Everything is the same and yet just a little bit different. I made a few observations of things that stick out to me as strange. I do realize that some of these things could be just a part of city life that I have never been exposed to. We went to the grocery store today. While we could identify the food, the packaging was different. There were only a few familiar brand names, and everything was in Norwegian. The M&M bags where different colors and the shampoo bottles were about half the size.
There is very little handicap accessibility here. To go in to the grocery store you had to go down an escalator and there was no elevator. Our apartment in on the 2nd floor and again no elevator. The windows open by tilting the glass inwards. There are candles in every window but few curtains.
I went to McDonald’s were I discovered the french fries were different. I still cannot put my finger on it but it had something to do with the texture of the fry. I also was told that a "large" size meal included a second cheeseburger.
The digital clock in our apartment runs on military time. The first time I saw it say 13:00, I was mystified. Later when it read 0:00 I was totally confused for a moment. The term "AM" is not used here.
As we walk thru the parks we noticed that there was more fathers walking children then mothers. We also noticed that children were allowed to play naked in the public fountains. As we walked threw the park there were a large number of sunbathers. I had never noticed this in the states, but again that could be from not living in a city.