Oslo

So, I'm warning you ahead of time. If you like Oslo, Norway and don't want to read anything bad about it, then stop reading.

This was a trip from hell. Sure, it could have been worse. But, mostly I was miserable and hated it the whole time I was there.

I made my flight to Norway in one piece. Nothing went wrong and it seemed like a great start to my trip. I was under the impression that I booked a hotel room for this trip. It was advertised as a room in Hotel Permminelan. When I did get there and found out it was a four bed dorm, I wasn't really upset. I didn't matter to me where I was staying as long as it was clean and had a bathroom, and this place met both requirements.

I set down my bags and headed out to the city center which was about a ten minute walk. I sat down at a pub and ordered a Norwegian beer (which was really good). But, it was 11 euros per half pint. Half Pint. which is 2.40 here in the Netherlands. So this meant I couldn't really drink this weekend because it would use up all of my allotted beer money in a half hour. I walked through the city for the next several hours and eventually headed back to the hostel to finish up some homework and call it an early night.

I got back to the room and went to take out my cell phone. And poof! It was gone. No iPhone in sight. Not under the bed, or the desk, or in my bags, or my purse. So, I walked back to all the places I stopped and there was no phone. wonderful. I hurried back to the hostel and tried calling my phone on Skype, but whoever had found it had turned it off.

So, day 1 of 3 is now mostly over and I've already lost my phone.

Next morning I woke up and got ready and headed back into town so I could see if they offered any walking tours of the city, or any activities in general they recommended. They all recommended the tour bus that went around Oslo. So I forked over 240 Kroner for an all day pass to the tour bus and walked about 15 minutes to the bus stop that they picked up from every hour.

Two hours later I was still waiting for the bus. It never came. I finally walked back to the tourist center to get my money back, but the wouldn't refund me. I had to switch it to another tour which of course was more expensive so I had to give them more money after I just wasted almost three hours of my day. Then I had to walk 45 minutes to the harbor to wait for the tour (it was a fjord tour). No problem. But, the boat I wanted to go on was full already, so I had to wait an hour and a half to catch the next one.

I went over to a park next to the harbor and took out my book and read underneath a tree. It was pretty crowded at the park because of a fair that was there that afternoon. A woman (maybe in her early 60's) walks by me and then comes up and asks me something in Norsk. I respond to her (very politely) "Sorry I don't understand." She then scowls at me and turns around to walk, but last second looks at me and says in perfect English "Then why do you people come here then?!"

Now, I have learned while traveling that people either absolutely love Americans or absolutely hate them. And this woman could have meant "you people" as English speakers in general, or foreigners in general, or Americans in general. But, I was just so shocked that this woman would yell at me for no reason. And it really pissed me off. People like that are part of the problem with the world today. They are so prejudiced about people they don't know or understand. And if there was something so wrong with me for speaking English, then why does she speak it as well?

At 2:30 I got on the fjord tour boat. It was very full again, so I had to sit in the middle of the row of seats on the outside. So my view was pretty crappy every direction I looked. But, I could make out some water if I peered just right through peoples arms and legs and heads. After the first ten minutes of boat ride the tour guide came on to start his speech about the fjords. It lasted about 15 minutes and then didn't open his mouth for the rest of the tour. It was a three hour long tour. And I got to sit behind an extremely loud Italian family who were yelling at each other the whole time. And then tried to buy a drink with Euros instead of Kroners and was mad they wouldn't take them. It was just the best trip ever.

I did at least get some pretty shots though:

So let's recap so far. It's now 5:30 on day two.
My phone is lost
I wasted three hours waiting for a lost bus
I was yelled at in the park
I paid a ridiculous amount of money to listen to Italian people yell at each other for three hours

I then just went out for dinner and an 11 euro beer and then went back to hostel to sleep off the bad day

On my third day there I had to kill time before I went to the airport at 3 to catch my flight back to Den Haag. I spent the morning shopping for postcards and trying to stay out of trouble.

I was extremely relieved when I got to the airport and almost had a tear escape when I landed in Amsterdam. I was glad to be home.

The trip really wasn't that bad, but I just didn't have fun. I wanted to be home the entire trip.

Needless to say I don't really feel the need to go back to Scandinavia now, especially if they are all as expensive as Norway. It did have beautiful scenery though.