Oslo... the place of contrasts, nice people and surprises...or Welcome to Schengen!
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To start with, Scandinavia also seemed to be one of the places that you visit once you are "old and rich" and it seemed impossible for ordinary students to afford it. It was pure coincidence when in the late January I bumped into the site "generator of adventures" and out of curiousity checked the flights from the nearest to me Poland. How stunned I was when I saw the tickets for 6-20 Euros to major cities across Europe! On that time there were special offers for Warsaw- Oslo and Warsaw-Stockholm just for 6 Euros!
However after our decision to stay there for a week we encountered first challenges: where were we going to live? The "cheap" hostels were still too much for us. We didn't want to give up so easely, especially when we were already too excited to step back. That was the moment when we remembered about couchsurfing thing. We made a 2weeks condition of finding a host and, luckily, we made it!
The time X came and on the 25th of March we departed for our adventure. Since we live in Uzhgorod our route was quite complicated. We got from our Uzhgorod to Lviv, then we went to Lublin in Poland, a lovely city where I did my internship 9 months ago, in the morning we got to Warsaw and hung out with some old friends there and finally, in the evening we got to the Modlin airport, where without any problems we passed the check-in boards. That was one of the most looking-forward moment for us, cause it was our first flight ever. The flight itself lasted for an hour and 20 minutes, there wasn't a lot to make out from the window in the evening (our flight was at 7.10pm), but the lights from big cities and airports were a fantastic thing to see.
After landing at Oslo Rygge, we were "caught" by 3 bus drivers who happened to be Polish and offered us a ride to the city centre for some 15 Euros. So, here we were, in the fjordland, the motherland of angelic Susanne Sundfør and Röyksopp and one of the most expensive countries in the world. First thing that caught our attention was the politeness and helpfullness of people there. Norwegians are considered to be quite "cold". However, I liked the thing that everytime my eyes met someone else's on the streets, that person smiled (irrespectively to gender or age). That brought some positive atmosphere to the city. We always met those nice people when we were inquiring about the road or asking for some tipps about the sights. Norwegians were ready to help, explain and show. And yeah, boys and girls are extremely beautiful there.
We planned our itinerary in advance, but since neither I, nor my friend were good at directions and following maps, we decided to start our Randomn Walking Tour and never regretted about it. Wherever we were going we ALWAYS bumped into some sights that we would have never found on purpose. And the best thing was that we could easily reach everything on foot. We used public transport only twice per 3 days of our staying, though they have interesting discount policy, because only a person under 20 can pay a -50% price and no ISIC cards will help you once you are 20.
So, on the first day Norway greeted us with a bit of rain, but it didn't spoil the impression we got while walking on the roof of opera, watching amazing views of the nearest mini-fjord, beautiful sea, ships passing by and getting acquainted with a curious seagull that graciously followed us.
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| Art ship |
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| Our seagull Naomi |
The architecture was stunning, indeed. It differed from all the other capitals we've visited. Each building had its own unique style, and while we were walking through the streets we experienced just amazing combination of enjoying the architecture and rhythm of a capital with marine smell in the air and seagulls flying over our heads and retelling us their news:)
We visited all the major sights such as:
The hand fountain in Kvadraturen, Christiania square. The story says that the Norwegian-Danish king Christian IV decided to rebuild the city after a big fire in 1624 and pointed at that exact place with the words "The new town will lie here"
The building of Parliament with posh lions surrounding it
The most weird Cathedral I've ever visited was the one in Oslo. Being used to complete silence in different churches, feeling and hearing that special calmness that fills you with deep thoughts and evokes special emotions I was very much amused and confused when I heard someone playing a kind of Dart Weider's theme on the organ. I don't know what that was supposed to mean, but we had fun.
Walking on the streets of Oslo we felt complete calmness. This is the city with its own tempo but never in rush. We haven't seen heavy traffic or jams at any time of the day. It has strange but original sculptures.
Something that was also very much worth visiting was Vigeland park with hundreds of statues depicting humans that bear some message for everyone and induce to think.
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| Akershus festing |
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| One of the central streets |
Aaaaaand here comes the perk of the city - the Radhus square and the harbour. This place became our favourite one. The sun was patting us with its rays and we approached the harbour at the sea to sit, look at the Oslo fjord, inhale the fresh marine air and feel happiness. We could sit on the wooden platform that was shaking from waves coming from the ships passing by. If I lived in Oslo that would sertainly be the place for me to get relaxed after a hard day.
On the way to the wooden platforms at the harbour
How can one not fall in love with this little paradise?
And yeah, walking through this marvelous place we bumped into so many kind and interesting people, attended a dadaist party full of awesome guys around the world and planned our next visit to Norway to see the fjords. Everything here is super duper :)
Our next stop was Stockholm with its pranks, vikings and virgin blood
The songs of the day:
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