Norwegian Saga

When you think you’re being clever but later realize you were the farthest thing from. Allow me to elaborate.

A few weeks ago I applied for my folk number (read about it here), that’s the social insurance number equivalent here in Norway. I neglected to tell you the best part of the story though. You see, in trying to find the folkregistry all I really had was a poorly printed googlemap of the area, without even really knowing where on the map I was supposed to be, I just had the street name, thankfully it wasn’t a long street.

I stepped out of the subway station and into the neighbourhood of Tøyen. I stood for a minute talking to Anne on the phone, I forget about what, then when we got off the phone I stood for another minute trying to get my bearings. I love maps (the older the cooler) and I’m usually quite good with them. Well for some reason I really couldn’t get a handle on how I oriented on the map, like I was lost without having moved further than twenty metres from the subway. Of course I still had the station in my view so I knew I could leave at any time but I needed to get a folk number. So with nothing for it I started walking in the direction I thought was right.

Well because I’m writing about it I obviously set off in the wrong direction, thankfully not the opposite direction but not the correct one. After walking for some five minutes, I saw street names that were on my little printed bit of map but I still couldn’t orient myself. Long story short, I walked a some 1050m according to google maps, when the distance from the sub station to the office was 80m. It wasn’t until I got to the corner of Jens Bjelkes and Eiriks that I knew where I was.

Enjoy the pictorial representation. The “M” is the metro station.