Oslo, Norway

Entry 14.

Karina and her mom greeted me at the ferry terminal and we drove the thirty minutes to Karina's house in the suburbs of Oslo. Karina's mom made a large breakfast, which I devoured. I spent the rest of the day catching up on my blog, which I had procrastinated on in the last two days.
The next day we went to visit Karina's friend, Rebecca, about 30 minutes away in a small village on the Oslo fjord. Rebecca worked in a small art gallery and basically did nothing except cook an occasional waffle or show the rare visitor around the gallery, and made the equivalent of 20 dollars an hour. After checking out another small art gallery tucked away in the woods, Karina explained to me that that was average and that some of her friends made 50 dollars every 45 minutes for swim lessons. I was amazed until later that night we went to the movie theaters and the McDonalds next door was advertising a Big Mac for $18. The movie ticket cost $22, and it was almost 10 dollars for a candy bar. Harry Potter was well worth it though.
The next day we drove down to Besseggen National Park where we spent the night in a small cabin on the shore of a beautiful glacial melt river. The next morning we woke up at 6:00 to catch a ferry across a lake to where we would start our hike. The water was a bluish green and the air a chilly 3 celsius. After a 45 minute boat ride we disembarked and were greeted with a 500 meter vertical climb. Since Madrid I had had a rather nasty cough (turned out to be bronchitis) but assumed it would go away in a few days. Every few steps I had to stop stop and let out a torrent of coughs.
After reaching "the top" four times, we finally found the real one and I almost collapsed with exhaustion. The view was impressive though; glaciers everywhere, snow capped mountains in the distance, and 600 meters down a sheer cliff wall, a placid green lake. After resting and having a few snacks, we descended a little only to climb up even higher. This time it was so steep that you had to use your hands as well, halfway between free climbing and hiking. After another round of desperately thinking ever mound was the top, we got to the top of the second mountain. It wasn't nearly as impressive as the first one, probably because I was wet, freezing, hungry, and desperately needed to go to the bathroom. But also because it was just a sea of broken up rocks left there when the glaciers retreated thousands of years ago. Along the route there were mounds of rocks that each person passing was supposed to add another rock to, the idea being that the trail would be discoverable even in the deep snow. Where we were they had created an enormous version of this, with a 10 meter high mound of rocks, and growing everyday.
I thought the climb down would be pretty quick and steep, but it turned out to be a long and windy way down. When I got to the bottom I did a full out sprint to the bathroom but was confronted with a sign that said it was 5 Kroners to enter. Unbelievable, I didn't expect this from Norwegians. I ran back to Karina and asked her for the money and as she went to get change I planned on how I would blow open the door. I then saw someone enter and leave without paying a cent. It was free. The sign was years old.
On the drive back to Karina's house we stopped at an overlook to the National Socialist Youth Party's retreat island, where 3 weeks before Anders Breivik had shot and killed 69 kids. Next to us was an older lady and middle aged woman, both sobbing, saying how much they missed their son and how they would never see him again.
The next day we went into Oslo on Karina's family's yacht, a two hour ride through the Oslo fjord. We docked in Oslo and Karina and got some delicious ice cream and visited a castle that used to be the primary defense for Oslo and overlooked the harbor, that had been turned into a nice park. From there we walked down the main street which reminded me of Denmark. There were people everywhere but it was still very quiet and peaceful. The elections were in a few months so every political party had a stand set up along the street, from the Communist to the Socialist to the Conservationists. After explaining to many of them that I don't speak Norwegian and I also can't vote, we made our way to the King's castle and witnessed an even more pathetic changing of the guard than in Prague.
We visited the place where the Oslo bomb had gone off and it was blocked off with a police barricade and multiple TV crews, but you could see that the entire side of the building had been blown off and windows literally all around the city had been blown out. Karina, who lives 30 minutes outside of the city, said that the ground shook at her house. Somehow, the bomb only killed 7 people. We walked to the national church a few blocks away and the entire block had been covered in flowers, candles, and notes. It seemed like it had turned into a tourist attraction though, with throngs of people trying to get pictures with the memorial.
On my last day Karina's mom drove us into Oslo and dropped us off at the parliament, where Karina's uncle works and he gave us a private tour of the parliament building and national archives.
From there I took a bus to the airport and boarded the airplane to London, ending one part of my journey and starting a completely new and different one.



Glacier runoff at the campsite



Bessegen


Snow in the middle of summer


The first summit








The lake on the right is 500 meters higher than the left one


The second, and highest summit






Memorial to the island shootings


Approximately where the bomb went off


A building, blocks away, with the windows blown out


Memorial at the National Church


Ski jump


Some naked statues








A pillar of naked people


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Location:Oslo, Norway