To be fair: I'm American and live in Norway and have for a bit over 5 years now. I have found lunches to be a bit different. While you can sit by yourself and r

To be fair: I'm American and live in Norway and have for a bit over 5 years now. I have found lunches to be a bit different. While you can sit by yourself and read, you can also be part of a group really easily. In language and civics classes, we were encouraged to sit down and talk to others at lunches and breaks - especially if we were working somewhere with a common lunch time. I don't find social pressure to bring what everyone else brings and others are usually a bit jealous when someone brings in something yummy. In context, the lunches are about like a peanut butter or baloney sandwich or something. Not really... bland, per se, but non-offensive. You can also pass some of the options off as healthy, which helps. In any case, you still get some of those social aspects even if you don't get the change of scenery that usually goes along with them.