A seagull-eye view from Oslo opera roof

Now since travel abroad is more possible, I finally made it to visit my friend Hannele in Norway a few weeks back! (True fans will remember her from entries like the Scenic routes of Phu Quoc and the Motorbike accident in Vietnam.) Here is part 1 of this brief little trip, with the magnificent city of OSLO.

We met at the central Oslo train station. She’d come from her hometown of Sandefjord, I’d come from the airport – twenty minutes in the silent zone of possibly the most funky-snouted trains I have ever been in, possibly competing with the Japanese sleeker versions. Have you seen anything more adorable!?

My travel exhaustion was blown away by the frankly vibrant big city vibes I’d fully not been expecting from Oslo. (What had I been expecting? Well, honestly, I hadn’t even thought about it, since my main reason was to see my friend.)

I quickly dubbed Oslo the “London of the Nordics”. The buildings were reminiscent of the modern London skyline with shiny skyscrapers with flashy logos and futuristic windows. The red buses were like the London buses, except with the top floor moved to the back of the bus, becoming an extension. And there was even a Big Ben I mean a Big Bjørn.

The thing London doesn’t (any longer </3) have were the trams, which in Oslo were mostly light blue and very speedy compared to the Finnish caterpillars.

An interesting fact in the contemporary world of covid is the complete lack of masks in Norway. I guess it’s the norm in some European countries now, but in Finland masks were still very much prevalent – 80% of people in public transport wore masks in Finland (from my experience, no stats) (and this was also earlier – as of the 25^th of October mask-wearing is no longer obligatory in Helsinki public transport, just *recommended*), whereas 0.05% wore it in Oslo public transport, and that percentage was yours truly. 

After tram-spotting we went to check out one of the main views of Oslo, the Opera house.

…or more specifically the ROOF of the Opera house, where we watched the beautiful Norwegian sun setting over groups of tourists and students enjoying the sunny evening, watched over carefully by fierce-looking seagulls with no concept of a comfort zone. They seemed unkeen on attacking any food, they just stood, nonplussed on the edge, observing the humans and ready to walk in a civilised manner to any food left for them. They seemed very well-behaved and completely oblivious to any possible risk linked to close proximity with humans. I assume the Norwegians are a gentle, seagull-friendly people.

Hannele showed me the various sites around the Opera house, like the ruins of the Louvre (which actually was some funky ice art work which was constantly on the move) (just googled it: it’s called She Lies, it’s been there since 2010 and it turns on its axis in line with the tide and the wind) the building voted the ugliest in Oslo (or something like that). I thought both to be quite fascinating.

But most fascinating of all was the sky. Look at the pink clouds. Norway entered my books as the land of never-ending clear skies.

Then we took a posh 35€ bus to Sandefjord, Hannele’s town. The driver reminded me of Raquel from Money Heist and the bus was double-deckered and well, I’ll say it again, POSH. After an hour and a half dozing on the POSH seats, we got off and walked in the crisp darkness to Hannele’s place in a nice suburban area in Sandefjord. She and her partner are renting a cellar flat of a detached house, something which is apparently quite common in Norway. There were little windows at the top of the walls, and it was very cozy.

Next: exploring the Sandefjord area!

Yours truly,

Emzy

xoxo

PS. To end with, some plain plane views.