Oslo Wrap-up

Oslo Wrap-up 

** I'm calling my first week in Oslo my "spa time." Why? Let's just say that Montezuma sure got around! By day 5, I called the urgent out-of-hours line for advice (and a possible hospital referral). If you click on the link, you will notice that it says it's a free call. Unfortunately, my French phone company disagrees. Immediately after hanging up, I got a text saying that I had used up my allotted minutes, and would have to pay the balance in order to use it again. When we checked, we found out the advice cost us $72! Obviously, I'm not a happy camper! The good news is that the advice helped - drink 1.5 - 2 liters per day of salted water (1-2 tsp salt per liter of boiled water). I stayed home another full day, but then was able to make short-ish trips. I spent a good part of that day paring down my To-See list 😕

** Following on from that, after 5 days of guzzling salty water, my system overloaded! I woke up with swollen legs and eyes! Full stop on salt, cool compresses, elevated legs... At least it didn't stop us from going out 😉

** The weather was absolutely *fantastic!* Generally cool, with some sun. My hives completely faded over the two weeks. We had a few short-lived thunderstorms (remembered the umbrella after my first soaking), most days were in the upper 70s F, and we experienced daylight from 4am till 11pm! All this in a time of unheard of heat in much of the rest of Europe - the UK broke an all-time heat record with 106°F!!!

** I did Norwegian modules on Duolingo for a couple of weeks before the trip, and I added Norwegian to my Translate app - that was fun, and helped a lot! It got my ears tuned to "norsk" 🙂

** Oslo and pre-Oslo burned down many times over the centuries, so there aren't very many old buildings. The vibe all over is modern - art, architecture, you name it, there's some aspect of it here that is modern!

** One in six Norwegians owns a boat. (I'm assuming that doesn't count children, but I could be wrong.)

** For most of our 2-week stay, including coming and going, I saw one other person wearing a mask. (The folk museum broke the streak; there were several mask-wearers)

** The public transportation passes are amazing! We each got a 7-day pass, which gave us unlimited rides on any city bus, tram, subway, ferry, and train. We originally were going to get two of these (covering the entire 2 weeks), but my rocky start and the rainy end turned that into one pass plus one last trip into city center on the way home. Ruter (the transportation company) has downloadable maps of the different systems - that helped figure out our options on the fly.

** These passes don't include to and from the airport. We took flybussen to the apartment (40 minutes, $20 ea), and the airport train to the airport (20 minutes, $21 each). For the train, we tried the ticketless option - swipe your credit card when you enter the platform, then swipe again to leave the train platform at the airport. Well, the first part worked, but then it didn't let us leave! An agent fiddled a bit, then said eh, just go - you may not be charged. We're still waiting to see about that 😉.

** We got $50 worth (the minimum allowed) of Norwegian krone when we arrived at the airport (ATM). We figured we'd need at least some coins for the public bathrooms, but knew that credit cards are used practically everywhere! Well, even the bathrooms ($1.50 - $2) take credit cards! So, the only cash we spent on the entire trip was (1) milk, to break the bills on our first night, and (2) our last lunch out, to get rid of our cash 😕

** Lingonberry jam (tyttebær) - my new favorite condiment! Especially on reindeer steak!

** Wine is expensive and extremely difficult to find; our grocery stores don't carry it. At. All. Beer is everywhere. We ended up drinking a lot of water and coke...

** The "food halls" aren't really like the French covered markets (Les Halles). Mathallen had a specialty butcher and a fishmonger, but no produce shop - everything else was a restaurant or bar. Think food court for adults. I did bring home a couple of yummy tapas though!

** I never really realized just how much a part of travel is eating and snacking out! I have to stop myself from thinking about a waffle, an ice cream cone, a long lunch on that terrace, drinks and a late dinner with a view... This trip, there were so many impediments to all that... Sigh.

~~~

Missed seeing 

- Northern lights xperium (closed)

- Vippa food hall (lunch outside, fronting the fjord)

- Aker Brygge, Nobel Peace Center, and the new National Museum (opened June 11)

- Astrup Fearnley Museum

- Train day trip

- Botanical garden 

- Tourist office

- Munch museum inside 

- Ekebergparken Sculpture Park, Petroglyphs 

- Viking Planet

- Akershus fortress 

- Kon-tiki museum, Fram museum! 

- Roseslottet (end of metro 1 line)