Oslo IS All It Is Cracked Up To Be

The 4:30 am alarm came earlier than 4:30 am (Editor’s Note: stop exaggerating!).  We got into the cab before 5:15, and headed off for an uneventful trip to the airport.  

(Editor’s Note: Are you going to tell us all about your trip through security, passport control, and what you had for breakfast?  Blogger: Apparently not!  There goes three paragraphs of potentially gripping material!).  

Fast forward to Oslo.  It’s definitely a city we have to go back to.  (Editor’s Note: Of course you have to go back there – you fly back there from Longyearben at the end of the Arctic trip!  Blogger: No, I meant for a longer stay to explore more of the city.  Editor: Oh. . .carry on).  

After checking into our hotel and realizing we did not have enough time for any kind of lengthy lunch, we crossed the main square in front of our hotel and flagged down a cab for the Viking Ship museum.  It was too far to walk given the time of day, and as it turns out, I’m not sure, given that we were on highway for part of the drive, that it is walkable anyhow.

A quick lunch of raspberry waffles (at 3:30 pm or so), and we took in the museum.  It is very cool.  It was two excellent examples of Viking Death Ships (viking ships that had been used on the water, but then were buried with Viking leaders (both men and women) along with Viking swag.  They were discovered in the late 1800s or early 1900s (depending on the ship).

Two of the ships are remarkably well-preserved, and one is in pretty rough shape.  The Oseburg ship is the most complete Viking ship find in the world, The museum also houses ships from Gokstad and Tune, along with many Viking artifacts.  It’s a very cool stop, and does not take that long to go through.

We had our Uber driver (drivers with regular cars can’t do Uber in Norway, so it was a pretty nice Jag crossover) drop us at the Opera House, hard by the water in Oslo.  The good news is, the opera house has an awesome design.  The bad news is, it is dangerous if you are not looking where you are going, even after being warned.

The roof slopes up from the ground, with various parts of it jutting out.  As we climbed to the top, we got impressive views of the fjord, the Oslo skyline, and all the greenery in the city (at least one third of Oslo must remain trees/forest/parks, so it looks great).  We were headed to the very top, and there were parts of the roof sticking up.  I had just pointed them out to Carol, when she managed to catch her foot on part of it, fall down, and cracked some ribs – just like I had done to myself not two weeks ago at Wintergreen.

Well, let me tell you from personal experience, that puts a damper on the rest of the day – and takes weeks to recover from.  I’m still not sleeping comfortably – although standing and sitting is fine now.  Let me tell you, however, the whole waking up every hour or so with an incredible pain in your upper body – that’s NOT fun.  It is bad, so I’m not going to rib Carol about not listening to me. . .nothing new there!  (Now, I just have to figure out how to cloak this post so Carol can’t read it.)

So, we walked back to the hotel, and got ready for the welcoming reception.  That was pretty cool, as we took a boat tour around Oslo Harbor, eventually disembarking at the Fram Museum.  Believe it or not racing fans from the 1970s, Fram is not just an oil filter, but is also a famous polar ship from the early 1900s.  

The whole museum is built around the ship, and you walk around the outside of the ship on various levels of the museum.  There are lots of interesting displays (Like the Viking Ship museum, they offer signs in Norwegian and English.  I opted for the English signs.).  On the third level, you can actually board the ship and walk around.  The whole reception was neat, even though we were pretty tired.  We saw a number of people we had met on the Antarctica cruise, and had fun briefly catching up with them.

Dinner was hot dogs, which apparently are also a thing in Norway.  It was fine, but we are not going to be pining for Norwegian hot dogs either upon our return to the States.  It was back to the hotel, where I stayed up till 12:30 am analyzing surveys and doing conference calls.  I didn’t mind working late, because we didn’t have to get up till 4:30 am to catch our 5:15 bus to the airport.

I woke up in time to check my iPad, click on the NBC Sports app, and watch some of the third period of THE CAPS WINNING THE STANLEY CUP.  We (and by “we” I of course mean the Caps and I) were down 3-2, but I got to see DSP score the tying goal.  I missed Lars Eller’s game-winner, but did see other chunks of the game.  I was basking in the glow for the entire bus and plane ride!