Oslo - Norway....

This is our first trip out of UK and we are going to Norway. Well... we have seen beautiful pictures of Norway, snow capped mountain and copper sulphate blue kinda river. It's a shame that we only have 2 days in Oslo and would not have the time to travel to such places. Anyway, think Oslo will be equally nice, at least it is something different from the usual English cities. We will be flying to Oslo via Ryan air, one of the budget airline. The two way return airfare is only 45 pds! Think even flying from Singapore to KL costs ard $200 plus.

Our flight is at 6.20pm and we reached the airport only like half an hour before. So we have to hurry with the checking in of our baggage and dashing to our departure gate. It was a 1.5hr flight from Newcastle to Oslo. The moment we stepped out of the plane, we can feel the cold norwegian weather hitting hard on us. Luckily, we came prepared and wore our long john plus extra clothings. Well... it's a shame that it will only start snowing on Monday, so we wouldn't be able to see snow during our trip. Nevermind, we shall see snow in Switzerland during Dec! We went to the luggage collection point to retrieve our backpack and only to realise that my backpack is missing. I went to make a lost baggage report and they told me that they can only tell me the outcome on Saturday afternoon. My heart sank as my notes and letter of accomodation in UK are in the backpack. This is supposed to be a fun trip and now it turns out this way.

Well... it's no use worrying about the bag now, gonna cross my fingers and wait until tomorrow afternoon. We then board the bus from the airport to Oslo city. It was already 11pm by the time we reached the city and we have to find our way to the hostel. Fortunately, we met 1 nice staff from 7-eleven and he showed us how to take the tram to our hostel. Eventually, we reached the hostel at 12am.

The next morning, we woke up very early to have our norwegian breakfast. Well.. it was not really that nice. The bread was very hard and the salmon has an extra fishy smell. Nonetheless, we still finished up the breakfast before going to the city centre. We took the tram to the Norsk Folkemuseum. Basically, the tram can take us to all the attractions within Oslo. Tram runs on electricity instead of diesel and is the most convenient transport in the city.

Norsk Folkemuseum is the norwegian museum of cultural history. It showcases the clothing and equiments that the norwegians used during the early days. There are also wooden cottages where the norwegians used to stay. These cottages are located in the open, amist the coniferous trees. There is also a small church at the top of hill. It would really be nice to live in this kinda cottages, away from the busy city.

ZS and I went to the viking ship museum which is just next to the Folkemuseum. There are 3 real size viking ships in the museum of which one of them is in a really bad state. The ships are streamline shaped and engineered to travel at a very high speed. The viking's worksmanship in shipbuilding is really impressive. However, they seems not to be not that smart when it comes to designing land transport. They constructed a cart with wheels that cannot turn and thus the cart can only move straight!

It was only 4.30pm after our tour in the museums but it seems like it is already 7pm. The sky is getting dark. We try to find a norwegian restaurant to have our dinner but the restaurant are too expensive. The cheapest meal you can get is 20 plus pds! In the end, we had our dinner at McDonald's. Think this is definitely the most expensive McDonald meal I ever had in my life. It cost 6pds!

The last day we only had morning to tour the city as our flight back to Newcastle is at 5.15pm and the bus ride from the city to the airport is already 2hrs. We went to Vigeland park which is Norway's main attractions with more than 1 million visitors each year. The unique sculpture park is the work of the sculptor Gustav Vigeland with more 200 sculptures of nude men and women! There is also a tall pillar with sculptures of men and women on it, which is supposed to mean the strive for spiritual excellence.

Finally, it was time for us to go to the airport to catch our flight back to Newcastle. Anyway, I called the airport earlier and they told me that my backpack is in Newcastle. I was so glad that at least my backpack is not lost.