Out in Oslo

Hello!

I've been in Oslo for 2 nights now... the train trip here was OK, met some friendly sweedish people... seems like more sweeds in Denmark and Norway than locals! Well, on the trains, anyway.

Okay... first of all a bit more about Copenhagen. The last I told you was that I wanted to listen to live music... well... that didn't happen! I ended up sleeping for 2 hours... which was quite annoying! But I think all the hours touring are catching up with me! Ohh in the afternoon I went to look at Christiania... it's this part of the city where squatters took over an abandoned government complex in the 70's... and they're still there! It's actually quite colourful... and not exactly clean, but really interesting. They had tons of marijuana for sale at all these kiosks, people living in dodgey looking apartments (but with satellite TV!)... they have some pubs and a concert venue there as well. The next day I went to look at some castles... caught a train for an hour to the first one (Helsingør... which perhaps sounds more familiar as Elsinore - Hamlet's castle!) and did a tour through the dungeon-ey bit and saw some interesting castle rooms - the "Scottish Suite". It's great how European history is beginning to merge together! In Scotland I learned a little about James the 6th of Scotland (who became James 1st of England)... he took a Danish wife, Princess Anne, who's father (Frederich the 2nd) built the castles and whose brother (Christian the 4th) rebuilt and extended them. I believe that some of the buildings in Olso were also built by him (Norway was part of Denmark then). Anyway, so James and Anne stayed in these rooms... ! Well this prolly wasn't that interesting for you, but it is for me, OK? Stop yer whining over history lessons!

The second castle was really spectacular - I didn't go in, but walked around it... it was situated on a few little islands - the foundations jutting right out of this nice lake! Took waaay too many photos. There was a nice baroque garden there too. So overall, a pretty good day.

So, on to Norway! I arrived pretty late, so my first day I didn't see anything much, but yesterday was pretty crazy! I met Dave, this crazy yankee guy who sold his house and business and just went travelling. After carrying bags for two german girls on to the tram, and then to the train station (gee aren't we pushovers!) then we took off and saw the viking ship museum... Dave talks and talks! I mean... more than me (did you believe it was possible) so it took us ages to see a relatively small museum. Instead of rushing, we decided to go to the centre of town. There we ended up buying all this local delicacies.... reindeer salami, this "rotten fish" stuff, which is actually piccled fish (they do tons of herring here! Like there's 3 kinds of herrings in the breakfast buffet!), this potato bread stuff that you eat with sugar and butter, or roll ham up inside, just tons of food! So it was expensive (like everything here!) but twas good to have a feast!

Afterwards, I went out with Kent... a Norwegian who feels more at home in Spain, and Olaf from Alaska. We went to a pub, then to this nightclub... twas expensive to get in, but I'd already had a few beers with dinner so it was quite a cheap night! Well, at least compared to what the others spent. It was a fancy place with a dance area, a live music area, a restaurant, a lounge bar... was quite nice. There was a huge age range inside though! Like from 20's to 50's... so that was really weird! They actually film television shows from inside the bar... stand up comedy and live bands I think. I met quite a few Norwegians... they had all had a few and were quite happy! I thought they all knew each other, but it turns out they were all just ppl mingling! I suppose I'm not used to going to venues and seeing ppl other than in their 20's mingle. Last night was the night where they turn back the clocks one hour... so it closed at 3, but we'd had from 1am to 2am twice! We ate some food (mmmm baked pototo) and we climbed into this illegal taxi to go home! That was strange... I think it's quite common here, because you can't flag down taxis, you have to book them. Ended up being quite cheap, so that was OK.

Today, even with the extra hour sleep (or partying... actually we partied for the extra hour) it was hard to wake up for brekky... luckily on Sunday, brekky stops at 10am, not 9:30! You don't want to miss brekky here... the rooms are expensive (175Kr, so about $44 a night) and that includes breakfast... so sleeping in costs you money! [was about to explain the buffet here but I did it earlier! Arghh writing entries in multiple stages is prolly as confusing for you as it is for me!]. After brekky I had a slow morning... saw Lisa (from Switzerland, who I might visit there) and Alaskan Olaf off from the front of the hostel, and headed out to this kewl ski jumping place with Sam and Owen from London. On the way down to the tram, we were talking about buying tickets... and they hadn't yet bought any tickets for public transport since they arrived here (a few days ago).... now this is quite a common backpacker occurence... it just so happens that not all backpackers have my luck! We didn't buy tickets, and the inspectors came, and they nearly fined us 750Kr! (nearly $190!) That would've sucked... luckily the poms know how to get in and out of trouble... they played the dumb tourists while I remained largely silent, and we got off with warnings! Hrmm I'll stick to my policy of buying tickets!

So, tonight I returned to the hostel for a bit, then ventured out again (the ticket I ended up buying is a 24 hr validity one). I ate some HJ's (BK over here) and walked to Vigeland Park. The park has tons of statues of naked people in various positions... adults with kids, adults with adults... it was pretty dark, but the statues were lit enough to see most of them. I caught a tram back to the centre of town (accidently bypassing this net cafe) then walked back here again... and it's 3 degrees c outside!

3 degrees is quite OK actually... looking at your comments recently all the aussies are like "ooh stay out of the cold" and the canadians are like "go Sam! You'll be tougher than the snow!"... So... haha where's the support from home??!?! I'm looking on this as training for living in London - and I never wanted a sit back and do nothing holiday... challenging yourself is good! And that includes (for me) being able to survive in these northern hemisphere chills!

OK... so the plan from now... go upstairs in the net cafe and drink a cup of coffee! :-)

Tomorrow I'll head off to Stockholm... I want to catch the 7:30am train... I have a feeling I can still get there if I miss it, but I don't want to arrive at night if I can help it! I imagine I'll be there for a few days... I still have to work out if I'll catch a ferry to Helsinki - it's supposedly pretty cheap, and Finland is supposedly quite different than the Scandinavian countries! I'll probably miss Amsterdam this time around - it's so easy to get to from the UK that it prolly makes sense to do Helsinki instead. Still on the "will see sometime" list though... have heard good things!

OK... not much net time left. Take care y'all :-)

Posted by Sam at October 27, 2002 07:14 PM