Oslo

Train from Stockholm departs at 8:30 so we had an early start.

After a 7:00 a.m. breakfast (graciously prepared by our hosts), we scooted off to the metro to head down to the central station. From there we found our train platform and boarding began just before 8:30.

The train ride would take about 6 hours, so we reserved 2 seats with a table. There was no wi-fi on the particular train we were on, but we had other things to keep us busy. David did some reading on his iPad and Jen was sewing some patches onto her backpack. They serve food and beer on board, although we had brought our own food so we grabbed a few beers around lunch time to eat with our leftover pizza. We were in a sort of private area - doors to our area and empty seats. Apparently there are 'rush hour' times for these trains, but we were traveling at a time of day that was relatively less busy...

We arrived in oslo at 2:30 pm during particularly dreary weather – it was quite rainy out. Our hostel for the first night here is quite a ways outside of the downtown area in Oslo, about 20 km. David found the place and thought it would be nice because it offered access to hiking trails around a lake just outside the city. This rain is threatening to dampen that idea though…

From the train station, we walked down to the metro station and caught a metro to Kjelsas. From there we boarded a tram that ran to the particular street our hostel was on. Once we got off of the tram, we had a short hike to the hostel – maybe half a mile. This was complicated a bit by the weather and that the road to the hostel was quite steep. Needless to say, by the time we got to the hostel, we were both a little bit on the miserable side.

Our hostel for this first night was located in a boarding school that turns into a hostel for the summers, so the rooms were roughly equivalent to college dorms. After we changed out of wet clothes and relaxed for a minute, we decided that we should try to find dinner supplies and maybe a bottle of wine. Unfortunately for us, most business in Norway are either entirely closed on Sunday or they keep very short hours (10 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. for instance). So there were no grocery stores and no alcohol stores open. In fact we had to walk a couple of miles before happening upon a 7-11, a food place and a bar. The food place was called “Tasty Foods” and had a menu containing everything from chinese & sushi to kebabs, fried chicken & hamburgers. The bar didn’t have a sign – in fact, the only reason we even found out it was a bar was because we asked the guy at the counter of Tasty Foods if they sold beer and they referred us to the bar a couple of doors down the street. We walked up to a white house with about 5 tables outside in the front yard, and when peering through the windows you could see more tables inside. However, there was no signage whatsoever to indicate that this was a business. Luckily for us, it was a bar and they had great service. So we sat there for a few rounds, ordered some food from the place down the street and returned to the hostel just before dark.

It was still raining when we went to bed and the forecast for tomorrow looks to be the same.

Monday

Up until this point, we have been very fortunate with the weather. However, our luck seems to have shifted a bit here in Norway. The forecast for today gives 80% chance of rain until 3p.m. and then a 90% chance of rain for the remainder of the day. With those odds, we figured it would be best to head to our hostel for tonight which is in the middle of downtown Oslo. At least from there, we should have much closer access to grocery stores, restaurants, and bars to duck out of the rain into.

We ate a quick breakfast before leaving our Sunday night hostel, amid a large group of lively middle school aged children who were apparently a part of some camp going on there.

We took the tram all the way to the train station and then walked a few blocks to our hostel. We were early for check in but were able to leave our bags in the luggage storage area, so that’s what we did and then hopped back out the door to explore downtown Oslo (between rain showers).

In our walking around downtown, we happened upon a few memorial sites set up for victims of the Oslo bombing & shooting...

We also saw a few buildings where the windows had apparently been blown out in the blast...

Other than a couple of affected blocks, the city seemed to be functioning as normal...

We walked around and visited a few sites and bars…the prices of beer and food in general are most expensive here (we paid close to 15 US dollars per beer at a few bars)…randomly, at bar named Elm Street, we met one of the leads from the band "Pretty Boy Floyd" who was there for a concert that night.

In Oslo proper, many of the sights were within very close walking distance of the hostel, so after bouncing around throughout the day, we returned to the hostel to regroup. We packed a picnic dinner with a couple of bottles of wine. Our first stop for people watching was about 3 blocks from the hostel, over at the train station.

We continued with watching people on Karl Johans Gate street, and met a harpist from Australia/Finland who played beautiful music. Given the rainy weather, it was difficult to pull out the camera, but we did snap a couple of quick pictures of the harpist by iPhone cam...

One more day in Oslo tomorrow, so we'll check out a few more sites before heading over to Copenhagen...