Advertisement
Published: April 7th 2015
Edit Blog Post
Electric Cars!
A lone Tesla parked in a lot that looked like it was specifically designed for electric cars; charging ports everywhere! This was one of maaaaany that I saw in the city, it's definitely true that Norway has the most electric cars in the world! The night train arrived in Oslo at 6:25am, and after a surprisingly good sleep, Shawn and I headed towards our hostel to drop our big bags off in luggage storage. Unfortunately, and really inconveniently, we can't check in until 3pm! That means another 1st-day-in-Reykjavík-like day with years of walking!
Trying first to find some food, because oh ya, it's easter MONDAY now and everything is also closed, we venture into the central part of the city. After grabbing some quick stuff from a 7-11 (sorry Peterboroughians, there's a ton of them over here!) we walk around the city because literally nothing is open!
The first thing we came across was the old Akershus Fortress which was really cool to walk around. It's open always to the public and you're able to walk on top of the fortress walls and get an unreal view of the city! There were old cannons and even a guard on duty, it was pretty cool.
We then walked past city hall and the Nobel Peace Center which we would visit the next day, well today I guess... But that's for the next blog.
We then wandered towards the King's palace where there
Palace Seflie
Pretty selfie-explanatory, get it, lol. were more guards on duty, man what a boring job that would be, and I imagine they get kids and just some idiots who make faces at them and stuff. The flag was up which means the King himself is in the residence, and we were like the only ones there (mind you it was like 7:30am) so I got some great pictures, and of course a palace selfie ?.
I was already starting to get a really good vibe from this city, everyone is so nice, it's so clean and really reminds you of your typical European capital with all of the beautiful architecture and cobblestone roads. And churches, gotta have one on every other corner to be in the EU, I think it's mandatory. Some of them were pretty awesome to look at though, and there was even one with Il Duomo's baby brother!
As you can tell, the day mostly consisted of; let's go over there, oh that's cool, ok let's go that way now, oh that's cool too, wow we really have nothing to do. Lots of walking and stumbling upon stuff, but we actually managed to stumble on all the important stuff by
Palace palace
If you look suuuuper closely, you might be able to see the guard to the left of the front doors. accident!
The next place we checked out, that I actually planned to go to, was the Botanical garden. Though it is still just verging on spring here, and the last of the snow is melting, the friendly and peaceful atmosphere was still quite evident. Things were just starting to bloom and the wicked mushrooms we strutting there stuff with full confidence! I imagine that it would be an absolutely gorgeous place in the summer to go on a date, a stroll with the family, or a walk with the dog. Again, another reason to come back!
Going out of the garden's gates, we run across a small carnival that's been set up for the easter weekend, kind of plopped in the middle of the city; strange but a little reminiscent of the Nicholls Oval fair that rolls into town every June.
It's still not check in time yet, so we head to a little coffee shop around the corner, probably the only one open that day, and sit and have coffee for an hour and a half before we're aloud to return.
We check in, make dinner and then go out to catch the sunset from
What?
Fake fur lined seats at an outdoor patio! Only in Europe.. our new favourite place atop the fortress walls, and was that ever worth it as you can see in the pictures!
Shawn wanted to hit a pub, so I tagged along with my remaining pocket change and end up grabbing a traditional Norwegian beer for the sake of being in Norway. We catch the last 20minutes of a random club football (soccer for you North Americans ?) match between a Danish team and a Norwegian one (which apparently a lot of people cared about as they sat glued to the tv almost missing their mouths with their straws), and then headed back to the hostel for some much deserved z's.
And overall 24,000ish steps and almost 16km walked, I'd definitely say that deserves some sleep.
- NB
Advertisement
Tot: 0.113s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 10; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0746s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb