Norway Part I: Oslo

Norway has been near the top of my list of places to visit for a long time, and we considered it a "must see" during our time in Scandinavia. Our week-long trip began in the capital city of Oslo and ended in the second most populous city of Bergen on the opposite coast. This post will focus on the good, the bad, and the ugly experiences we had in Oslo, with more details from our trip to follow later this week.

The Good

We landed in Oslo after an hour and 10 minute flight from Copenhagen, took an express train to Oslo's central station, and then dragged our suitcases on a 20-minute walk through a city awash with tourists. It was a warm and sunny Saturday with loads of street performers entertaining passersby as living statues, costumed men who appeared to be floating in midair, a stoic man blowing bubbles the size of small clouds, and clowns bending balloons into unknowable things. Much like when we were in Reykjavik, we were startled to hear so many Americans, a fact we also found apparent during our time in Bergen.

We stayed at Thon Hotel Rosenkrantz in central Oslo, which provided us with the best hotel breakfast either of us have ever had for reasons that involve sunny-side-up eggs, rosemary potatoes, traditional Scandinavian and British breakfast foods, and superb fresh-squeezed orange juice. There are about a million Thon hotels in Oslo, and every time we saw one I'd say, "look, there's another thong hotel," and then I'd giggle like a child.

After dropping off our suitcases, we headed out on foot to explore the immediate area surrounding the hotel. The first exciting thing we saw was the royal palace where King Harald V and his family reside. The palace majestically sits atop a hill overlooking the city center. It is surrounded by a peaceful, green park within walking distance of dozens of international embassies in a neighborhood that feels distinctly moneyed.

  
After exploring the waterfront, we made our way to Tjuvhomen, a borough jutting into the Oslo fjord. We had a dinner reservation at Eataly, where we dined on the ubiquitous pizza and wine that accompany us everywhere we go. The coolest thing about Tjuvhomen is the many sleek, modern, distinct buildings designed by 20 different architects lining the waterfront. The area has some neat fountains and sculptures surrounded by high-end shops and plenty of chic restaurants filled with good-looking, well-dressed people. There is also a bathing area where we saw some kids doing cannonballs into the fjord. Tjuvhomen is also home to a new contemporary art museum and an intriguing hotel called The Thief.

The pic below depicts a statue of a man on stilts that I liked quite a lot.

On our second day in Oslo, we continued our walking tour and headed over to the famous Oslo Opera House on the waterfront. The building was designed by the architectural firm Snøhetta, who won quite a few prestigious awards for the building's unique design. Visitors can walk along the roof for an inspiring view of the city and the unique experience of, well, walking on the roof of a famous building.

At some point that afternoon, I experienced the highlight of the trip. 

After lunch at a tapas place in a food hall called Mathallen Oslo, we ended what was meant to be our second and last night in Oslo at a gay bar called the London Pub. This place looks like your grandma's basement did in the 1970s. We happily sat in the dim, windowless light while breathing in stale cigarette smoke from 20 years ago and listening to Lionel Ritchie and forgotten club music from the early 90s. Because of the early hour, the place didn't have many patrons, but the people watching was still pretty good. We eagerly kept our eyes on a solo guy with a pint who was cruising the room. Unfortunately, we left before knowing how that story would end (fingers crossed).

Oslo: The Bad

In case you don't remember, I recently stepped on a bee and was stung on my right pinky toe. When we landed in Oslo, I had been battling an itchy rash over the top half of my foot and swollen toes for exactly a week with no relief in sight and some worry that I was having an allergic reaction. I had visited the pharmacy in Helsingborg on three separate occasions in hopeless search of Benadryl, but instead came away with several over-the-counter treatments that had no effect on my poor red foot. I was miserable, which was reflected during our time in Oslo and in the amount of sightseeing we accomplished. 

Facing a week-long vacation in which near-constant walking and hiking would sentence my toes to an itchy shoe prison, we wound up at the sykehus ("sick house"). The nurse brought out a doctor named Phillip, a gorgeous, tall drink of Norway who placed my ugly red foot on his thigh, proclaimed that the rash looked "quite peaceful," and told me that I could expect up to another week of misery. He then gave me the name of an anti-itch cream and sent me on my way.

The assurance from Phillip that I would not lose my foot was the end of "the bad." Unfortunately, dear readers, things would get ugly.

The Ugly

The morning of the day we were expected to board a train to Bergen, Erin arrived at breakfast with a stomach ache. This inconvenience would eventually evolve into something much, much uglier: the stomach flu.

My poor Erin was trapped in the hotel room for a full 30 hours, writhing around on the bed in near-darkness, periodically making hurried, uncomfortable trips to the bathroom, and begging me to put her out of her misery. Because of this, we wound up staying at the Rosencrantz branch of the Thong Hotel for another night and had to re-purchase our train tickets to Bergen.

The moral of this story is that, while my view may be skewed by circumstances, our time in Oslo wasn't the greatest. Stay tuned for our journey to Bergen and the western fjords in my next post!