The world's most expensive city: Welcome to Tigerstaden, better known as Oslo!! a trip to Norway's Capital 16. - 19. 02. 2006

: carvings on a viking's ship bow

Day I, Thursday 16th:

Having my head full with all kinds of bromides someone suddenly called my name!
It was Anja Mirgorodskaija from St. Petersburg!! I knew her from Kouvola, where
she has been a exchange back in 2004 as well. That pulled my out of
my thoughtful thinking ;)

Anja was on her way to Frankfurt, Germany to see her German BF Richard. He had been a exchange in Kouvola also and two weeks before he had to leave they fell in love. I think it happens more often to exchange students. Maybe it's the exchange students (fools) bonus.

She has to design the interior of a two floor coffeehouse as her final work and she showed me renderings of the building. She smoked a lot! And gave me a nice present of cranberries(?) in pure sugar, very good and Russian!! I wish a would remember the name of it now. Unfortunately I didn't have anything to give :-/. I hope she is doing fine in Germany now! Then I had to go to Flight KF509 to Gardermoen Airport, Oslo.

The flight was awesome!! Sweet! Okay, there is always sunshine above the clouds during daytime, but this sunshine was extraordinary nice. ...there was some cold snack too and the liquid that came with the tea said: "Tastes like fresh milk" that reminded me so much on the 2005 New York trip. Someone had had bought some Parkay Soft Margarine Spread, which had the ingenious "The Flavor Says Butter!!" slogan on it ;)

I took the local train from the airport to "Oslo S" Sentralstasjon (Central Railway Station). It took 30min, the train costed 82 NOK (~10€) and was god damn modern and fast. I wonder what the express-train would be?!? It seems Norwegian people have a soft spot for Gothic fonts, as the "I <3 Oslo" posters showed.

Walking by a nice tiger I met Tharuka in the tourist office. The boy had had a good time seeing the Fjords and everything and had been helped out of some transportation trouble by friendly locals!!

I have to say here: There are beautiful women all over the world but Norway definitively has a good share on them!!!

We went up the Karl Johan gate to see the ~300 year old Oslo Cathedral, a massive building with a strange mixture of gold decoration and simplicity inside. It seems very Nordic to me, probably because it is. The high altar contains a picture of Jesus having the Lord's Supper with his apostles. What they have on the plate to eat looks like a dog.

We walked by the Wesselsplass (the parliament) in the direction of the Slottet, the Royal Palace. On the way we wanted to eat some "traditional reasonable priced meat balls" but no way. This city just explodes in your wallet!! But we were lucky that Ramschi, the owner of the small snack place next door hat some mercy with us. He said something like "I know how it is if you are traveling and hungry" and gave us everything double!! That was nice and we got full. We just continued to walk the city down to the Aker Brygge at the port and also saw the Nobel Peace Prize institute.

Tharuka let one cup of coffee explode in his wallet. What to say? We walked around a bit, I played around with high ISO settings in my camera and then we met our friend Markus, who offered us his place to stay. He lives in Osteras together with Howard, a professional snowboarder, I prospective policeman and Jane, a girl who I never saw but heard her skyping with her guild through the door.

This evening we ate meat with sausages ;) and watched Google videos, Maschek and the awesome Napoleon Dynamite afterwards.

: lidl

: pilvi

: tastes like fresh milk

: I <3 oslo

: oslo cathedral

: Roundabout near Aker Brygge

: Oslo Rådhuset (town hall)

: Tharuka and Markus in Østerås

: Ramschi's

: some other guys

Day II, Friday, 17th

Markus went to work and we went with him – to the Munch Museum. Lot's of security now, but no entrance fee. I liked the paintings of swimming person's most. It looked somehow funny how the water was distorting the limps of the swimmers. There was also a huge picture of a swimming pool for men, with a firm butt in the center of interest. I had a feeling all the ladies in the room liked it. On the way to the Viking-Museum Tharuka got a phone call from his girlfriend, which lasted long enough that I could eat and take many pictures of seagulls in the meanwhile. I got in the museum for free because the lady selling the tickets had to go to the loo. The museum made me feel that the time of the Vikings was really long ago. Looking at their artifacts it was somehow gripping to imagine their way of living, feeling and thinking.

Hypothermic we drank some hot coffee/tea and meet Markus in the fountain of the National Theater to go to the Summit 21, a bar up in the 21st store of The Radisson SAS Scandinavian Hotel. Probably the finest drinking bar of town with a marvelous view over the city. We enjoyed the view and talked a bit but didn't dare to order drinks, it was all too poshy for our budget. Next stop was the Paragrafen, a big Pub on two floors full of people and we even drank something. If you are walking through the city night and feel like you'd like to eat some chocolate... look at the price first! I bought a small package of m&m's and a Butterfinger and that was around 60 NOK, over seven Euros.

This evening the boys eat French fries and fish, for me it was the instant pasta.

: Summit 21 view

Day III, Saturday, 18^th

Tharuka had left early in the morning, I didn't notice him going. Markus wanted to stay home, so I went to town alone. I saw the famous Holmenkollen ski jump, this is so crazy.

Quite close there is a great Sleighing possibility, so I rode the subway five stops to Frognerseteren. Here they rent Toboggans (rodel or sledge) and you can go down a ~2km path called Korketrekkeren (the Cork Screw) to the Midtstuen(?) metro stop, where you just jump in to get up again ;). I did it three times and I recommend: don't take the rodel, you get all the snow in the face and it is so low that the fabric under you butt will contact the snow, slowing you down. The sledge was the thing to ride for me!!

Nevertheless, it got so cold that I hardly could stop shaking and bought some hot tea at the McD at Majorstuen with my very last NOK. In short: This was a very good moment for me. Simple things: a hot cup to stop me from shaking, being in a foreign town, writing postcards and waiting for Markus to take my ass to a bar.

After bar on the street again was was trying to be funny when Markus suddenly turned to me and said: "Isn't if funny that two people who just walked besides each other having a humorous chit-chat can suddenly be in absolutely different universes?!?"

..what?

It was that he just saw a girl that he tried to avoid to see because there was some heartache.

When we came home he put in sad music and we drank Slivovitz till we went to bed.

: Holmenkollen

Day IV, Sunday 19^th

We wanted to go Sledging on this day but my hangover didn't allow me to. Later back home in Helsinki I heard that he had had a good Sledging though.

travelling map

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