The first weekend in April was Tommy's birthday, and he decided he wanted to spend it in Oslo. A bunch of us also went with him (solo birthday's aren't really as fun): me, Adrienn, Evan, Vance, Lindsey, Richard, and Devon. Evan and Devon actually know a girl that lives in Oslo (Paige...she's from Alaska and they met her on a ski trip in France), so they got hooked up with a place to stay. The rest of us were forced to rough it in a hostel.
Being silly at our hostel:
back: Tommy the Birthday Boy, Vance, Evan, Devon, Richard
front: Lindsey, me, Adrienn
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We arrived Thursday evening, to find Tommy returning drunk from a day of sightseeing. Haha, it was hilarious because as we were checking in, he wandered past the windows and proceeded to wave and dance around, while we were trying to keep a straight face as we dealt with check-in business. We just chilled out at the hostel that night, and made a new friend in our hostel room: English guy named Paul. He was really cool, and ended up hanging out with us the whole weekend (a decision that he may have regretted, haha).
Richard, Vance, Adrienn and Tommy at our hostel
On Friday we headed to a Viking ship museum, which was really impressive. They had 3 giant preserved ships that had been restored, that filled up the whole place. There also lots of other artifacts that had been found with the ships (the ships were used as tombs!). We learned a lot about Viking culture... I was impressed to find out that the Vikings navigated with only the use of the stars!
Me with a Viking ship
Look how huge they are!!
Next door there was another random museum that we looked at. It included a movie about Norway, which would have been kind of boring except for the fact that it was shown on 5 screens that all lined up (or tried to...). Actually, it was still kind of boring, though we got to see a lot of nice scenery. I refrained from buying a copy of the dvd that they were selling in the gift shop (would you need 5 tvs lined up??!?!?!). I did, however, buy an awesome Norway toque :)
We wanted to go to the Kon-Tiki museum, but it was closed for renovations. I settled for getting a pic with the statue outside.
Which one is me!?!?!?!
Outside the museums
On our way to the next sight, we passed a electronic store with some aweosme robo-dog in the display case! We spent a great deal of time trying to play with it through the glass, and then finally went in and got a sales guy to show us how it worked. Unfortuantly, robo-dog was pretty tired (aka, batteries were not fully charged) so he didn't want to play. Eventually we snapped-to and realized that we should get going.
Robo-dog in action (kind of...). I want one!
Another cool random thing we saw. Not sure if it's actually somebody's bicycle.
Walking around Oslo
The Berg having a moment
Evan, Richard, Tommy, me, Lindsey, Adrienn and Devon in front of the Royal Palace
Next stop was Vigeland Park, which was basically a park with statues of naked people. Actually, it was really tasteful, and I enjoyed the art a lot. It managed to convey a lot of emotion in a way that was simple and very pleasing to the eye. Some of them were still pretty funny though, and we got some mandatory statue abuse pics.
The center of Vigeland Park
The Monolith... pillar of bodies arranged in a very Escher-esque way.
Beware of falling babies
Nice pic by Vance (he got a good series of pics from this park)
Another one
Tommy also enjoyed the park
"go away!"
Walking through Vigeland Park
Fountain in the park
After the park we met Paige and she took us to the university where there was some sort of mixer going on. Aka, free snacks and coffee... we were all in.
Devon, Adrienn and Paige at the student mixer
Enjoying some free snacks!
That night we all met at Paige's place, and pre-partied with her and some of her friends. It was awesome of her to invite us! We caught the bus to a club, which was pretty cool... minus Vance and Evan, who due to unfortuante circumstances missed it and spent the night trying to navigate through Oslo.
On the way to Paige's with our new friend Paul!
Playing drinking games before the club
Richard and Vance being goofy...haha, notice that we are using jars for glasses! Cool idea.
Tommy and the girls, quite the trick
Lindsey giving Tommy guff for something, I think it may have been hockey-related.
The next morning we checked out the miniture bottle museum! We had heard great reviews from Travis, but it still exceeded our expectations. The museum was very elaboratly decorated, and had attention-grabbing informative displays showing minuture bottles of every country, shape, size (well, all small I guess), category, etc. There was even a slide! We spent a long time here...so long in fact that Vance got impatienient (as Vance does) and went off on his own for some efficient solo sight-seeing, haha.
A glimps at the number of bottles this place had
These bottles were all in the shape of mucisians...you could press a button to play music and watch them dance (aka, move around on a track, haha)
Spirytus Rektyfikowany!! This was in the "danger!" sections, haha, oh and it should be!
Evan trying the slide head-first (Tommy tries to catch him, haha)
How did we get here?!?!?!
"Guess what there was in the bathroom?" (answer: hair gel, don't worry)
Probably the neatest bathroom I have ever been in, it was really fancy and girly. The guy's had a magnifying mirror at the urinal, haha.
Outside the bottle museum
"You know I'm a unicorn J. D."!
Next we went to meet Axel (guy we met in Zermatt) and Erland (guy Devon and Evan met randomly in Engelberg) who also live in Olso (I don't know how there happened to be so many people in this one city that we knew). We chilled out at a cafe near the water, and took in the nice weather (warmest day we were there, by far). Next Erland took us up to the Akershus Fortress for a nice view of the city. It was nice having a local show us around, he gave us all sorts of inside info, and was really fun to hang out with.
Akershus Fortress
Beatiful day!
Adrienn and a nice view of the harbour
Candy!
Chewy candy...
That night we went out to a big party to celebrate Tommy's birthday. They basically opened up 4 floors of the student center and turned it into a big club. Some floors had live music, and others had dj's, it was really awesome! Beforehand we partied at the hostel. Paul was not planning on coming, since he had an early flight the next morning, but we sucked him in!
We all lost each other at the club, which was unfortunate because not all of us had hostel keys. Evan and I got stranded outside the door, and huddled against the wall for warmth (it was cold and snowing) and waited for somebody to get back. We must have looked pretty pathetic, because a passer-byer gave us some change, haha.
Devon and Evan are upset about leaving Oslo soon
Tommy sporting a nice birthday "hat", enjoying his birthday
Paul, me, Lindsey, and Adrienn on the way to the party. I should take this
Adrienn and Lindsey at the club
The next day Vance went off on his own again (I think he saw about 10 times the things we did in Oslo) and the rest of us went to the National Gallery. There was a nice selection of art there, including The Scream by Edvard Munch, which was cool. By then it was time to head home (I guess we were ineffecient afterall... haha, Vance made his choice)
Linds and Vance with their morning supplies in personal sizes.
I haven't mentioned up until this point how amazingly expensive Oslo is. We brought our own liquor from home, and ate in grocery stores (after purchasing the food I mean) and still managed to spend quite a bit. It was good to finally visit a Scandanavian country though, and something I noticed about Oslo was that it reminded me a lot of Calgary. Maybe it was just the cold, haha.
1 comment:
What? No sweet metal bands? I thought thats what Scandinavians were made for. Shit.
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