Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
arriving in town after the TI closes, call ahead or pick up a map in a neighbor-
ing town.
Most big cities publish a
This Week in...
or
What's On...
guide (to Oslo,
Bergen, Stockholm, Helsinki, and Tallinn, but not Copenhagen). These are
free, found all over town, and packed with all the details about each city
(24-hour pharmacy, embassies, tram/bus fares, restaurants, sights with hours/
admissions/phone numbers), plus a useful calendar of events and a map of the
town center.
While TIs are eager to book you a room, they're a good deal only if you're
in search of summer and weekend deals on business hotels. A TI can help you
find small pensions and private homes, but you'll save yourself and your host
money by going direct with the listings in this topic.
In Scandinavia, English is all you need. These days every well-educated
Scandinavian seemstospeakEnglish.Still,knowingthekeywordsinthelan-
guage of the country you are visiting is good style and helpful.
Each country has its own language. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are
so closely related that locals can laugh at each other's TV comedies. The lan-
guages are similar to English but with a few extra letters (Æ, Ø, Ö, Å, Ä).
These letters barely affect pronunciation, but do affect alphabetizing. If you
can't find, say, Årjäng in a map index, look after
Z.
Finnish and Estonian are
vastly different from the other Scandinavian languages and English; in fact,
Here are a few words you'll see and hear a lot (these are all Norwegian;
the Danish and Swedish versions differ slightly):
takk
(thanks),
gammel
(old),
lille
(small),
stor
(big),
slot
(palace),
fart
(trip),
centrum
(center),
gate
(street),
øl
(beer),
forbudt
(not allowed), and
udsalg
,
salg
, or
rea
(sale). For more, see
the survival phrases later in the appendix. Give it your best shot. The locals
will appreciate your efforts.
