The flight was early and we had no problems. I slept the entire way.
The Oslo airport that we flew into is actually in Torp, which is about an hour and a half away from Oslo, and a rather expensive bus ride there (like 260 kroners, or like £26). I slept the whole way in too.
We got into the bus station and figured out that our plans to sleep in the (rather nice) Torp airport probably weren't going to work since the last bus out there left way early, like 6 pm and the first one out was at 6:30 am. Not so good. The bus station looked decent enough and it was connected to the train station via a walkway, so between the two we thought we'd be fine.
We looked at the map and planned out the day, first heading to Rudolph Nielson Plass, which is in the song. "Me and Nina making fun of footballers in Rudolph Nielson Plass." Well turns out it's an incredibly small park, not even that pretty. There was, however, a nice little football field with fancy artificial turf, where he had to be sitting and seeing that. Sorta crazy to think about.
From there we went up to the Edvard Munch Museum, of "The Scream" fame. "The Scream" was stolen from the museum in 2004 and returned in 2006, so it's not there anymore, which we weren't really sure about. The place was interesting, he's one of my favorite artists. They did have a different version of 'The Scream' as well as another from the same bridge scene, but it was sorta disappointing they didn't have the real one.
From there we went in the center of the city and had coffee at the Grand Cafe, where Ibsen used to hang out. It's also in the building where the Nobel Peace Prize winner stays the night they win, and I think they eat in the restaurant. It was nice out in the sun, although the city was absolutely dead. Hardly any noise, hardly any people, most the stores were clsoed because it was Sunday.
From there we walked over by City Hall (where the prize is given out now) and down to the dock. The city itself doesn't feel all that Norwegian or anything, but down by the water it sure did. There were green hills in the background and the water was clear blue. We took a boat across the water to get to the Viking Ship Museum.
It started to rain rather hard as we walked through the old neighborhood on the way, but ended up inside before we were too soaked. We realized Heidi lost her ID, which was a bummer, but we still got the discount.
The ships are supposed to be the best preserved viking ships in the world, found in burial mounds. They're huge, how you'd expect viking ships to be. I felt like I was in Norway, some crazy far-away place I never thought I'd ever be.
From there we took the boat back and stopped in 7-11 and I got a Japp candy bar, mostly because it's rather offensive and different. We were going to try to get on the 4pm City Hall tour, but it was closed so we went to the National Gallery. They had a lot of the boring Tate Britian style art that I hate, but they had a whole room of Munch stuff, including the real 'Scream,' well worth the trip out.
From there we went into Old Town, past the oldest restaurant in the city where Munch and Ibsen ate...which was closed. So we went down by he castle which is up on the hill overlooking the water and port. It was a great view from there and we decided to come back later when the sun was setting.
We found a place in my Oslo book for dinner but it was all meat so we wandered, coming across Dolly Dimple's, a pizza place that was relatively cheap. I ordered a coffee and a margehrita pizza. After an hour of waiting for our food (it's supposed to be a laid-back nation but seriously), we got the waiters attention and they forgot about our order. They offered us the food for free, so we took it, saving about £30. Oslo is one of the most expensive places in the world, so to get a free dinner was huge.
We walked down to the port again and watched the sun set. It was great. From there we wandered to the other side of the port by the new buildings, it was still sorta dead over there too.
We came back into town and went over to Oslo University, where the Nobel Prize was awarded for 90 years or so. From there we went and just walked around, the town was a lot different at night, louder with people out, many of the buildings had neon lights up too. Interesting.
It was getting late so we headed over to the bus station to get some sleep on one of the benches. We got a good spot on benches with cushions and fell asleep. For about 10 minutes before they shut the place down. So we moved to the train station and slept for maybe a half hour before we were kicked out there too.
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