OSLO, Norway!

09 April 2015
Chris, Sascha and I headed out to catch our early flight to Oslo!!! I am pumped at this point. Norway has been on my list of 'ABSOLUTELY MUST VISIT' countries and it's finally happening. The flight took a little over 2 hours. I slept and read the entire way.

Keep in mind this was a RyanAir flight so we weren't actually in Oslo, the airport was in a city way south called Rygge but thankfully, RyanAir had a deal with the local bus company to transport RyanAir customers to and from the airport for RyanAir flights. The cost round trip was about NOK300 (~EUR30) . Pretty pricey considering I had just paid like EUR3 to get to the airport in Berlin but I digress....

The bus ride into the city took an entire hour but once we got there we were in the heart of the city. Now Oslo city center is nothing to go on about. It isn't London or Paris or Berlin. It's quaint, quiet, and fairly small but there's always something to do.  Anyway, we were in the bus/train station and walked around trying to find the VisitOslo store to buy our Oslo passes (NOK470) which gave us unlimited access to all local transportation (bus, train, tram, ferries to/from islands in the fjord), most museums and discounts at local attractions. It was well worth it. The three of us exhausted the use of those passes.

Once we got the passes, we took the train from the city center to Jar (right outside of Oslo in a city called Baerum). Our amazing Norwegian friend Miriam lent us her house for our stay. I'm eternally grateful for that. It saved us the cost of accommodation.

Later that afternoon we went back into the city to walk around and get our bearings. We also planned the rest of our stay in Norway.

10 April 2015
OK! First full day in Norway. This consisted primarily of visiting museums. We took the train into the city but first passed through a huge graveyard then to Frogner Park and The Vigeland Park. It was...interesting. So many statues and sculptures. I think it's a must-see if you're ever in Oslo. There's a whopping 212 bronze and granite sculptures all made by a single artist -- Gustav Vigeland. I loved it.

Then we walked up to the Akershus Fortress/Castle. It was used in the medieval times to protect Oslo (then Kristiana). I thought we would be able to go in but we couldn't. It was closed and is only open at strange hours.

Ok, then we took the ferry over to Bygdøy! I small island on the Oslo fjord that is home to many museums including the Viking Ship museum, the Norwegian Folk Museum, Polar Ship Fram Museum, Maritime Museum, Kon-Tiki Museum plus more.

We ended up visiting the Norwegian Folk Museum, one of Europe's largest open air museum, first. It was actually very impressive. I recommend it. It was interesting to see the different types of traditional houses from all over Norway and learn about the Sami culture, weapons, church services, etc.

Then we went to the Kon Tiki Museum. The original Kon Tiki raft is housed there. The history and the story behind the raft is incredible! I learned so much at that museum.

Finally we went to the Viking Ship museum. It was small. The viking ships were the only impressive thing about the museum but other than that it was quite forgettable (to be honest). There are a lot of artifacts left over from the Viking era and that was kinda cool.

The museums closed soooo early in Oslo for whatever reason :( many of them closed at 3 and the latest 5pm. That was disappointing because there was so much I wanted to see on Bygdøy but just couldn't because of the time restrictions.

Then we took some pictures and ate the cheapest street food we could find which was a 3 euro hotdog (before heading back to the mainland). It was delicious.

Alright, back on the mainland we decided to check out the Nobel Peace Center. At the time we were there, the Center was honoring Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai and showed the uniform she wore when she was shot. It made me cry.

The rest of the center showed the story of Alfred Nobel and featured a ton of amazing people around the world and their work. It was lovely (and interactive!!!)

Once that was over we headed to a cheap (by Norwegian standards...) supermarket to buy food and headed home.

At 10 or so Sascha and I went out to experience Oslo night life. Chris decided to stay home. We went to the area our friend suggested but it was kinda hard to find a pub. I think we were looking for Dublin-like pubs but such things don't exist in Oslo I guess. They were more 'coffee shop with a bar' type pubs than anything. Not like the 'pub with a dance floor or live music' scene we were used to. We walked around for what seemed like an eternity before settling on Ryes, an 50s American diner style pub in the Grünerløkka are of Oslo. They had pancakes, milkshakes and everything ahahaha! There was also a dancefloor with lots of carefree young people. I liked the pub. If I lived in Oslo I'd probably be there often.

We stayed out too late because the train we usually catch to go back to Jar wasn't running so we had to take a bus up to that part of town and walk about a half hour to the house. Luckily it wasn't too cold.

11 April 2015
Okay, by now Chris and I had had enough of museums. We'd been traveling around Europe and had grown tired of them and wanted to do as the locals did. We went ice-hiking! Our original plan was to go up to Holmenkollen Ski area of Oslo then make our way back down to Oslo but that changed as soon as we saw snow (it had been unusually warm the past couple days).

Anyway, we took the train up to the famous Holmenkollen recreation area and looked around the ski resort. It was sort of frightening, the ski jump. It was particularly foggy up there too. We couldn't see past a couple meters in front of us. Anyway, we walked around the area and visted the Holmenkollen museums before walking the trail for a few hours. See pictures below :)

We ended up at the most magical, ethereal looking lake. Lake Sognsvann. The absolute PERFECT end to our hike.

12 April 2015
Today was 'Tourist In Your Own City' day. The government gave out free 24 hour Oslo passes to any and everyone who was in Oslo on the 12th. There were so many families out and about making use of free transportation and free entrance to museums and attractions . We went into the city and took the ferry over to another island called Hovedya. It's a tiny island in the Oslofjord but it was so lush and green! Again, it was unusually warm so there were little kids taking a dip in the water. I was not that brave. There is also a monastery on the island worth running around/checking out.

When we got back we noticed the Akershus Fortress were letting people in! So we ran in line to check that out. The line was pretty long considering entrance was free and it's barely ever open. It's worth checking out plus there's a cafe if you get hungry.

When that was over I had realized that we didn't get to visit the Munch museum. I'll be honest, I really wanted to visit the museum and would probably cry due to regret if I hadn't but alas we made it in time! We ran to the downtown station to catch the train to the Munch museum stop with about 15 minutes to spare before closing time. When we got there, to my surprise, there was such a long line! It was probably for a couple reasons-- the free Oslo pass thing and also the fact that it was the last day of the Munch + Melgaard exhibit. Anyway, it took a lifetime to get through the line and into the museum.

The exhibit was..uh......interesting. I admire Edvard Munch. I think he's brilliant, his artwork is amazing. Melgaard, I thought, was overbearing. The museum admitted that his work isn't strong enough to have an exhibit of his own and it's true. I thought he tried too hard to be offensive/edgy but that's just my opinion. The security guard I spoke to said the next exhibit was going to be Van Gogh + Munch. I wanted to die, that would have been perfect.


13 April 2015
One cannot visit Norway without skiing. I would be ashamed of myself if I were to leave without at least trying to ski so that's what we did on our last full day! Miriam's mom (God bless her) gave us some amazing Norwegian hot chocolate and proper skiing attire before sending us off. We rented skiing equipment for about EUR 25-40. I don't remember the price but I know it definitely wasn't more than that. I thought "okay, sliding on snow... no big deal, I got this" but to this day I can't think of anything more difficult that skiing hahaha! I tried to get used to it for some time but they were so big and cumbersome.

Anyway we skied for a few hours. I was either on my bum or eating snow most of the time. So difficult. I'd LOVE to have proper ski lessons. That would be fun.