After eight days in Norway, I, like most Americans, have just a FEW suggestions to make this country nearly perfect:
1) Is it an attack on National Pride to sell English Newspapers? I'd even be content to read the trash they write about in London. The Radisson where I am staying is mostly expats, but not a word of written English to be had. There are USA TV programs (CSI - Newark, and equally intersting shows), and first run movies from the USA (Cat Ballou? - Lee Marvin whoos Jane Fonda before her trip to North Vietnam). And of course the old standby - BBC News (but who wants to listen to Brits drone on about still being the masters of the Globe, about 150 years too late).
2) OK, I get it, the USA Credit Card Industry is more than a decade behind as we still enjoy using (dare I say it, paper money?!). But nobody memorizes the PIN on all their credit cards. Thats what an ATM card is for. It reached the height of absurdity last evening when I handed the waiter 600 NOK on a 450 NOK tab, and he could not make change. Had to call the Manager, who could not make change, so I wrote out the subtraction problem on a napkin. I might as well have been speaking Greek, OR ENGLISH......
3) Who enjoys driving a $225,000 Toyota Camry (remember the tax structure here) and only going about 40 mph on a deserted stretch of mountain road that is straight for 25 miles? NOT ME.
4) Why is it that a broken container of yogart(?) can sit on a step in our Multimillion dollar office building main staircase for OVER three days, yet I have to not only take my lunch tray back to the dishwashing station, but I have to scrap the foood waste from all the plates and stack my plates, cup, and silverware in separate bins? I thought they had immigrants for this work.
5) Why does almost everyone in this perfect model of Socialism find the need to tell me that President Obama is the best leader the USA has EVER had in their lifetime? First they must smell conservative after shave on me or something (Oh yes, Most of my liberal friends back home either refuse to use any personal hygine products "made by the man"; or to show how environmentally friendly they are, they only shower once a week, or LESS often). AND really, has NOBODY here heard of Richard Nixon?
And, in closing, the $700 BN DOLLAR Norwegian Oil Fund (the fund that keeps EVERYBODY HAPPY) just invested some money (a mere $600 million) for the first time in the USA. They bought minority shares in a number of commercial buidlings in New York, Boston, and Washington DC. I HOPE THE SELLER WAS NOT DONALD TRUMP!
Do I feel like WC Fields who said: All in all I'd rather be in Philadelphia? Stay tuned.