Oslo

I hadn’t really felt jetlagged until yesterday.  I also hadn’t slept more then 3 hours each other 2 nights before (late nights, snoring room mate and waking up early to catch a flight) so I was exhausted.  I went to bed at 8pm and thought Id fall asleep right away but it wasn’t until 1am that I fell asleep and I woke up at 130pm.  I also haven’t been very hungry; I am still living off the small groceries I bought in Reykjavik (which is good because everything here is super expensive).  I’m not really sure why but I think Ill blame it on delayed jetlag.

The hostel is great, I share a room with a woman from Oslo (not sure why she is sleeping in a hostel) and another girl who came in late last night and left early this morning so I never met her.  It is very clean, has a mini fridge and kitchen.  It is in kind of a shady neighborhood but is very accessible to downtown and the best part… the floor in the bathroom is heated!  Although everyone here speaks English very well, I feel like I should be using some Norwegian so I’ve figured out how to order a coffee in Norwegian and the server knew what I said although she ask “cream or sugar?” in English so I clearly have to work on my accent.

I went to the Nobel Peace house where the Nobel Peace prize is awarded every year.  The exhibits were great.  According to my dad (who also had me fooled until I was 10 year old that he went to “Dad school” and that’s how he knew how to find missing socks and how to do all sorts of dad things), he is a shared recipient for a Nobel peace prize, for peacekeeping.  I wanted to make sure that he was telling the truth so I looked at each exhibit to see which one could be his.  I stumbled across the 1988 winner, “United Nations Peacekeeping Forces”, so turns out he was telling the truth all along!  My dad is a (shared) winner of the Nobel Peace prize!

I was going to meet up with a friend I had met in Australia who was living in Oslo, but she is back in Sweden now, which gives me a great reason to have to visit Sweden!  I woke up late today so I wasted a good part of the day and since it gets dark so early here and most tourist venues are closed at around 5, there is not much left to do.  I walked alot today and saw the National Gallery (where Munch's "Scream" painting is...but I didnt go in to see it), the National Theatre, Opera house (Europeans love their Opera, there is an Opera house in every city), some castle, lots of boats etc...  I think now I will scrounge up some dinner then head back to the hostel to see if I can meet someone to go out with otherwise Ill do some laundry, repack all my stuff and have another early night.  Tomorrow, I finally get to Harstad.  I am already looking forward to sleeping in a bed in a room by myself.  Hostels are great and I generally get a good enough sleep but its just not the same because there is always someone moving around or snoring in the middle of the night.

I just checked and Harstad, is at the same latitude (68degrees N) as Inuvik is.  So at that latitude, I will have experienced 24 hour sunlight as well as almost 24 hour darkness!  This is 2 degrees, approximately 250km above the Arctic circle. 

I have been only in the downtown sector of Oslo, there is nothing here but buildings and the harbor yet I see s many people walking around in full ski gear and their XC skiis.  I cant figure out what they can possibly be doing downtown with their gear unless the somehow take the city bus to some ski trails outside of the city and have to walk downtown to catch the bus.

I am at a teahouse in downtown Oslo and it is packed with people chatting and I don’t understand a single thing.  I travelled alone in Australia and that was fine, I had a blast!  Now, being alone in a country where I don’t understand what people are saying, nor can I read anything, is a bit lonelier.  I am looking forward to meeting  people and settling into school life in Harstad, tomorrow!