Yay For Norway!

So back in September, my roommates and I were looking at cheap flights on Ryanair and it turned out we could fly to Oslo and back for 30 Euro. The cheap flights available over here still boggle my mind but I digress. Anyway none of us had been to Norway so we went ahead and booked it... and then we looked at the weather. Well first I actually looked at the record high by mistake. Turns out that is misleading. We learned that the average high is in the low 30's. But whatever, that's what layers are for. (And I wore three socks at every point during the weekend)

So we flew into Oslo on Friday night. It is a really interesting thing to be in a foreign country where the first language is not English. I had been once to Mexico but I can understand a bit of Spanish. Norwegian is no way shape or form like Spanish. Weirdly enough, its actually a bit like English but with excess letters. So Stop becomes Stopp in Norwegian. The TV channels were either in Norwegian or in English with subtitles. Turns out you haven't watched Spongebob until it is in Norwegian...

The first night we figured out our touring plan for the next day while drinking our tap water. The Norwegians have some of the best tap water in the world so I'm told. The next morning we started out bright and early and on the public transportation system. We managed to make it to the Viking Ship museum which was very cool. I learned that when the big shot Vikings would die, they would bury them in their ship. Kinda like Egypt with the pyramids. So they would be in the ship, with slaughtered food, games, jewels etc. But then the ship would be buried in a mound of clay.

After the Viking ship museum, we hit up the FRAM museum. From what I could understand the FRAM was a polar exhibition ship which is HUGE. And we got to go in it and explore a few different levels. I have officially crossed off leading polar exhibitions from a list of future careers. It looked like very difficult work and you had to worry about tiny insignificant details like being crushed by the immense pressure of all the ice.

We then went to Vigelandsparken which is a park of sculptures. I think the pictures are worth a thousands words here.

After Vigelandsparken, we walked around the city for a long time. Went to the palace and Parliament which is called Stortinget. We walked on the Opera House roof. This was neat because it is on the water and the sun had started to set. At 2:45. P.M. Yeah. We then went to a Norwegian bar where I got the Miller Lime of Norway. After the Norway bar, we went to an Ice Bar. This was very cool. We were lent fur lined capes with gloves and you go into a room completely made of ice for forty five minutes. The tables, chairs, sculptures, even your glasses are made of ice. We had way too much fun in there.

Next day, we went to Akershus which is a fortress in the city. Awesome views of the Oslofjord. Then we went to the National Gallery where we saw the "Scream" by Munch. Oh and we also ate the traditional Norwegian hot dog...which having now eaten one, can safely say I prefer American ones.

Anyway it is now back to work but awesome weekend.