By: Aaron Rutherford, Carter Petrella, Annika Wallace and Maren Miller
TOP BREAD SLICE: While traveling, food is one of the many expenses during a fun trip. This expense always seems to add up, so saving what you can allow for further opportunities during travel. This all comes down to being smart and cost efficient with money, for example, going to grocery stores, limiting how many times you go out, or watching prices of the food you purchase. All are great ways of conserving some money to again allow yourself to put more money towards other experiences.
LETTUCE: A very popular grocery store in Norway is Rema 1000, and conveniently enough, there’s one three minutes away from our hotel. I decided to go the first night we got to Trondheim because spending over $15 on one sandwich is not worth it. When entering, it looks like any other grocery store you’d find in America with sections like produce, meat, bread, and even frozen foods! One issue that I had while shopping was that you have to slice your bread yourself while in the store, and so I opted to have tortillas for my sandwich instead. There are two options for checking out: self checkout and checking out with a worker. Overall, the shopping experience was very similar to a Target or Cub Food, but just with Norwegian products.
CHEESE: Once we have the food, the next challenge is making and eating our meals. Several of us did not bring utensils or dishware, and we needed to get creative to put together our meals. Norway is an environmentally-conscious country, so plastic and other non-biodegradable utensils commonly used in the U.S. are rare. During our trip, we have thought of using stir sticks and the little spoons on yogurt containers as knives to spread our preferred sandwich dressings. We’ve used many different items as plates – folders, plastic and paper bags, and even occasionally towels. Ultimately, we have all been able to find our own ways to prepare food, although it may have put our creativity skills to the test.
MEAT: Now a little more in depth on the cost comparison of the different options. For groceries, Carter and I together spent a total of 320 NOK. We split this halfway so we each ended up spending 160 NOK or roughly $16. This bought us a loaf of bread, two packages of meat, cheese, spinach, pesto, chips, and a container of cookies. This will feed us for about 4 days which works out to about $4 per lunch for Carter and I. This is great when you compare this to spending $10-$15 for lunch at a cafe or fast food restaurant. We’ve enjoyed this experience because the money we’ve saved has allowed us to put more money towards different experiences like hikes or fancy dinners.
BOTTOM BREAD SLICE: All in all, it is up to you when making the most of your experience while traveling, and you are free to do this anyway you desire.
Hand model: Carter