“​Norway. Closed on Sundays"

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Oslo-Skabu

 

Kit gave us a bit of a whirlwind tour of the outskirts of Oslo in the morning. City views, ski jumps, posh cabins and trolls carved in the stone (still unsure what a troll is. What’s a gnome then? And a goblin?)

He then left us to get some bacon (ahh, stereotyping the Scandies), whilst we shot into town to do some sightseeing. Oslo is pretty small, so it was pretty easy to walkabout. It has the ubiquitous harbour and a centralish square with a fountain in it. But, again, another great looking city. We ticked off the Nobel Museum and the National Gallery to see The Scream by Munch. I really was not inserted with the ‘old art appreciation chip’ when I was born. The Scream was much like most traditional paintings to me – a little whatevs. And, Edvard Munch even produced 4 of them, so basically did the equivalent of a not so good photocopy, so how are you meant to know what the good one is?

 

Although apparently someone does as they paid $120m a few months ago to buy one of the versions. I can only assume the rich American/Arab/Russian knows he has bought only 1 of the 4 of them. That’s going to be really expensive if he wants to go for the set.

Oslo (& Norway generally) seems to have all its shops shut on Sundays. Supposedly it’s due to labour laws and expensive wages, but I just feel they are missing a trick with all these tourists and our willingness to part easily with our money. Norway has the unfortunate mantle of being one of the most expensive cities in the world. And when the minimum you can withdraw from the ATM is the equivalent of £100/$160, one knows you’re not in a cheap place (that and the 20 quid spent on a couple of sandwiches & drinks from a 7-eleven).

After a few hours it was time to hit the road for Kit’s family’s cabin. There was a brief stop on the way in Lillehammer (Winter Olympics ’94), but with the whole Sunday thing, everything was shut up expect for the out of town McDonalds, which seemed to have the whole town in there. We got to Kit’s in the evening and hunkered down to discuss routes for the next couple of days. Between Kit’s work, Dave’s lack of any end date/destination and Charlie’s picking up of her boyfriend from Oslo, there was some considerable negotiation on how to fit all of Norway in, but within everyone’s timescales. Thankfully, we know we can’t do the full Norway extravaganza, so it’s easy enough for us to just follow for the next couple of days, and let them work out the logistics.

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