My first real day in Norway, I decided that I would dedicate it to museums. And so I embarked on a trip to the sort of peninsula like area of southern Oslo called Bygdøy. Now, I just had to take the number 30 bus all the way from outside the door of my hostel to the end of its like, but during the summer one can also take a ferry, which is infinitely cooler.
It seems like that whole area is dedicated to museums. I actually think that the road that the bus drives on is called Museum Road…but I might be just making that up. That’s for the nit picky people of the internet to answer. So, since I like ships, and I also like Vikings, the first museum I decided to stop off in was…the Viking ship museum!
Entry was 60 nok for an adult, which is fitting considering that the museum was relatively much smaller than the next two I would visit. Everything is in one building, which houses the ships that were discovered in excavations of Viking burial mounds. Two are in surprisingly good shape, as are the artifacts and skeletons that were found inside of them. There are a few balcony like features that you could climb up to as well, to look down over the tops of the ships. All of the burial artifacts are on display, along with the skeletons of two female high ranking Vikings, a chieftain, and another guy…I forget what he was on about. All in all, a cool museum, didn’t take more than an hour to visit, not a necessity though if you’re running low on money.
Museum number two was called the Norwegian folk museum, and was definitely the most different of the three. It has a few indoor exhibitions, including one about the Sami that I really enjoyed, but the thing that really makes this museum unique is its extensive outdoor exhibition. They recreated or transported a whole bunch of traditional Norwegian buildings, include churches, farm houses, town halls, even a tenement building and alcohol shop. It is quite large and quite easy to get lost in. Many of the buildings were not completely open, due to reconstructive work being done in their roofs, but it was cool nonetheless. It cost me a reasonable 80 nok, and took me a good portion of time to explore.
And now we get to my favorite museum of the day, the Fram museum. It’s located right by the last stop on the 30 bus, flanked by two other museums, the Maritime and the…Tiki? Something along those lines, I can’t quite remember. It costs 85 nok to enter, and it is, in my opinion, the best museum of the three. It contains two polar exploration ships, the Fram and the Gjoa (?). The Fram is the first ship actually designed to withstand polar ice, and the first to do it successfully. The museum is filled with information, cool exhibits and even has a movie you can listen to in any language. The icing on top of the cake is that you can actually walk on, in, and around the Fram, and see exactly how the men used to live on the ship for years and years. It was totally worth the money, totally recommended.
Now I must cut this post short. Matt and I have just gotten ready, we’re drinking some tea, and we’re going to head out and do some stuff!
Norway
Part 1: So long, Norway!
And so here I am, last morning in Norway. I think I would like to come back here again, because I don’t think that I actually saw the beauty that Norway is known for. I saw a huge city, very polished, very flashy, but it was not really what I had in mind. I want to see the fjords, the rivers, the mountains…go hiking, snowboarding, climbing…not sit in a city because there’s no real way to get out of it comfortably without a car. And that is such a wonderful introduction to the Norwegian version of travel tips!
1. Have a car. Rent a car. Anything. Yeah, I know that isn’t really ideal, but trains and buses here cost an arm and a leg, and getting to the smaller towns in Norway is a tad bit difficult. Also, the allure of Norway, I feel, is in its scenery, which you can only truly experience if you can park trail side and hike, or stop if you see pretty view, or get to a campsite…you catch my drift. This country is already expensive. Might as well get a few buddies and split the cost in order to truly see as much as you can.
2. Bring as much of your own food as you can. The cheapest coffee I found was at the hostel, for 20 nok, which is about 3 dollars or so. More, actually. For a small coffee, not a latte or anything special. And that was the cheapest one, prices at other shops were definitely over 30 nok. Food is also ridiculous…I lived off of crackers, chocolate spread, and the odd yogurt to try to keep my digestion working somehow. At the end I found a deal on ramen, but I definitely don’t suggest this kind of life.
3. If you are here for 5 days like I was, buy a week-long public transport pass. I think it might even be worth it if you’re here for three days. I don’t remember the prices for 24 hours. But, a week-long is 220 nok, and gives you access to all the public transportation, including the ferries.
4. If you take the ferries, check the ferry schedule ahead of time. They run less often on weekdays than on weekends, and tend to have an inexplicable hour break in service around midday. Don’t get stranded like I did. It’s not fun in the cold, no matter how pretty the island you are on.
5. Pay attention to door owning buttons on public transportation. Not all the doors open automatically. There are buttons on both the outside of the buses, and the inside, that will grant you entry. Pay attention, because if you just stand there, the bus will leave. The driver really doesn’t care.
Fyi, bomb sniffing puppies are friggin adorable.
Part 2 and part 3 will concern museums and London, day 1! Stay posted.
Lessons in public sleeping
Alright potential hostel goers, here is a story from last night…
Yesterday we had a pretty full room. I don’t think that there were many beds empty, maybe 2 in a 20 bed room. Next to me was a girl from Brazil, and her friend had a bed a few bunks down. They decided to go out last night and, predictably, came home a bit drunk last night. The girl in the bed next to me had a bit of trouble finding something in her bag in the dark, and was rustling around for quite a while. It was annoying, but I have dealt with worse things in hostel rooms.
The girl above me wasn’t so understanding. She got out of bed, stormed over to the door, and slammed on the light switch, and started voicing her displeasure, quite loudly and rudely. Expletives were used.
Of course, that woke everyone up, and other people started getting involved. There were shut ups and f**k you’s thrown about everywhere…I did the sensible thing and stuck my head underneath a pillow until things blew over. And blow over it did…until the morning. Around 9:30, everyone started stirring, and someone turned on the light. The chick above me went crazy. She went over, slammed the light off, pulled down a piece of paper so that the edge was hanging over the light switch, and started yelling at the girls closest to the door. She started to stomp back over to the bed, when one of the girls turned the light back on again. One of the girls decided that she didn’t want to deal with it, and turned it back off. That is when the angry girl said the funniest thing…”Yeah, I though so.” As if she had intimidated the other girls into doing what she wanted, instead of exasperated them with her stupidity.
By the time I got back from showering and eating, she was gone. I don’t know if she left for good. I hope she did.
Don’t be that person, guys. If you are thinking about a hostel, and think you will have a life without sleep disruption and inconveniences, then you should go find a hotel.
Please, for the good of everyone else.
Update: The girl ended up hitting someone in the mouth, and so got kicked out of the hostel.
Wandering Owl 