Oslo Highlights

Viking Ship Museum:


Sculpture Park, nice version:


Sculpture Park, naughty version:


Sculpture Park, silly version:


Nilsen Hunting:

Norway in a Nutshell

Our flight from Stockholm to Bergen was a little over an hour, and we arrived late afternoon. Bergen is on the western coast of Norway. There isn't much to the seaside town, so we were able to walk most of it in a short time. Our hotel was old and historic. What it lacked in comfort it made up for in character, with dark wooden floors and patterned wallpaper. With the windows open we could hear the live music from the neighboring bar.

After checking in we hit the fish market. It seemed like a great way to try some local, fresh delicacies. Bryan and I both sampled some smoked whale - I'm pretty sure it was raw. The smoky flavor made it hard to distinguish what the meat tasted like (a smoky meat with a hint of fish is about the best I can do.) I tried some smoked salmon after that and liked it much better. Bryan ended up getting a cooked whale burger and I got some deep-fried shrimp. We both came to the conclusion that our meal had the quality and price you can expect from a restaurant aimed at tourists. What we had hoped would be our evening meal we decided was just a snack and went to a local pizza place for dinner.

The next morning we had to be up bright and early for our "Norway in a Nutshell" experience. This is a popular tour route for tourists that takes you from the west coast to east coast on a variety of different methods of transport. We had the option of doing the land version on the Bergen Railway, supposedly one of the most beautiful railways in the world, or doing a boat through the Sognefjord, Norway's longest and deepest fjord. It was a tough call but we went for the boat. It was a large boat and a smooth ride (oddly, with Bonanza reruns on a television in the boat). I expected jagged and rocky cliffs but got a mixture of rock and lush green, with cottony wisps of low-lying clouds spattered in between. We passed several towns with colorful cottages seemingly in the middle of nowhere. We eventually stopped for the night in one such town called Flam.



There wasn't really much to the town. There were three restaurants and a couple souvenir shops selling trolls and overpriced sweaters. We had a filling lunch of Norweigen meatballs and then had dinner at the brewpub, where we tasted several beers and I had a pizza with goat cheese from the neighboring town of Undredal.

This morning we got ready for the rest of our journey to Oslo. We hopped aboard the Flamsbanna, the steepest standard gauge railway in Europe at 2,831 feet. The cars are very old-fashioned, almost antique looking on the inside. The trip is only about an hour but is very picturesque, passing several waterfalls and running alongside bubbling brooks up the mountain, occasionally going through tunnels originally dug by hand. We switched to the Bergen railway in Myrdal and then eventually switched to a bus that took us through more modern looking suburbs before arriving in Oslo. It was lashing rain when we got here but we still hoofed it to the hotel with our bags, before finding a local restaurant called Nilsen Spiseri. We will probably hit a few more Nilsen restaurants/bars before we leave. Tomorrow is our last full day and we plan to take full advantage of it. More then...

There's Norway a McDonald's Hamburger Costs that Much!

Day 5 of our Scandinavian trip, and we find ourselves incredulously looking at our currency converter saying "this can't be right." This trip is the exact opposite of our Argentinian escape a few years back where we were eating like kings and imagining how expensive the equivalent meal would be in New York. In Finland things weren't so bad. For one, they are on the Euro so just the math is easier. In Sweden we started raising our eyebrows and saying "really"? By last night in Bergen, after seeing a McDonald's sign that advertised a $15 bacon cheeseburger, we started wondering what the heck is going on. A pint of Ben & Jerry's in Stockholm was $9, and in Norway it's $12. I don't know if it's the US dollar or if things are really just expensive. It's like the whole country is the mini-bar, and there's no grocery store around the corner where you can stock up on water.

But aside from that, we have been having a lot of fun. Bryan wasn't a fan of our "cruise-ferry," and spent the whole night tossing and turning, envisioning the Poseidon Adventure. I managed not to roll out of the top bunk. We did eat the ship's buffet; as Bryan put it, "a way to knock out in one shot a whole lot of gross foods we have to try." So we set about with all the pickled fish. Hardly a satisfying meal.

We got into Stockholm and stayed at a hotel owned by one of the folks from Abba. It was a great hotel, but due to the short duration of our stay there, we didn't get to spend much time there. There was no Pizza Hut meal since we've already done a Swedish Pizza Hut in Malmo back in 2001, though we contemplated it after walking about a half-hour to a place in my guidebook that was closed down. Our nice meal out consisted of Bryan getting a fish and me trying an Elk burger. It was all right, but I don't ever have to get it again.

We ended our night at the coolest bar we've ever been to - Ice Bar, where the entire bar, including the glasses you drink out of, is made of ice. The temperature is kept at 23 degrees and you are given special coats before entering. A free drink is included, but the cold temperature keeps people coming in and out. We only stayed about a half-hour, and I'm pretty sure that's the average. Now that we've done that, I have no desire to stay at that hotel with the same concept!

I think I'm going to lay down and take a nap while I can. I will leave Bergen, Flam and the fjords to Bryan, or will write more later.

Finnished

We arrived in Helsinki yesterday morning. We took a bus from the airport and were surrounded by white birch trees like the one in our front yard on Pine Street. Pulling into the town it seemed sterile and desolate. Apparently things don't open until noon on Sundays.

We checked into my new favorite hotel, GLO. The room was awesome and had a "sleep menu," which included different pillows, aromatherapy oils and even bedtime stories. All we ordered were a couple pillows, but we did our best not to use them until bedtime to beat the jetlag.

The weather is perfect - low 70s, low humidity - great for exploring the town on foot. The city isn't very large so we were able to see most of it. We had lunch at a local place and Bryan had filet of reindeer. I stuck with a shrimp and pasta dish. We did some shopping at Europe's largest department store, Stockmann, and went to the room to figure out a game plan. We shook hands that we would not, under any circumstances, take a nap. Bryan tried, but I caught him and decided we would go back to a little amusement park we'd passed on our way from the airport.

We hopped on the city tram and found it relatively easy to maneuver. The park was mainly a kids' park but they had two pretty cool looking grown-up rollercoasters (neither of which we rode.) We did find our treasure in an arcade that had about 8 pinball games (more than half of which we played.) We had intended to get back in town in time to have dinner at our 10th international Pizza Hut but unfortunately it closed at 8. So we found ourselves at a really great restaurant which we were most likely underdressed for. In the end, we actually managed to stay up til almost midnight and slept in until almost 10 this morning. Jetlag averted!

The only thing Finland is really known for is its saunas and its reindeer, so we figured that it was our duty to visit the hotel sauna; that, and it was included in the price! What a great way to end our stay in Helskinki. Bryan used the gym first, and I wanted no part of working out on my vacation, so I did the saunas and steam rooms. I had almost missed this awesome shower in the sauna area but luckily found it before leaving the area. I did the splash setting, then the tropical, then the side shower. It was heavenly. This was followed by a Pizza Hut lunch buffet! One of the pizzas had jalapenos and tuna, and they had some breadsticks stuffed with goat cheese and drizzled with honey that unfortunately you could only order when the buffet was going on. It was moderately priced in our vast experience of Pizza Huts abroad.

Now we are aboard the Silja Symphony on our way to Stockholm; a "cruise ferry." Unfortunately, when I booked it, I thought the price was per person, not per cabin, so I ended up booking two of the cheapest cabins. They informed us of this at check-in and offered us one cabin and half the price of the other back in "ship dollars." So now we are trying to figure out how to spend the rest on duty-free items before we return back to our bunk-bed nook below deck. Ah well... the worst experiences make the best stories! Though it's a big step down from our night at GLO, we are thoroughly enjoying ourselves. We are happy for skype and that Jackson is in good hands with his Grandma Diane.