Norway

We woke up early and set off into Oslo, The Oslo Cathedral is only around the corner from our hotel was our first stop. It is not an ornate Cathedral like those I have visited before, however due to the tributes outside dedicated to the people who lost thier lives in the recent terror attacks, there was a very sombre and understandable respect!

Memorial, Many flowers have been removed or have since died.

Inside the cathedral.

We then took a walk up to the Palace, which is situated on the top of the hill in Oslo.

Oslo is a relatively easy place to find your way around if you keep to the tourist trail and dont go wondering through the smaller roads. after a short walk we were at the Key side at an area named Aker Brygge.

We were very lucky with the weather, although we had taken hoodies incase it was cold, i found myself tying it round me and was more than comfortable. There was a market on selling traditional Norwegian food and craft, which had a nice atmosphere, and we had a brief look round the
Nobel Peace Museum.

We arranged to meet up back at the Palace with an old friend of mine called Amanda, who is originally from Sweden, but now lives in Oslo. It was
nice to see her again, we tend to see each other now once every two years, but its nice that we have stayed in contact now for as long as we have. she offered to show us, as we had already had a busy morning, how to get to Vigeland Sculpture Park, which is a little walk out of cental oslo, going through some of the expensive housing areas. The sculpture park was interesting and had some great views of Oslo as it is vertually the highest point. The walk back was long however, due to Amanda being unsure of the best route back, it didnt matter though, and we went and grabbed a beer at a cafe and chilled out.

(Vigeland Sculpture Park

There has, and will be very little partying going on, or fancy resturants for us as travellers due to the cost of living in Oslo, and Norway in general. It amuses me that no matter where you go in the world, and who you talk to, whether they drink beer or not. The price of a place is relative to how much it costs to buy a beer!!! In Oslo's case its roughly, £8 a pint, I Think ill stick to a tap water please!

Ill use beer as a representation of the price of the different countries throughout the blog I think!

As it turns out some fool on the floor above let off a fire extinguisher as a joke, although this made for a hilariously frantic evacuation, where I went against the golden rule of leaving all personal belongings and stuffed everything into my bag and hardly touched a step going down 4 flights of stairs with my heart racing! At least it was a false alarm!

So we touched down in Norway  landing at Rygge Airport after a smooth journey to be greeted by t-shirt weather, I would even go as far as shorts! I was pleasantly surprised how short the journey was. Flying into Norway allows you to see how wooded and wet it is, lots of islands, lakes and rivers all lined with fir trees. In all honesty it was the picture I was expecting, so it's nice it lived up to that.

Once onto the coach heading into Oslo you could appreciate the Norwegian countryside at ground level! Tall slender evergreens stretching themselves on tip toes towards the sun getting the last of the summer rays before the inevitable hard winter sets in. The roads cut through this landscape being flanked on either side, interrupted only by rock-faces that have been blasted out or long tunnels.

The wooden cladding on the monopoly square houses are either painted red or white and are dotted across fields when not concealed by the trees or rock, many look huge and may potentially be barns or outbuildings. Not too dissimilar to how I imagine parts of North America or Canada look, which I suppose makes sense as we must be on relatively the same latitude.

On arrival in Oslo we were greeted by a modern and clean looking city. As cities go it felt welcoming and has a 'buzz' about it. After very little problems our hotel was in walking distance of the bus stop, the name 'Oslo budget hotel' doesn't sound inviting, but its clean, a bed and in the centre of the action! The views not much unless you peep further down the road but it'll do us just fine! Now off to explore.