I’ve been traveling through the Torp Sandefjord airport quite a bit lately, since my London habit receives tremendous support from Ryanair’s consistently incredible offers on that particular stretch and Sandefjord is the city that Ryanair pretends is Oslo. With some planning it is quite easy to make the trip at a tenth of the cost (I have even seen a twentieth) of their competitors here. One thing I have noticed is that the tiny souvenir shop at Torp has an excellent selection of unusual items.
From a report in the online version of the northern Norwegian newspaper Bladet Tromsø, we learn that this year Norway- and moose-themed underpants have been the souvenir hit with visitors to Norway. If you scroll down through the article, you will see their popular moose briefs. Shopkeeper Renee Brekkli confesses that typical souvenirs do not attract the traveling Norwegian.
“If I see something that Norwegians wouldn’t buy, then I will stock it. The foreign tourists will buy it,” Renee says, granting the newspaper an insight into the economics of international souvenir culture.
One of the things that particularly amused me at Torp recently was a range of wooden moose that included what was clearly a poke at the classic Swedish Dala horse.
Dala horse - a little piece of Sweden
Here is the Norwegian response:
Some very Norwegian moose
If you find yourself tempted by this kind of bric-a-brac or the thought of moose apparel, there are a few places to visit from afar. Norwegian Tees does some amusing shirts with very typical subject matter (if you’re wondering what they mean by ‘Jippi!” that’s how Yippee! is spelled here).
Norske Ting (Norwegian Things) handles a wide line of trinkets, but despite having a business that you would think was aimed at least indirectly at foreigners, the site does not appear to have a single page in English. Presumably an email will get you some guidance around the shop.
All the moose 