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Published: December 30th 2007
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We decided to sleep until we had to check out of the hotel and, fortunately, due to a misunderstanding of the Oslo public transport system we still had valid one day passes for today as well. We decided to push them to their limits and take the metro out to the ski jump at Holmenkollen. This is the home of the second oldest ski jump competition in the world and is supposed to provide great views of the city. Before heading up there we went to a bagel shop for some brunch. In contrast to the tourist sites Bagel Juice was absolutely rammed but after some confusion between eple (apple) and appelsin (orange) we had our delicious bagels and, err, juice.
The metro trip was quite far and this was made longer by Martin's slight difficulties in getting on the right platform. The journey up to Holmenkollen was beautiful, it was tree lined and white, with pretty little houses. We finally arrived at HolmenKollen and the ski jump was a good ten minute walk further up the icy hill and we were questioning whether or not it was really worth it to see a ski jump. However, when we got
there the view was really impressive and we finally got to understand why ski jumping requires such bravery or stupidity, the ramp itself was long, naturally, but it was the distance between the end of the ramp and the landing zone that was really striking. We spent a few minutes walking around and had an interesting brief conversation with a red-faced, inappropriately dressed (a very thin coat rather than fake tits) British man who was struggling up the icy hill. We got back to the station and took the metro back down to town.
We stopped off in the coffee shop near Vigeland park for a warming coffee and some cake and then we walked through the park again, taking another look at man shaking off babies and our favourite statues. There were a few cold looking ducks who are swimming on the only remaining uniced water and Mary took pity on them and fed them her granola bar, however, most of this was picked off by some very aggressive seagulls who nearly dined upon our noses too. As we had time to spare we popped into the Vigeland museum, which was free and empty aside from us. This
was as fascinating as his park as it had details on how he made the monolith and it had a lot more of his sculptures. Sadly, there was no replica sculpture of the famous man shaking off babies.
We then got the tram back down to the christmas market to see it at night and see if there were any gifts to buy, instead we found interesting conversation in the form of a British artist who had emigrated to Norway and was selling his art at the market. Afterwards we grabbed some pizza from the same place we went to on Day 2 and got the coach back to Torp airport.
A brief final word about the flight back, it was a very nice airport with exceptionally courteous staff and, amazingly, security personnel - it was a pleasure to not be barked at when you have you bag, coat, belt, shoes and laptop balancing in your arms. Our flight was slightly delayed which gave most of the Norwegian and British passengers a chance to consume some more heavily taxed alcohol. Once on the flight, we took off and within a few seconds of take off one of the
more inebriated passengers stumbled up the 30 degree inclined plane to try and go to the toilet, he was ordered to sit down, which he did as if in slow motion. Once the cabin crew were allowed up, the head steward came over to talk to the passenger, seemingly the passenger took great offence, either that he was not allowed up or that he had been scolded, either way he became belligerent and said something to he steward that pushed it to far, the steward went to the captain and then advised the passenger of his course of action. The passenger, now concerned, spent the rest of the flight pleading with the steward or stumbling to the toilet. Upon arrival at Liverpool we were asked to remain in our seats until finally around ten police officers arrived to take the passenger away despite the protestations of his drinking buddies... all quite exciting really.
To view the full set of photos from this trip see our site on Flickr
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