Norway – Trondheim, Oslo (Post #27)
Hei hei, (casual greeting people use in Norway – pronounced “hey hey”)
This is Michele…today is Wednesday, July 20th.
Since our last blog, we have had some wonderful experiences!
While in Trondheim we went to a local record shop called Apocalyptic Empire Records that sold metal music. We met a guy named Ole and talked with him for a bit about the local metal scene and an upcoming metal show the next night. In fact, our last post shows Mike wearing the shirt he bought for the show. We did go to the bar where the metal show was taking place and purposefully got there early (around 10:15pm) because beer at the bars is cheaper before 11pm and, as we learned that night, you can’t buy beer after 6:00pm in a grocery store on Saturday. We chatted with some local people as we drank our beer that was a mere $4.50 each. At 11pm the beer became about $9 each. This is how we spent A LOT of money that night. The show was great and we were happy to be at a bar with other people who appreciate metal music. When the show ended (about 2am) everyone spilled out into a small park and we easily talked with other people since most everyone in Norway speaks English. We saw Ole from the record store who introduced Mike to Vegard, the lead singer in a local metal band named the Apparatus. He and some of the other guys invited Mike (and me, since I was associated with Mike), to an “after party”. We felt very flattered to be invited to such a thing since the reality is we are tourists (i.e., independent travelers).
The after party rocked! We stayed there until 6am the next morning and had no problems talking with the locals about music and life in general. They were curious about the US and of course we were curious about life in Trondheim, Norway. One interesting thing…we ended up drinking moonshine, which we learned is quite common. People make their own “spirits” (moonshine) in order to save money. We walked back to our hotel where the front desk person greeted us by saying, “good morning and good night!” Of course we were totally wiped out the next day (Sunday, July 17) and any thought of hiking went out the window since we did not leave the hotel room until 3pm. However, we did manage to explore more of Trondheim and walk up a hill to a fort that overlooked the city. If I could upload pictures, I would upload one that shows this beautiful view.
On Monday, July 18, we took a 7 hour train from Trondheim to Oslo. Mike found our Oslo hotel on the internet and it was a steal (relatively speaking) since it includes an all you can eat breakfast and dinner and a waffle lunch. We spent much of Monday night doing business which included booking a flight to Warsaw, Poland (for Thurs, Aug 4th) and booking accomodations in Warsaw and Krakow. We are our own travel agents of course so often we spend hours on the internet looking and booking trains, planes, and hotels (and right now we are back to $10/hour internet use, like it was in Iceland).
On Tuesday, July 19th, we went to the India embassy in order to apply for an India visa. We encountered a very unfriendly person who worked behind the counter and told us that a) it was too early for us to apply for a visa, and b) it would take 7 business days – neither of which is true. We stayed there 15 minutes past closing, which made her mad and then when we didn’t have enough cash to pay for the visa application (1300 Nkr, which = $100 US each), she got quite ticked off. Oh well!
We went back to the India embassy today and left our passports and application with her and she told us it would probably be ready on Tuesday. We then went to Frognerparken, a wonderful city park with over 200 sculptures created by Gustav Vigeland. We thought we were so smart going there at about 9am to beat the crowds but it turned out that several tour buses pulled up just as we got there and we were looking at the sculptures with hundreds of other people. Still, I managed to get a couple of good photos that I will post later. This park was really incredible. Next we went to the Munchmuseet (Munch museum). Almost everyone knows about Edvard Munch’s most famous painting, The Scream (if you don’t recognize the name you would know it if you saw it). While in the museum we watched a film about the painter’s life, which was very interesting and helped explain many of his paintings and sketches.
We will be in Oslo until Friday, July 22nd, then we will take a train to Bergen, reportedly Norway’s most beautiful city (when it is not raining.) After 4 nights in Bergen, we will return to Oslo for 2 nights unless our India visa is not ready – and in that case we will stay here in Oslo until it is ready- since we leave Oslo to go to Gothenburg, Sweden (and obviously we will need our passports).
That’s enough for now…Mike and I are going out tonight to look for a bar that plays metal…check back on our blog to see how it turns out!
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Tags: Category #9: Norway
Michele Harmon
Headbanging and moonshine! The story just keeps getting better and better. Keep it up you guys.
up with US news? Jurek won W$ and Badwater 2005. Dodds finished Badwater 9th overall. Lance is on his way to #7 too? Tiger Woods won another major. London bombings? I’m sure you’ve been scanning the headlines. Maybe the vhtrc web page too.
You’re postings are wonderful! I’ve really enjoyed reading them. I can see you pictures on the blog site but not on any associated links that you add.