Day 22 - 26 Oslo

8 - 12 August 2014

Day 22

In the airport

I'd looked to see what time the last train from Oslo airport to the city left and I assumed I probably wouldn't be able to get my bag and go through customs then find the train in 30 minutes so I didn't bother booking a hostel for the night. As it turned out the flight was delayed so I definitely missed the train and the plan was to sleep in the airport. It's the first time I've slept in an airport so I wasn't sure what to expect but I wasn't the only one with this idea, there must've been at least 50 other people doing the same and because they got there first, they had all the good spots like couches. I ended up sleeping on the soft mat for a kids playground and I had a surprisingly good sleep plus I saved a night on a hostel in the process.

Day 23

Train

After I woke up and made myself beautiful (takes hardly any time) I caught the train into town. The train was really modern and had WiFi on board. Is there anything the Norwegians do that doesn't have WiFi?

Waiting

The hostel I'd booked didn't open reception until 10am so I had a few hours to kill. It was clear blue skies and nice and sunny so I made my way to a park. I expected that heading north from Scotland would make it colder and rainier but that wasn't the case. I had a nice snooze in the park on a bench but I was woken up by two cops on horses. Luckily they were just checking everything was ok, I wasn't in trouble.

Sleeping on the bench

After checking in, I went for a walk to the supermarket. On the way I noticed all the traffic lights have double red guys. They always change together so I'm not sure why. Maybe to make it extra obvious not to cross?

Double red guy power!

The strange thing I found in the supermarket was what I thought was ham and bacon in a tube but it turned out to be cheese flavoured like ham or bacon. I tried the bacon one and it's quite nice. It does actually taste like bacon.

Ham or bacon flavoured cheese

Catching up
In the evening I caught up with a friend who used to live in Adelaide but now lives in Oslo. His room mate also came along and we went to a bar first followed by a Vietnamese restaurant. We had a good talk and I learnt some more about Norway and got some suggestions on things to see.

Day 24
Breakfast
The hostel had a kitchen but no bowls so I had to improvise.

A cereal vessel

Holmenkollen
The mission for today was to catch the metro up the hill to see the ski jump. When I got there, I saw people doing a zip line from the top of the jump.

That dot is a person on a zip line.

I also saw...

A moose

and took the obligatory selfy.

Obligatory selfy

I went for a walk around to see if I could get a good view out over the city and on the way I saw...

A big troll guy

A guy road skiing (not sure what it's called) because there's a track near the jump.

I don't always have a garden but when I do, it's on my roof.

I managed to get a bit of a view of the city out over some toboggan tracks but the trees were in the way.

Attempt 1 at a panorama of Oslo

Then I walked up to the hotel near the jump and tried again but the trees are still in the way.

Attempt 2 at a panorama of Oslo

And finally I got something passable just above the metro station.

Attempt 3 at a panorama of Oslo

Vigelandsparken
I then caught the metro back toward town but jumped off a few stops earlier than mine to go see the statue park. It's quite a nice park with lots of greenery.

First view of the park

Then you see a statue and notice they're all naked.

Naked people statue

And then you see a gate and notice that has naked people art work in it.

Naked people gate

Then you see the centre piece and it's a very phallic tower of naked people surrounded by other naked people.

Naked people obelisk

They're all naked!!!

*gasp*

Then you take a photo with an iron boob.

Iron boob. I was trying to line my eye up with the nipple but failed.

There's also a circle of naked people.

Naked people circle

And then on the walk out there's a bridge lined with all sorts of statues. Some of them are a bit worrying like a guy kicking babies and others aren't so bad, like this.

Not so bad statue

And just as I was leaving I noticed this.

A naked lady wind vane

Royal Palace
I then walked over and had a look at the palace and saw the changing of the guards.

The Royal Palace

Day 25

Frognerseteren

Today I caught the metro up past the ski jump to the end station at the top of the hill, called Frognerseteren. The plan was to follow the walking trails up there because a site I found said they're really good. The station had a weird contraption:

A something holder at the station

There were a lot of signs but some pointed to trails that didn't seem to be there. I found it kind of hard to follow because they seemed inconsistent with the names of places they pointed to or you'd have two signs, each put up by different organisations, that would point to the same place but vary in distance by 200m. In the end I just ignored the signs are started walking. Some of the paths were interesting.

A boardwalk

And there were some nice sights to be seen.

A snow-less ski slope

A lake

I also spotted a bin to stick half of your pants in.

A pant bin

And a tipi.

A tipi

In the end the trails weren't as great as the website made them out to be but I did have fun however I still didn't get a view out over the city so the one from yesterday will have to do.

Day 26

Castle

I met an Irish guy in the hostel and we headed out to see the castle.

The castle in Oslo

The castle walls gave a good view of the harbour.

Oslo harbour

Military Museum

Then we went to the military museum because it was close and free.

They had a tank

And a stubby cannon

And another tank but you could sit in this one

There was some interesting information in here. It seems that Norway is involved in a lot of things around the world and it was also different to read about everything military related in a positive way. They seemed to spin all the stories to make them sound positive, which isn't a bad thing, it's simply different to what I normally see in "regular" museums.

Then, at some stage in the museum the Irish guy and I lost each other. The place isn't that big so I had a look around but couldn't find him. I waited outside for a bit but he didn't come out so I'm still not sure if he bailed on me or thought I bailed on him or what happened. I feel really bad because I don't like losing people. I thought we were getting on ok. :(

Back to the hostel

On the way back to the hostel I grabbed a picture of a giant Lego spiderman.

Lego spiderman!

And the trolls you see everywhere.

Tourist friendly troll

I hung around at the hostel for a bit and met more people in those few hours than the rest of my time in Oslo and then headed to the train station to catch an overnight train to Stavanger.

Thoughts on Oslo

• It is expensive like everyone says. Norway in general, not just Oslo.
• I couldn't find anywhere to get a decent panorama of the city.
• It's a ghost town early on a Saturday morning and a lot is closed on a Sunday.
• Oslo gets nicer weather than the UK. When the sun is out, it's great.
• As soon as you're outside the city centre, almost all houses are made of wood.
• There are a lot of troll statues around the city also apparently these are smaller and nicer looking than the ones from folklore.