Spain vs. Norway: a primer

G and I returned from Spain last week in the wee small hours of the morning to -9 degrees C, falling snow, and at least 20 cm of new snow that was not where we left it when we left town (that is, in the atmosphere). I have to tell you, when I woke up the next day and it was still snowing, and probably still -9 C, I actually was pleased to be in Oslo.

Are you shaking your head yet in disbelief? Wondering how I could be pleased with returning to the aforementioned weather after experiencing sunny and 18 degrees C? Well, you are not alone. I was kind of in disbelief as well. I started to pick apart living in Oslo versus traveling in sunny Spain, and realized it was worth debating the two. So, at long last, I present a post of our Spain adventures with a little pondering mixed in for good measure.

Sights: advantage – Barcelona. This one is kind of a no-brainer. Oslo is a nice city and has a great location, but doesn't have the heavy-hitting architecture of Spain. Barcelona is by far more beautiful than Madrid architecturally and geographically, in my opinion. Barca’s on the Mediterranean where the sand is bright and the water’s blue. Many of Gaudi’s famous works like the Sagrada Familia and Casa Batlló are in town and are just stunning. And the view from Montjuïc, home of the 1992 Olympic Stadium is wonderful, even in the dead of winter. Don’t you agree?

The Barcelona beachfront along the Mediterranean. Warm and sunny on December 29.

Gaudi's Casa Batllò in central Barcelona.

Gaudi's Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona, under construction (as always).

The view of Barcelona from the entry of the MNAC atop Montjuïc.

Food and wine: advantage – Barcelona/Madrid. One word: Tapas. We had tapas almost every day in Spain; they are these little bites of anything from a fried pepper to a crostini with anchovies and Serrano ham. We went to one tapas bar and had fresh pan seared octopus and cuttlefish. At another place we had a giant plate of pimientos del pradón sprinkled with sea salt. If you haven’t had those, get your heiny to Spain, or if you’re in Seattle, head to Harvest Vine during the summer. I swear you will not regret it. Heck, just head there now to have tapas; don't wait for summer and the pimientos. And I don’t even need to go into the wine trip to Priorat. It was divine. We thoroughly enjoyed our excursion through the vineyards and barrel tasting and slurping through a few cellars.

This was a lot more appetizing than it looks. Hm. I wonder how many beers I had had at this point?

Touring some of the oldest vines in Priorat with a wine specialist.

A small town in the Priorat region. Reminds me of Tuscan hilltowns.

Public transportation: advantage – Oslo.  Oslo's metro is clean, quiet, clean, relatively small, clean, and efficient. And clean. The metro in Spain is, well, large. And older. Each metro stop seems to have at least 80 entrances, and they’re not all marked on the map. The entrances aren’t the problem so much as the fact that once underground, you can walk what feels like a kilometer to actually reach the platform you’re looking for. And stairs. I think it rivals the Paris Metro for the quantity of stairs in a single metro ride, which is fine unless you’re lugging an 18 kilo suitcase through the system. My husband’s a peach. Because the metro's so large, they have individual maps of each of the lines in the cars, rather than just one large map of the whole system. This is a little confusing at first, since maybe you're not sure if you're on the 7 but you're looking at a map of the 3 (not realizing it). (Note: no photos of the metro except this one; since the 2004 Madrid subway bombings security is everywhere and no photos are allowed.)

January 1 2011, about 11:00 a.m. I don't think they had made it home yet.

Cleanliness: advantage – Oslo. It’s probably because of the lower population density, and size, but Oslo takes this one. It’s not that Spain is dirty. In fact, for a city that size, it’s quite clean, and there were maintenance people out every day we were there including New Years Day, cleaning up all kinds of things. But in my limited experience in Oslo, there just really isn’t a lot of stuff to clean up here. Osloians (is that what they’re called? Osloites?) are neat and tidy people.

Population density: advantage – Oslo. Holiday population density in Oslo is inversely proportionate the holiday population density on the streets of Madrid. You may remember, the streets in Oslo become sparsely populated from about December 23 until January 3. Madrid, on the other hand, appears to explode with shoppers. Apparently, the week between Christmas and Epiphany is the busiest shopping period of the year in Spain, as they exchange gifts on Epiphany.  Seriously, both G and I have been to some pretty crowded places: Fifth Avenue in Manhattan at Christmas, the Magnificent Mile in Chicago in the spring, the Las Vegas strip in the summer at midnight, the Champs Elysees in Paris. None of them can compare to the sheer density in Madid. On a Monday. At 6 o’clock in the evening. Maybe you love the crush of the crowd at Bumbershoot or some other lovefest, but not I. Maybe it’s my westerner sensibilities, but I love me some space.

One of the main shopping streets in Madrid near Plaza del Sol. Crazy crowded.

Climate: tie: – Barcelona/Madrid & Oslo. What? Oslo? Colleen, you’re crazy. Maybe. Let’s talk about Barcelona first. Sunny. Sunrise at 8:15 and sunset at 5:30. Warm enough to sit outside and eat lunch, and stroll along the beach at night. Oranges growing on trees in December! Need I say more people? I guess so, since I also tied it with Oslo. Yes, I was super happy to be in Spain to get a giant dose of vitamin D and not have half my day be over even before the sun’s come up, and not wear an ounce of down. But, Oslo is so…wintery (today’s weather excluded from the conversation). So much like a postcard sometimes. Covered in snow that’s so dry it crunches when you walk through it, surrounded by a pretty landscape. We have snowfalls that seem to last forever, only yielding to pretty, cold crisp clean days (albeit short days). Maybe we should revisit this issue at the beginning of February. When I’m going stir crazy from the snow and just want a warm beach again.

This pretty much sums up how I felt about the climate in Barcelona.

Starbucks quotient: advantage – Barcelona/Madrid. I realize there are people out there that may thing of the lack of Starbucks as an advantage. And if that's you, you're in luck. I’ve already mentioned that there are no Starbucks to be found in Oslo, much less Norway. [Note: yes, I believe I have found ‘my’ café; more to come on a different post.] There are a handful in Barcelona, but with the exception of one directly across from one of Gaudi’s masterpieces, they are mostly inconspicuously located off the main tourist thoroughfares. Not so in Madrid. Sure, they are not found at the density of Seattle where you could throw your cell phone and hit one, but they are pretty much everywhere in the tourist area. Funny, I didn’t even go to one in Madrid (okay, I did go to the one across from Casa Batllò, but we were desperate for breakfast). Anyway, there you go. If you’re a Starbucks addict and you’re heading to Madrid for sightseeing, you’re in luck.

Grocery store product selection: advantage – Barcelona/Madrid. They have American brands. Kellogg’s cereal bars. Lunch meat. (Disclaimer: neither of these products can compete culinary-wise with real food.) Huge displays of in-season fruits and vegetables. Giant legs of Serrano ham stacked (yes, in the grocery store) and waiting to be eaten, gourmet groceries like foie gras, caviar, and huge seafood and deli displays. There's this one chain called Il Corte Inglés and it's awesome. It's a giant Macy's-type department store chain, but they have a gourmet grocery store in the basement. Strange, but it works. These stores are huge and the selection is overwhelming. Truth be told I’ve only been in Norway for a few months, but at this point, sorry Oslo; compared to Spain (and the U.S.) you have a lot of catching up to do in the grocery store department.

Currency/Affordability: advantage – Barcelona/Madrid. Maybe it’s just because I’ve used the euro a lot more than the Norwegian krone, but the euro just makes sense. I must admit I have not yet grown out of the habit of translating everything into U.S. dollars (instead of krone), even though we live in Norway. With the euro so much closer in value to the dollar than the krone is to the dollar, the math is, well, easier. Plus, honestly, it’s not just about the currency. Spain is affordable. A beer at a restaurant doesn’t cost the equivalent of $10 like it does in Norway. You can get a good, cheap lunch that’s way less than three digits. I am sure this has something to do with the fact that the general VAT in Norway is 25% (14% on grocery items) while Spain’s is 18. But, it probably also has to do with the fact that Spain can produce a lot of their produce and other foodstuffs in country, while Norway probably imports much of their produce and the like because of the lack of arable land in Norway. Considering Spain’s financial woes, maybe they’ve just been subsidizing everything! But probably not. I doubt they subsidized my tapas. :-)

Tourism accessibility: advantage – Oslo. This really just boils down to two things:

1) Very few people seem to speak English in Spain (or admit to speaking English). Now, I am not normally the person that complains about this type of ‘problem.’ I do not demand that everyone speaks English. For the majority of my trips to non-English speaking countries, I learn at least some of the language so I can communicate even if on a rudimentary level. For the most part, we were able to do this in Spain (G took some Spanish in high school, I took French, and we both recently took several months of Italian lessons). Despite the fact we stumbled successfully through Spain, you’d think that being the third most visited country in the world by tourists would mean you had a larger population of English speakers.

2) The excessive amount of tourists that are in Spain at any one time means wait times increase at tourist atttractions. Our last day in Madrid, we tried to get into three museums, and couldn’t manage any of them because the lines were so long. Yes, I know, Rick Steves would have recommended getting tickets in advance so we could have just walked right in. But you forget, this was not that kind of vacation. This was more…fluid. More food, wine, seat-of-our-pants-oriented, rather than scripted and researched and planned. After copping to our fault in the planning department, it wasn’t all bad, since we ended up at the Ritz for a drink instead.

Museums: advantage – Barcelona/Madrid. Now, Oslo has some pretty cool museums. The Munch Museum, the Viking Ship Museum, the National Gallery, and the Nobel Peace Center are just a few. The National Gallery actually has a nice collection of French and Norwegian impressionists, and last year the Nobel Peace Center had an exhibit entirely devoted to President Obama (they always have an exhibit on the current laureate). But in Spain, we’re talking Picasso. Gaudi. Il Greco. Joan Miro. A huge Ruebens collection at the Prado in Madrid. The Thyssen-Bornemisza and Reina Sofia Museums. The phenomenal collection of Catalan art at NMAC. We went to the Picasso Museum in Barcelona and loved it (they had a great exhibit that showed how Picasso was influenced by the works of Degas – pretty amazing). I have enjoyed what Oslo has to offer, and in time I am sure I will appreciate it even more, but it’s hard not to bow down to Spain’s artistic prowess on this one.

Picasso's portrait of his father. Taken at the MNAC (shhh).

Madonna and child from the vast collection of Catalan art at MNAC. I like the curiosity of their faces.

Markets: advantage – Barcelona. La Boqueria. I really don’t have to say any more than that. But I will. La Boqueria is a huge, covered outdoor market in the heart of La Rambla, this very touristy promenade through the center of old Barcelona. It’s open six days a week and carries pretty much every food stuff you could ever want there. If you can’t find it there, you probably don’t need it. I bought a ton of spices there that I can’t find anywhere in Oslo. Crush red pepper flakes. Whole anise. Bay leaves (okay, you can find bay leaves in Oslo but they come in a foil pouch and are devoid of scent; my Spanish ones are hand-wrapped in little bundles with twine). There’s an entire store just of things I would never eat. You could call it that: The Store of Things Colleen Would Never Eat. Tripe. Cow tongue. Pig heads. Pig hooves. Organs of various animals. Whole piglets. Then there are the giant seafood shops that have live crabs and lobsters on ice, giant monkfish, huge octopuses. And chocolate stores to die for. And vegetable displays that would make you cry if you were living in Oslo in the winter. Oh wait. Okay, well, here are some photos. I think they speak for themselves. There is nothing like this in Oslo. I haven’t been here in the summer yet, but I’m pretty sure whatever they have here cannot compare.

The entrance of La Boqueria, with some of those famed Spanish holiday crowds.

Don't you just want to grab a giant handful of lettuce and stuff it in your mouth?

Giant case of meat. Note the Serrano jamon hanging in the back.

Some of the freshest seafood I've ever seen. In fact, some was still alive.

Comfort: advantage – home sweet home! (Oslo, in case you forgot.) Did we have a good time in Spain? Absolutely. G and I haven’t been on a true vacation since our honeymoon. We loved sleeping in late, wining and dining ourselves, and the ease of traveling together. But, I think in the end, no matter how wonderful or relaxing or memorable a trip is, we all just want to come home. Our own bed, our own groceries, our own shower. However much we are still settling in from our recent move abroad, Oslo is still home.

Our next adventure? You’ll read all about it in my next post: starting norskkurs – Norwegian class! G and I signed up for Norwegian language classes that started this week. That’s one reason why this post is so late in coming. Off to finish my homework.

På nå, har det bra!