The Norwegian Diet

So this past weekend I went off to get in touch with my Scandinavian roots. Flights were cheap and I had an open weekend, so it was off to Oslo, Norway for me!

OSLO!

 Elisa and I left early Friday (April 1st, 2011) to meet at Brussels Gare du Nord to catch the bus to Charleroi airport. After the hour bus ride we booked it through security, where poor Elisa got half her toiletries taken away from here, and then we boarded the ever so janky Ryanair plane. This would be my first time flying the famous Ryanair and wasn't really sure what to expect. People told it would be a rough experience, overall once you get over the janky factor its ok. The thing that I disliked about the flight was getting off in Moss, Norway and then having to switch my currency from euros to kroners to pay for yet another hour long bus ride to arrive in Oslo. First impressions of Norway were hey, this looks an awful lot like the midwest for their was still snow on the ground and everyone was bundled up. Second impression was my dear sweet baby Jesus is Norway expensive! When you first see the price of things and see that a Coke costs 26, you cannot believe your eyes, then you realize that its in Norwegian kroner, which is really about 3.4 euro. Gross. Having recently written a 20 page paper about Norway one would think that I would have realized it would be an expensive place, in fact the most expensive city in the world, but for some reason I thought I would be able to handle all that Norway was to throw at me. I was, in fact, mistaken. Needless to say, Elisa and I kept within our budgets this weekend, but overall didn't get to purchase anything.

So after all our transits, we arrived in Oslo around 2:30pm. After walking around in a circle for another 15 minutes, we made it to our hostel. Lucky for us our hostel was in the center of town, so truly in a great location. Unfortunately, we had no idea just how small the city actually is, so when we decided to find the Opera, we walked in a giant circle around the city before the realized that it was literally 2 blocks away from where we were staying. So in our wanderings, we got to see a first hand look at the North Sea and then did in fact see the Opera House. Its the winner of the 2009 EU prize for contemporary architecture.

Standing on top of the Opera House

Opera House

 After the Opera House, we walked to a grocery store passing by the Stock Exchange and some theatres, and when we got dinner, we returned to our hostel for some warmth. By now, it was raining out and quite cold so we decided to watch Back to the Future and call it a night.

Stock Exchange

Saturday (April 2nd) we got up and I was determined for us to have a good day, and in fact we had a great day! It was a not-so-great night, but a lovely day despite the cold and confusion of currency. So, we got up and eat breakfast, then went off on Karls Johans Gate to see the Oslo Cathedral.

Oslo Cathedral

After the Cathedral, we walked down to Parliament for they were having a free tour at 11:30am. We got there by 11:20am, and they turned us away saying it was full, so we just took pictures of the outside and continued on. Next, we say the National Theatre where playwrights like Ibsen and Shakespeare are often performed, then we were off to the Royal Palace. At the Royal Palace we decided that Norwegian men are the way to go as we got one of the guards to smile for our pictures. Plus, we got to watch and see the changing of the guards!

Parliament

Elisa at the Royal Palace

Guard at the Royal Palace

Ibsen Museum

Once that was over, we went walked to the Henry Ibsen Museum, then to the Oslo 2011 headquarters of the skiing championship this winter. From there, we went to the National Gallery, which in all the guides claimed to be free, but alas upon arrival we found it it was not, and it was hosting a special exhibit of Antwerpen art, and since I've now been to Antwerp three times, I feel I have made my piece with Rubens and the rest of the Antwerp artists. So, we left there and went to the City Hall. The City Hall was quite beautiful on the inside, and since we were quite cold outside we spent a far amount of time inside appreciating the architecture and a place to sit down.

City Hall

After we left the City Hall, we went to National Peace Center where we learned about the Peace Prize and got to see the location of where the winners receive their award. Pretty cool!

Peace Center

 Next, we did something that Elisa and I had been laughing about all week. We saw a castle! That's right, A CASTLE! Akershus Fortess, the old fortress built for King Magnusson. It was fun to see the castle and walk around it. They too had guards surveying the grounds, but since we had seen the changing of the guards at the palace, we missed seeing the guards change here.

The only picture of Elisa and I from the entire weekend at Akershus Slott

 Leaving the castle, we decided it was time to check out the public transport and go to the Vigeland Sculpture Park. Sadly, we don't know how to read a map nor Norwegian, so we ended up taking the metro all the way to the end of the line thinking we were at the park. Reasons why we should have realized we were going in the wrong direction: 1. we went all the way up a mountain. 2. The only people left on the metro by the time the line ended had skis. 3. When we  got off the metro, there was nothing, no signs, no lights, no people, nothing but snow and fog. So long story short and after about 10 minutes of aimlessly walking discussing how we were in a prime situation for a horror movie-esque mistake to happen, we asked a man where the sculpture garden was. He just laughed and was like not here, then directed us back about 20 metro stops closer to the center of the city to the park.

Lost in the mountains of Norway!

Eventually, we made it back on track and made it safely to the Vigeland Sculpture Park. It was cool, but so foggy it was hard to see! After we walked around the park and appreciated some sculptures, we departed back to our hostel. There we warmed up for a while and had dinner. Since it was only 7pm we decided to watch another movie before we went out. We watched I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry with the Norwegian kid and the two Portuguese people staying in our room. After that we were determined to go out and see Norway at night. Big mistake. All of our travel books and websites we had looked at pointed us in the direction of Aker Brygge, a posh little neighborhood on the North Sea. Unfortunately, it seems as though the only people that go out in Oslo are middle to older aged people, probably because everything is so darn expensive! So we walked around that area for a while before we realized that everyone was leaving because like Brussels all public transportation stops at midnight. So, not wanting to get lost and try to walk back to our hostel late at night, we took the tram back. Once we were back, we walked over to the Karl Johans Gate to see a whole other side of Oslo than what we had seen during the day. Every street corner for about a 3 mile radius was home to a prostitute looking to make some money. In a country with one of the largest social welfare systems in the world, there should have been no need for this. Similarly, there were countless homeless people asking us for money, which we simply did not have. And finally, we witnessed numerous drug deals. Oslo, not what I thought I was getting myself into, and not quite what Epcot had portrayed. After being quite upset with the night, we stopped at Cafe de Luca and got a pint of Ben and Jerry, walked back to the hostel, watched the Sopranos, and called it a night.

Vigeland Sculpture Park

ART

Sunday (April 3rd) we got up late and ate breakfast. We took our time getting ready, since it was kind of a slower day. Then, we checked out of our hostel, walked on Karls Johan Gate again to see the vast difference of it during the morning, walked back to our hostel then went to the bus stop to catch the bus back to the airport. From the airport, we took a plane back to Charleroi, then took another bus back to Brussels. We were so happy to be back in Belgium! It was a good weekend and we saw a lot, but I don't know if I will make the stop back to Norway unless I have oddles of money!