Oslo> Travels

A bunch of the past two days need some photos to be best described. Yesterday I took the train from Bergen to Oslo.





During the course of the seven hour train ride I went from the fjords of the West Coast, green with spring, then over the mountains that form the spine of Norway, still ensconced in the snow from the Winter, and then back down along a river that snaked it way back into Spring and Norway's capital. Was that a run-on? It also happens to be the most expensive city in the world and by my 4 dollar gatorade, 10 dollar whopper and 180 dollar prostitute (and that was just to show me a bit of ankle) my wallet was certainly made aware of the costs. Also a convention was in town and when I got to the tourist info building they informed me that all hotels, hostels and park benches were booked out in Oslo and all of the towns within 80km. I faced a similar dilemma in Barcelona in 2000 so I knew exactly what to do. (For my Scandinavian readers: yes I considered using the, "Jeg er ikke her fra byen. Kan jeg sove i din seng i nat?" line.) I put my backpack in storage in a locker at the train station and then I walked around from hotel to hotel asking if they had a maid's room that I could rent. Many hotels do, they just can't really talk about them. Kind of like the fight club. Finally I found one in a pretty skeezy hotel. I ended up paying over 100 dollars to have what amounted to a cot and a sink. In order to save a bit of money I had a hamburger dog. I then went for a walk in this big park with lots of statues. There were plenty of punk teens playing hooky from school, enjoying the warm weather, bbqing and throwing frisbees very poorly.
This morning I woke up, stored my bag at the hotel and then bought an Oslo day pass. Free transport and free museums all for 30 dollars. I made the most of it, running around town. I started with the Viking ship museum which had three pretty complete Viking ships that were found buried in the 1900's. I then went to the Norsk culture museum, which wasn't quite open yet, but I was able to stroll the grounds. And stroll I did. The place looked like a summer camp I went to when I was a kid, only with more eclectic architecture and grass on the roofs of the buildings. From there I went to the Kon-Tiki museum, which was great. They had the raft Thor Hverdale sailed from South America to the South Pacific Islands, proving that Polynesia could have been populated by South American ancestors. I then went to the FRAM museum. The FRAM was the first ship to go to both the Antarctic and Arctic. It's pretty bad ass. Then I briefly looked into the maritime museum, but it was just model ships so I jumped on a ferry and I went to the Castle. It was OK. From there I went to the Edvard Munch museum. They have tons of security as two years ago the scream was stolen, again. How embarrassing. From there I took a long subway ride to a ski jump and ski museum. I took a ride an a ski jump emulator. Good times? Something like that. From the top of the ski jump I could see all of Oslo, which is actually only somewhat majestic. I much preferred Bergen. Then I went back in to town and visited the Nobel peace institute, where they honor and choose the recipients of the Nobel peace prize. It was pretty interesting with great interactive displays. After that I had some mediocre 12 dollar Pad-Thai.
I am now at the train station and in a half an hour I will catch a train to the airport and find a nice bench to sleep on. My flight is early tomorrow morning and I don't feel like paying for a crappy hotel room only to have to catch an expensive train at 5 Am. Tomorrow I will be in Cope, watching some ultimate and catching up on sleep.