Oslo – Two Years Later

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Three days after returning from the congress in Göttingen I left for a congress in Oslo, the Congress of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology, together with my colleague Richard. I had been there two years ago (see my blog entry here) when our Norwegian colleagues had invited me to speak at their client event. I had like Oslo and was looking forward to being there again – and of course to seeing a lot of great colleagues there!

We arrived in Oslo on Tuesday evening and met our South African colleague Hennie at the airport, what a coincidence! Once we had checked into our hotel we had a Norwegian dinner just around the corner: the guys ate whale and reindeer, I had some Norwegian waffles with sour cream and strawberry jam.

The next morning was busy with a pre-conference workshops and some meeting, but I won’t bore you with details about them. In the evening our Norwegian clients had arranged a little event for us. We caught a ferry to the island of Hovedøya, just a few minutes out in the Oslo Fjord. There used to be a monastery founded by English Cistercian monks in the 12th century and there are still a few ruins of this monastery there. A guide showed us around and also explained that after the Second World War the buildings on the island served as a detention camp for women who had been in a relationship with German soldiers. Moreover, there are two cannon batteries from the early 19th century on it since the island is in a strategically good position in the fjord. The weather was nice and we had a good view of Oslo and the fjord from the island. After the guided tour we had dinner at a restaurant on the island.

The next two days at the congress were super busy. Our Norwegian partners were the main sponsor of the congress and therefore we had decided that we wanted to show up as often and with various topics and in various formats. This meant that we had to run from presentation to presentation. Particularly on Friday morning it was stressful. We had one slot from 8 to 9 am, then the next slot from 9:15 to 10:45, and then another slot at 11. What made it even more stressful was that we had to run from one venue into the other and back since the congress took place in two different buildings. The – literally – coolest thing about the congress, though, was that our Norwegian colleagues had set up an ice-cream stall in the exhibition hall. Congress attendees could get an ice-cream for free there, in a cut-e cup of course! The ice-cream was so popular that they ran out of cups on Friday afternoon. And it was not even particularly warm in Oslo at the time!

On Thursday night I had dinner with a few colleagues in a very fancy restaurant in Tjuvholmen, the super modern neighbourhood close to Oslo town hall. It is called Sjømagasin and famous for its sea food. The vegetarian food was also very nice. Apparently while we were there there was a gathering of famous Norwegian journalists in the place, as Berit from Oslo told us. She knew them all!

On Friday night cut-e Norway celebrated their 10th anniversary and we were invited to a big party in their offices. Since the party did not start until 9 pm, our Swedish colleagues Jakob and Henric invited us to another fancy restaurant in Tjuvholmen, Hanami. It is a sushi restaurant where they serve Japanese fusion cuisine. The concept is to share all the dishes so that everyone can try as much as possible. The food was excellent. After dinner we headed off to the party. Needless to say that we had loads of fun 😉. We did not get home until around 3 in the morning. So we had a late breakfast. Since our flight back to Hamburg did not depart until 2:30 pm, we decided to go for a little walk. The weather was splendid and we walked down Karl Johans gate, the main shopping street in Oslo that connects the main station and the castle. But that was it – afterwards we went to the airport and headed back to Hamburg. I needed an early night…

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Photos

The Royal Palace
... at one end of Karl Johans gate, the main shopping street in Oslo.

Akershus Fortress
... the old castle in Oslo. View from the ferry that took us to the island of Hovedøya.

Norwegian waffles
... with strawberry jam and sour cream.

The ice cream stall
... in the exhibit hall at the congress.