Second Day in Oslo

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We woke up around ten and took our time to get ready and eat breakfast. Our plan was to take a boat to an island in the fjord, then meet Emma’s cousin, Kristi, for lunch, then maybe a museum or something else. We had looked at the boat schedule with Jan the previous night before and he told us about the boat at 11:25, which I told him was optimistic. We decided to plan on the boat at 12:45. We didn’t make that, either.

We decided to return to the pier for the boat at 3:25, and in the meantime we would wander around the fort nearby that was currently a military base, then make our way over to Kristi’s café for lunch. We approached the open gate of the fort and found ourselves face to face with the jolliest guard I’ve ever seen. He had a really tough looking walk, but with a lilting bounce and a big smile. He kind of looked at us curiously for a minute before I started to ask him if we could walk around. (Pretty much everyone in Norway speaks English. Apparently they have to take it all through their schooling and most people are fluent, so you don’t even have to ask if they speak English). He told us that we could walk around but he was closing that entrance. Security was high that day because the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, was in Oslo. We wandered around to the main gate and stood outside sheepishly as we watched tons of journalists and soldiers march about, awaiting the President’s arrival. We tried to decide if we should go in or not but just stood at the door like a few idiots and waited for the answer to come to us. Other civilians arrived and seemed to feel the same as us. We all decided to leave and wandered around the outskirts of the fort. I wish I knew more about the fort, but most signs were inside, and all of the signs outside were written in Norwegian.

We made our way over to Kristi’s café and got some Norwegian sandwiches. We had asked her family about Norwegian food and were told that it was boring, brown and fishy with lots of potatoes. Eating out in Norway is incredibly expensive, with an averagely priced dinner being around 300 Kroner, or about $50. Naturally, we avoided the restaurants, but the sandwiches were a good compromise, still overpriced at 60 Kroner, or $10. I had a sandwich with shrimp and mayonnaise and Emma had one with smoked salmon and mustard sauce, both of which were delicious.

We left the café with Kristi and wandered around some shops in the area and saw some traditional Norwegian formal outfits. We decided to make our way to the boat for our trip at 3:25, and missed that one, too.

The next boat took a different route but still went to the main island of Hovedoya, so we hopped on. We relaxed on the ½ hr boat journey and took pictures as we passed other islands. Interestingly enough, the boats to all of the islands are included in the fare you pay for a ticket on the T (underground train), buses, and trams, so our trip did not cost us anything. We explored the island and found some ruins of a monastery. I pointed out to Emma the fact that we had not taken many pictures of ourselves on the trip so far, so we decided to take a mock photo shoot in the monastery. There were many stairs and nooks to explore, so we spent a good portion of our half hour on the island at the monastery. The island was almost entirely abandoned. There were a few businesses but all were closed and any other buildings looked uninhabited. The only people we saw were at the dock waiting to get on the boat back to shore.

After our boat trip, we decided to take the tram over to a park in the Eastern part of Oslo where a sculptor filled the gardens with sculptures of people in all different phases of life, culminating with a giant spire, if you will, of intertwining human bodies. It is called Vigelandsparken, or The Vigeland Sculpture Park. Some of the sculptures were really nice, like a mother with her child, and others were very violent, like a man throwing a woman off his back. We were surprised that the sculptures were so gender-sided in a public park. I thought they were interesting and took a ton of pictures, but Emma was generally creeped out by them. I could imagine that this garden would be incredible in the summer as huge flowerbeds surrounded all of the sculptures.

We stayed at the park for about ½ hour, then made our way over to Kristi’s house for dinner. We decided to bring both Kristi and Jan a gift of some beers to thank them for hosting us in Oslo. We had difficulty finding a grocery store and had to ask a few different people. (Thank God they speak English…) Everyone had told us that alcohol was expensive in Norway, but we had no idea how expensive. We bought two six packs of Tuborg, a Danish beer, which is supposed to be the cheapest beer you can get. Each bottle was about 13 Kroner, so both six packs cost us 179 kroner… about $30 for 12 beers. We figured it was a nice gift anyway and decided not to drink a lot during the remainder of our trip.

Dinner at Kristi’s was delicious and we got to meet her Norwegian boyfriend that inspired her to move to Norway. They were both very nice and lived in a tiny studio apartment that was a great size for two people. She made fajitas and we ate way more than we needed to. We socialized and left early to go back to Jan’s and spend time with him and Ann-Marie and go to bed early for our train the next day.

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