I've heard many things about Oslo over the years, some good and some bad, but everyone will agree on one thing: this place is expensive. More on that later.
It was a relatively short train ride to Karl Johan's Square in central Oslo. This is near the centers of government and major universities. We happened to be there while some Canadian dignitaries were visiting, so Canadian flags were raised all along the main street in front of the palace (Norway has a king!) and parliament building. Throughout the day we would catch glimpses of fast driving limosuines with police escorts, but we never did figure out exactly what was going on.
Our first stop in Oslo was their National Gallery, where several paintings of Norway's best known painter, Edvard Munch, are held. This one of the places that Munch's famous painting The Scream keeps getting stolen from (the other being the Munch Museum, which we did not visit). We got to see their Scream (multiple copies exist) as well as The Day After.
I can only speak for the time I was actually in Oslo, so perhaps it isn't like this all the time, but Oslo repeated a pattern we noticed in Europe: the farther south you go, the more reckless and chaotic everything is, and the further north, the quieter and more orderly things are. Oslo was a big city, but it wasn't crowded with people or traffic. People drove relatively slowly and didn't honk at each other as is the case in most other big cities I've been in, both in the US and in Europe. I could get used to this.
Now, the expense. Although eating at McDonald's in every country had thus far failed to be a rich cultural experience, we couldn't just stop at the last country. We found one nearby and had a relatively simple meal. The food was exactly the same as it was everywhere - except for the startling difference in price. We had double cheeseburgers, small fries, and small sodas, which would run about $8 in the US. When we looked at our reciept and converted the currency, we found that we had just paid over $20 for the same meal!
Next, we had ourselves a little adventure. My friend was at work in Drammen, and he was supposed to call us to arrange a meeting place somewhere in Oslo so he could show us around. Unfortunately, Natasha's phone died, leaving us with no way to contact him. We tossed a few ideas around, and one of us half jokingly suggested that if we could find a Mac store we could borrow their charger for a few minutes. Lo and behold, there was a Mac store right next door to the McDonalds.
We went in there and found the iPod Touches on their charging docks. The docks are universal, meaning they will charge an iPhone if you have the right insert for the dock. Luckily, if you remove the iPod insert, you can just sort of sit the iPhone on the leads and it will be unsteady, but will charge. We pretended to fumble with it for a few minutes before a salesperson asked us if we needed help. We then stalled him as long as possible, asking about the charger. When he said they didn't have docks with a first generation iPhone dock insert, we stalled him longer asking where we could find one. He proceded to give us very complicated directions in broken English, which we had him repeat for clarification several times.
By the time we got out of there, the phone had been charged just long enough for a few minutes' conversation, which we used to get ahold of my friend and arrange a meeting time and place. We had just enough time before he would arrive to go to the Resistance Museum. This was a small museum dedicated to Norwegian resistance to the Nazi invasion and occupation during WWII. It contained several dioramas and historical artifacts, including a sculpture of WWII rifles all bound together, pointing at the incoming visitor as if to drive home the peril of the time.
After this, we met up with my friend. We were supposed to meet up with another friend of mine from Anarchy Online, but he turned out to be busy with work. My friend's plan was to go bowling, either in Oslo or Drammen. We looked for a place to bowl in Oslo, and found one - in the basement of the Hard Rock Cafe. The entire room was lit with screaming black lights and flourescents, and the "bowling" turned out to be a kind of virtual game where you roll a real bowling ball down half a lane and then a computer figures out which pins you would have hit and displays it on a screen. It was noisy, crowded, and expensive. We decided to go back to Drammen instead.
Why is there a statue of a tiger in front of the train station?
We took the train back to Drammen and went to the bowling alley. My friend promptly beat us in two games, then beat me at air hockey as well (which nobody has ever been able to do consistently. Amanda comes close!). As we were leaving, Natasha and I were shocked to discover that two games of bowling for three people came to $60!!! Norway is a great place, but if you visit, come loaded with cash.
Also of note, we discovered a soda that is excellent, called Villa Champagnebrus (which is a kind of carbonated vanilla drink, tastes similar to scotch&soda but not quite the same thing). Later on, we visited a Norwegian import store in Seattle to see if we could find this stuff, but the lady there said that whenever she tries to order it, they only send her boxes of expired bottles. She can only get it when she goes to Norway personally around Christmas. A shame we won't be around here then.
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