Our Swedish Shopping Spree

As you may know, Norway is one of the most expensive places to live in the whole world. In order to save a little money, some Norwegians go shopping in Sweden, especially for meat, alcohol, and tobacco. Early in the semester, my roommate and I heard about a bus that drives students to a grocery store at the Swedish border, free of charge.

There are buses that take paying customers from Trondheim to Sweden daily, but there is only one bus that takes students for free. Every Thursday it picks up the first 50 lucky passengers to whisk them away to magical land where meat is only double the price as in the U.S., not quadruple.

Untold adventure awaits us!

We had a pleasant ride through the Norwegian countryside:

 Norway is beautiful

Once we crossed the border into Sweden, the excitement was palpable:

Eager shoppers

Sweden is… less beautiful

Our destination, the Coop Extra store in Storlien, Sweden:

Inside was crazy. The grocery store was small and their selection was not great. The fruit and vegetables were well picked-over when we arrived, but they had more than enough of my main target, frozen chicken breasts. We only had about half an hour to shop before the store closed and the bus headed back to Norway. It was a scramble to find all the things on my shopping list in time. A busload of students all looking for a lot of cheap food in a tiny grocery store was just a little hectic. Needing to translate the Swedish to English or Norwegian and convert the prices in my head added to the craziness.

In the excitement, I grabbed some things that seemed like good deals at the time, but turned out to be the same price in Norway. Most of the stuff I bought was cheaper than in Norway, but not by much. If you drive further into Sweden the prices get lower, but stores near the border have inflated prices.

On the way back home we sat behind some Norwegians (the only ones on the bus) and asked what they had bought. They had bought wine, snus, and sandwich supplies for dinner on the ride home. For them, it was not worth it to buy a bunch of stuff that was only a little cheaper than at home. They laughed at how much we bought and how excited we were about the whole process. So, the deals weren't as great as expected, but I saved a little money on groceries and got to go to Sweden. Not a bad afternoon!

Our Swedish loot at home

“I went to Sweden and all I got was this lousy cucumber”