can get here later.
