Oslo: Festivals and Fjords

After a rocky drive to the airport complete with getting pulled over by the police JUST around the block from the Boudreau house (due to an illegal right turn made by our taxi driver) and a tightly timed connection in Reykjavik, we arrived in Oslo officially on vacation!  Our first plan was to celebrate Oslo Pride.

Where we stayed: Citybox Hotel, a low budget hotel by Norwegian standards but an excellent hotel by ours.  The hotel keeps their costs down by using an automated check-in and check-out system. Our room was full of Ikea-esque furniture and duvets.  The only noise was the occasional city construction and a girl having a LOT of fun in a nearby room.  The wifi was amazing which allowed us to constantly stream Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic music and pumped up Pride hits.  Our hotel was centrally situated between the train station and Pride Park.  

What we ate and drank: A random assortment of things - but mostly croissants - chocolate croissants, ham and cheese (aka ost & skinke) croissants, and plain croissants.  We had iced coffees at a cute cafe in the Oslo train station - which is gorgeously developed with lots of light, shops, and restaurants.  The server said "Are you sure, it isn't like Starbucks" which, while initially felt like a jab at our coffee connoisseur-ness we later realized was likely a reflection of how many North Americans try to return drinks that aren't exactly like they expect back home.  We're not those kind of travelers! Pride Park food consisted of a savory ham and cheese waffle followed by a waffle loaded with a little too much ooey gooey jam, a hot dog (which are apparently very common in Norway) and skewered shrimp.  So Ashley did get her shrimp, although she is also still a shrimp by Norwegian standards - her toes could barely reach the ground on their bathroom toilet.  Post pride food consisted of Norwegian fast food - Max Burgers.  Somewhere in between the cute café and post Pride food JD got a bad case of food poisoning – but we don’t know whether to blame the hot dog or burger. Britt and Ash enjoyed an Italian meal in the train station consisting of bruschetta, carbonera, and a salad – poor JD was almost at the height of his food poisoning.  We finished off our stay in Oslo with a nice dinner of salmon and potatoes and caesar salad at the Grand Cafe.  Hansa officially became our Norwegian beer of choice when out and about but we consumed many-an-Arctic beer on tap at Pride.  Each beer cost $10.82 CAD! Alcohol in Norway is taxed 25% - hello social programs, goodbye alcoholism.  

What we did: Celebrated Pride with live music and lots of drinks and a little bit of dancing. Britt had found a new band to enjoy - Kateboy, who was more entertaining live even than in their music videos.  Britt still loves Tegan and Sara, but recognizes she will never be able to get as close to Tegan and Sara as she was able to get to Kateboy - right up to the front gate, practically on stage.  One point for KateBoy. JD had found a new popstar - Tooji, who had recently come out officially in a purposely provocative video featuring himself sleeping with a priest in front of a congregation.   The best part of Tooji's performance was when he auctioned off the 'priest' to the highest bidder for a Pride date night - he went for approximately 600 CAD, which we think is a pretty good deal.  Pride wouldn't have been complete without a dance party where Britt almost got kicked in the head by a woman doing a lift and JD had beer poured on him.  Oh, and in Norway they love their Rihanna, Beyonce, and Shakira... no wait, that's just universal gay.  We made lots of new friends at Pride, starting with Chris from Ottawa who has lived in Oslo for the past 9 years and gave us lots of tips for what to do around the city.  He also gave us tips about Norwegians.  People from Norway are generally reserved, while they are sweet and will kindly rub your arm or back to move you out of the way in the event of a crowd, they also generally won't talk to you unless you talk to them first. So much to our surprise, we were befriended by several people.  We met a couple and ‘supportive brother’ in Bear Forest and shut down Pride with a group of 21 year old women, mostly from Northern Norway, who insisted on giving us their jackets and escorting us to the most popular club - which we, of course, did not actually get into because there was a line and because we are too old and too adult-like therefore recognizing we needed to go home and sleep before our 10:30 am tour.  And of course an integral part of Oslo was taking pictures - Britt took about 400 just of some rainbow balloons floating in the water, putting down her camera only to pull it out again saying "Now there's a white balloon too!" Other than Pride, we took a trip to Frogner Park, full of naked statues and then re-enacted them (minus the nudity).  JD made friends with the angry baby as well as several other statues and hairy iron gates.  This was our first time taking the subway - take a lesson Toronto - Oslo is a city of 600 000 and has more than 5 subway lines.  We took an Oslo City Tour, that took us to Holmenkollbaken ski park, back to Vigeland Sculpture Park turns out Frogner Park has two names (this time we learned the history and suddenly understood what we were looking at), and three museums: The Fram Museum, Kon-Tiki, and the Viking Ship Museum.  Here sums up what we learned: You can get seasick inside of a ship even when it's not moving, when you actually see a big wooden boat that men would literally row across the ocean, all the way to Canada, you realize that the Vikings were really badass.  The bus tour guide was also full of fun facts about Norway - it has the second longest coastline, next to Canada, and women and men can take maternity leave for up to three years.  The verdict is still out on whether Norway is like the movie Frozen… so far it has been pretty warm except for our trip to the Magic Ice Bar... where we looked like members of a secret society wearing hooded shrouds and drinking out of conical ice cups.  Not as 'cool' as it was touristy, but fun!

Lessons learned:  Just because you're in Norway, doesn't mean you should let down your travel food guard and eat street meat - if you want to be safe, never eat meat that could have potentially been sitting in the sun all day!  Don’t be offended if your new Norwegian friends tell you they’re going home only to be later seen in line at the club – we were informed that it may just be that they’ve run out of things to say in English.

Best lost in translation moment: "I did your sister"... uhm... met your sister, said one new friend to JD.  

Questions for Gothenburg...

Will JD feel better before we leave Sweden?

Will Ash dip her toes in the Arctic Sea while visiting Gothenburg’s Southern Archipelago?

Will Britt find all the food and drink recommendations Gothenburg has to offer?

Stay tuned!