Oslo
It was a chilly, overcast morning. Having forced myself to stay awake and not being able to sleep comfortably on the bus anyway, I felt quite bleary and tired. I was planning to stay in Oslo with another couchsurfer, Charlotte. I had contacted her a few days earlier, but I couldn't give her the exact time I would be arriving (because as you can see, I didn't even know it myself). Because it was a Tuesday, I assumed she'd be at work. Worse was the fact that it was 7:30 in the morning, and she was probably still asleep at the time, and I didn't want to wake her up by calling. So I decided to wait, and explore Oslo for the day before meeting her.
But the first thing I did after getting off the bus was grab something to eat. I went to a newsagent and, surprised at the high prices, went for a 3-for-1 offer of bollers. Apparently a boller is a traditional Norwegian food, sweet bread you can have for breakfast or snack, so unknowingly I had tasted the national delicacy. They were very nice too!
The second thing I did in Oslo was be amazed that I was in Oslo. Damn, I had made it. I guess it felt unbelievable because it had taken me a whole day and night to get here. I remember thinking, every step of the way will be the furthest north I've ever been...
I wandered around the Oslo main train station for a while, looking for the lockers where I can store my bags. I liked the train station, which felt more like an airport, and one from the 1980's, or maybe 70's, modern, but retro-modern! It probably felt more like an airport, because other train stations (well, ones that I know) look like they were built in the late 1800's, with big exposed metal beams and curved roofs, this one looked like I was built in the golden age of aviation, i.e. the 70's.
In there I also saw an example of alcoholism. I wonder why this one stuck to my head, I mean it's not as if they have plenty of those in Germany. It was quite a young guy in the train station, at 8 in the morning, walking around quite unsteadily. Damn, that must have been a party!
After this tour of the station, I started walking around Oslo. I can't believe how deserted the city was on a Tuesday at 8:30 in the morning, do Norwegians/Osloians live in luxury so that they leave the house to work at 9 AM or something?
From the train station I walked south towards the harbour, to see the ocean, or better said, fjord. Despite the fact that it is "by the sea", Oslo is about 100 km away from "open waters", with the narrow fjord covering most of this distance. After walking to the water, my feet were already killing me that I had a sit down on a pier. On this pier there were several people fishing, what a relaxing way to spend a cloudy morning, I wondered if they didn't have jobs to go to. There were about 6 or 7 of the fishers, all about 3 meters away from each other. A strange social event, I thought, I guess they didn't feel comfortable sitting closer to each other. So I also sat about 3 meters away from the last person on the "row", and enjoyed the scenery.
The fjord looked more like a lake, because on the horizon it was surrounded by mountains. Across where we were sitting was another part of Oslo, under construction. On the water there were big ships and ferries, from far away distances I'm sure, ferries that I would be on if I took a more conventional way of travelling - I wondered how it would feel to travel 24 hours or more on them (actually from Copenhagen it would take 16 hours 30 mins - a bit faster than the time I needed).
Next to me a father and his son had set up their "base" and were setting up their fishing lines to also fish. The man threw his line in, and as soon as it hit the water, it was wrigling. "As!" he said, which I guess means "Ace!", i.e. "Hole in one!". That was pretty cool. He got the fish out of the water and in the air, it was a big one too, but it wriggled its way out of the hook and into the safe water. Damn, I guess that was disappointing after all.
Quiet Morning
After a few more minutes of staying there, wondering how fishes would perceive a dangling worm in the water, I continued my exploration of Oslo. Close by was the Akershus Festning, i.e. Askershus Fortress, a cool big green area surrounded by steep cliffs, with a few buildings inside.
By this time there were more people around, in the form of tourists, who came in buses. But the fortress was so large that it didn't feel full. A lot of times I would hear German conversations, I guess the place is quite popular for them. I wandered around the area, again and again feeling tired. There was an interesting museum with the history of Oslo, and at another place, there was a video presentation of the Kingdom of Norway. 2 versions of the video, in English and Norwegian, were played in alteration, with the change being done by a girl who had to do it every time the video ended. Being tired as hell, I decided to sit down and watch the video, and managed to fall asleep during the middle. I hope they didn't take my gesture as finding Norway's history boring.
The Harbour from Above
After feeling that I've seen enough, I left the fortress and started to walk to the city centre. Turning a corner after the fortress, I encountered the giant hand. A wave of amazement hit me, because I recognize this sculpture from Top Gear, a British TV show about cars that I am a big fan of. In one episode, the 3 hosts had a race; go from London to Oslo using 2 different methods - by plane (to Newcastle), ferry and powerboat; and by car, but not just an ordinary car, but a McLaren Mercedes SLR. And not just an ordinary route, but through land, i.e. from England across the channel to France, through Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. Their finishing point was the sculpture of the hand in Oslo, and the episode had a great montage of the silver SLR being driven by Jeremy Clarkson (one of the hosts), going around the streets of Oslo as he was looking for it.
So, laughing like a dumb fanboy, I was amazed that I was at a place where one of my heroes had been, or maybe more amazed that I am at a place that I know from TV-land.
I took a few pictures, and I continued walking the rectangular streets of Oslo, enjoying the cool buildings. Eventually I made it to the main pedestrian area, Karl Johans Gate. At that time there were more people. I walked back to the train station (it being straight down the street) to try to contact Charlotte again. Trying the phone
any more to do what, to be honest. Retracing my emails I know I sent an email to Charlotte, I tried to call her before that, but the phone said something in Norwegian which I failed to understand. I also got lunch in the form of a kebab, paying 49 NOK for it, which is about 6.20 EUR. That's twice the price of kebab in Karlsruhe, so I remember thinking "this better be really good!".
After this, being really tired, I decided to try to nap on one of the waiting areas of the station. I looked for a place which was reasonably quiet, without a lot of people traffic. This seemed to be the case near the terminal for the train that goes to the airport. So I sat down on one of the not really for sleeping seats, closed my eyes, and tried to nod off. The few times I woke up I think old ladies were looking at me strangely.
After this half sleep, I decided to continue exploring. I walked back up Karl Johans Gate, where there's a lot of tourists and tourist attractions, up to the castle which is at the end of the road. Around this castle was a park, which I used happily as a place to sleep!
Some time after 4 PM, I got an SMS from Charlotte, who just saw my email. She had been out of the city on a driving test where she had to go on mountain roads, and didn't hear her phone ring. We arranged to meet by the tiger at the front of the central station, and so we did. We walked to her place, in the hip area of Grünerløkka.
Charlotte's apartement was nice and big, she had just moved in, and was going to be living with her sister, who was going to join her in August.
After having a refreshing shower (keep in mind I had been on the road since yesterday morning), we went out to go to a meet organized by the Oslo CouchSurfing group. It was a cool party, with a lot of Osloans (I'm sure that's not the term for people living in Oslo!) and their CouchSurfing guests. It was great fun meeting the people who had come to Oslo, to visit and to live there. One thing that I found cool was how international it was, with people from a lot of different places. Here I also had a glass of the infamous Norwegian beer, infamous because of how expensive it is - 60 NOK in this case.
Feeling a bit hungry, Charlotte and I left to find something to eat. We went to Aker Brygge, another district in Oslo, this time a great harbourside modern development with shops and café. We enjoyed a meal at a shop (I had calzone, Charlotte had sushi) and a nice walk home. I was always paying attention to the sky to see if I had reached the region of 24-hour sun, so darkness always felt like a strange weird occurence, and somewhat surprising. "I can't believe it's getting dark!" I would always think.
But the darkness had its advantages, we got to see some sights of the city bathed with lights. We also ran into "Spirit of the Wild", an outdoor photo exhibition of nature by Steve Bloom, and enjoyed his really cool photos.
I went to sleep on Charlotte's comfortable IKEA sofa looking forward to exploring Oslo the next day.
I slept quite well in the couch, she had to wake me because she was a morning person and she probably wondered when I was going to get up. After a nice breakfast, we went to the local library so that I could check if anyone's responded to my couch request in Trondheim (yes I had somewhere to sleep), and after this we went on a tour of the city.
The first stop on this tour was Vigelandsparken, a nice park with strange sculptures. It was a great warm day, and the sun was shining for a change. As to the park itself, Charlotte told me a lot of people found it weird, I'm glad not just me.
We stayed there only for a short while, and we were hungry so we went for lunch in a nice little café. After this we walked to the city centre. Having seen a lot of things the day before, we were wondering what else I could/should see today, so we took the day quite easily. We went past the busy main street again, and having noticed the red Viking cap/hat the day before at a souvenir shop, I decided to buy it. "My one souvenir for this trip", I thought.
Before the trip, I was wondering if I should email the company that makes the best web browser in the world, Opera, to ask them if I could have a tour of their headquarters in Oslo. Unfortunately I never got around to do it. I wonder if they'd find the story of a man on his trip to Nordkapp that interesting anyway. I mentioned this fact to Charlotte, and she responded that she might be able to arrange something, because his former roommate, and the boyfriend of his sister, works there!
So after a few SMSes and calls, we walked to Opera, and met with Thomas, a sys-admin there. He gave us an informal tour of the - surprisingly large - complex. I found it surprising that he could give tours, we were going to the server room as well, too bad it was locked...
The Big Lebowski
Here's my second favorite scene of Big Lebowski, on YouTube. My favorite one also involves the door-stop...
After this we spent the evening inside, having a nice meal and watching The Big Lebowski . The first week had taken its toll in the form of tired legs, so it was good to relax.