Scandinavia in the Fall: Gothenburg to Oslo

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For breakfast we enjoyed the Radisson Blu's fantastic Scandinavian spread. After breakfast we were picked up by a Volvo chauffeur and driven out to the factory, where we enjoyed Volvo's very warm hospitality (in exchange for buying a car). Our car was rolled out to us, and then we had the opportunity to tour the factory. This is a tour that is open to the public, and it was very interesting. Afterwards we enjoyed a nice meatball-and-potato lunch (a la IKEA), and then it was time to brave the Swedish highways in our new car (gulp)!

I had mapped out a Swedish grocery store en route to Oslo because we understood that food in Norway (well, everything in Norway) was expensive. Not that food in Sweden is terribly cheap, but even Norwegians will pick up groceries across the border, if they can. We were heading for a guest house and I was planning on cooking a few meals, so I wanted to get at least some non-perishibles in Sweden.

It was on our grocery detour that we discovered a nuance of European road signage that we had not come across in our preparations. If the highway number is boxed by a solid line, you are on that highway, but if the line is dashed, you are on your way to that highway. This is really an important distinction if you are interested in knowing where you are.

In the course of driving in circles we stopped to get gas and some drinks. I bought some flavored waters for the kids. My son took one swig and gagged. Of course it was mineral water. Of course it was.

We found our ICA in Uddevalla and I was finally in my element. The first thing we saw when we walked in: tortillas! And they were good tortillas. The kids got to choose some treats from the wall o' candy, and we found some pear juice (concentrate, it turned out; we never finished it) to bring with us. I turned all my bar codes the right way and bagged my groceries; the cashier laughed at me and thanked me. She was very nice.

It was late when we rolled into Oslo, and of course we immediately got lost. Our very large map of Norway simply did not have a sufficiently detailed map of the city. My husband had, however, marked the location of an IKEA, and we were able to locate that. It was too late for us to want to explore the city for a great place for dinner, so we, along with a quarter of the population of Oslo, opted for low-cost Swedish cuisine. We were truly impressed by how busy the store was. We've spent significant time in various IKEAs, and we have never seen them so mobbed on a weeknight. It was like a Saturday during opening weekend. You may be interested to know that the Norwegian IKEA is pretty close to identical to American IKEAs. We're getting the real deal here.

But we couldn't actually sleep there (I have a friend who spent a week living in an IKEA, but that's a different story) and we had a reservation, so we had to find the hotel. Again, we knew where we were, and then, in an instant, we were lost.

My husband stopped and asked for directions three different times, and they were never very good, although generously given. Meanwhile, I tried to get our maps to coordinate, to no avail. It was only when we were home again that we found out how badly lost we were. I was putting together my lesson plan to teach Edvard Munch's The Scream to my art classes when I realized that the painting is set on a real bridge in Oslo. I searched online to see if anyone had visited the bridge and found that not only is the bridge a place that people visit, but that we had been on it! My husband at first did not think that we could possibly have ended up that far off course, but I was able to use streetview to find a gas station where we had stopped for directions. We had been on Edvard Munch's bridge--twice! because we were lost!--and we hadn't even known it. I remember it, though. It's a very high place, overlooking the city. Pedestrians had stopped to enjoy the view. We did not stop; we desperately wanted our hotel room.

We eventually found our hotel, the Quality 33, more by our psychic powers than anything else. It's an interesting place, recently renovated and über-modern. The room was very tight for the four of us, but we didn't care too badly. We just needed to sleep.

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