Oslo: not enough fjords

It's been a very eventful week here in Scandinavia. It began with two exams, one of which I didn't realize I had until the day before because I didn't bother to look at my schedule. But don't worry, I aim only to pass, and that I am sure (or pretty sure) I did. After my two days of actual work, things went back to normal and I decided to go on a little trip to another one of my many homelands.

The destination was Oslo, Norway. I went with Karoline, a funny German girl who I did my dental implant paper with for biomedical materials. We left on Tuesday night for the 8 hour bus ride to Oslo. The plan was the sleep on the bus. I brought my pillow and my sleeping pills, but alas, I could not sleep. We arrived around 5:30 am and couldn't check into the hostel until 1 pm. A fun morning ensued. We sat in a Burger King for a few hours until stuff started opening. (More Burger Kings in Oslo than McDonalds, a first in any of the European cities I've visited) We went to the National Gallery and saw The Scream (Edvard Munch = Norwegian) and ate at Peppe's Pizza, the best American pizza chain in Norway I'm told. And I have no doubt that is true...Norway is a very small country after all. After a morning of walking around half asleep, we finally were able to check into the hostel and proceeded to take a nap. Afterwards, we visited the newly opened opera house. Its quite a unique building. We walked up the roof (see picture to understand how this is possible) and took lots of pictures. We continued the sightseeing the rest of the evening, probably had dinner at some point, and went out for a drink to my favorite Scandinavian chain of Irish pubs, The Dubliner. I had one beer for 75 Norwegian kroner (11 dollars) and decided I would never drink in Norway again, especially if I wanted enough money to get home.

The Norwegian Opera & Ballet

Day two in Norway was rainy and cold, what the Germans call "dog weather" I was told, but we were still out there, seeing what else Oslo had to offer. We visited the viking ship museum in the morning. The museum had 3 viking ships, later used as burial ships, for sailing around in the afterlife I suppose, from around the year 900. They were in very good condition considering the age. You must now be thinking that I have a weird obsession with old ship museums, but its not my fault, its what the Swedes and Norwegians like to display in their countries. So after that museum we went to the Gustav Vigeland sculpture garden consisting of over 200 statues by the same guy of humans at different stages of life displaying a variety of emotions. My favorite one was of a man kicking a baby. I guess its ok to kick babies in Norway. Perhaps its my Norwegian blood that makes me not so crazy about babies. Its only those darn kittens that reduce me to a girly mess. That night we took a trip up into the hills to visit a restaurant I had read about in my guide book, Frognerseteren. Getting there was a bit sketchy though. We took the tunnelbana (subway) to the last stop on the line, this too was called Frognerseteren. The stop was outside with nothing and nobody around except the forest. We eventually found a sign leading down a hill that said 'restaurant' and figured this was what we wanted. The path was dark. I kept tripping on rocks, keeping an eye out for rapists and murderers hiding in the woods. Very scary. But I suppose my fears are misplaced in somewhere like Norway. The food was good and the view was nice. So on your next trip to Oslo, I highly recommend it. Well this is getting a bit long so I'll speed things up here. The third day in Oslo was spent walking and shopping and trying to spend the rest of my money. We took the bus home on Saturday, another 8 hours of fun, and arrived in time for the big end of exams party at the student union.

A baby being kicked at the Vigeland sculpture park

I fear that my posts from now on may be less interesting, as I think I might cut back on the ridiculous amount of travelling. Although I have excellent news. 1 dollar now equals 7.9 kroner (up from 5.8 in August) Yay global economic crisis! So until next time guys, Happy Halloween!