Ken and Elise's trip

Day 2--Oslo

   After a fairly restful night in their “box” hotel, Mr. and Mrs. Early Bird roused themselves and headed out to see what worms might be left at 10 a.m. The plan was to take the Hop On Hop Off bus (hereinafter known as HOHO as we expect to take a lot of these and I don’t want to have to write all that out each time). We walked to the train station again where the bus was based. We stopped for a princely breakfast at 7-11 on the way--a croissant and Coke for Elise and a milk and a hard boiled egg sandwich for Ken (by the way, don’t be fooled by Europeans idea of a cold Coke. When Americans say “cold” we mean COLD as in shiver-cold. Europeans seem to think a “cool” Coke equates to cold).  We sat outside the train station eating our outrageously-expensive-for-7-11- but -all-we-could-afford-banquet and then purchased two tickets for the HoHo. A cool $40 apiece.

  We boarded the bus and spent the rest of the day touring the city. It is a nice city and had some lovely places where we got off to explore further. I would say that two favorite spots were the beautiful fountain downtown and the old fort that overlooked the waterfront (pictures of both included in this post).

  We returned to the train station and tried to resolve the problem Ken was having with his phone (he had purchased a phone from AT&T that we were assured was unlocked only to find when we got here that it was only unlocked for AT&T sim cards--no other ones would do). Ken purchased a cheap phone that would use European cheap sims. While at the station, I had to go to the bathroom--like NOW. We found one shortly, only to be faced with the common European problem--you have to PAY to use the bathroom here. We handed the attendant a wad of money and she assured me (after giving back change) that I was good to “go”. I blithely walked into the first door I saw, found two stalls and entered one to do my business. When I emerged to wash my hands, I noticed something strange. There was a urinal in the room. Why, I wondered would there be a urinal in the lady’s bathroom? Then the horrible fear hit me--and yes, as soon as I went out and looked at the door, I saw the “men’s sign.  I had never even seen it in my mad rush to get into the bathroom. The lady was looking at me very strangely. I walked by her with my head high, but my red face nearly scorched the walls on both sides. Ken pretended not to know me.

  As I said, kroners pretty much defeated us.  We did eventually learn that dividing by 6 sort of gave you an idea of the exchange, but at first it seemed as though everything was even more massively expensive than it really was.

  There is a sort of funny story with that. The night before, I saw a  lovely little restaurant at the train station (yes we spent a LOT of time at the train station, but these stations have everything imaginable inside them). The restaurant had an outside eating area with lots of lovely flowers. Since the night was beautiful, I thought how nice it would be to eat there. I twisted Ken’s arm into taking me, and we discovered that the idea was to go inside, order your meal and tell them what table you were at and they would deliver it. I wanted a veggie pizza and Ken went to place the order. I gave him 200 kroner. “Do you think that will be enough,” he asked. “You know everything is so expensive here.” I gave him a horrified look as I was still thinking in the dollar range and I thought if a pizza etc. was more than $200 we were in real trouble. So poor old Ken went off to order with his 200 kroner. He placed both our orders and handed the man the 200K thinking he would get a bunch of change back. Instead, (with people looking on), the man told Ken he needed more money--200 kroner wasn't enough.  Ken came back out to me and told me to run for it--we couldn't afford this place. “Did you place the order?” I asked. “Yes, but I didn’t pay so we can still get out of here,” he said dragging me to my feet and pulling me away. Off we went with outside patrons staring at those crazy Americans.  To our infinite embarrassment, we later figured out that the meal (although expensive) was NOT $200--there is a big difference between the Norwegian kroner and the American dollar.  We had to walk by the restaurant several times after that and Ken always ducked his head hoping they wouldn't recognize him.

  Let’s discuss fashion here for a second. After being told that it is a terrible faux pas to wear white sneakers in Europe, I’m doing a survey to see how true that is.  Definitely not true in Oslo--I saw many white sneakers and they weren't all on Americans. I will say that Norwegian women AND men seem to dress better than we Americans. And I discovered that man purses are quite accepted. Now here’s something---I actually was thinking I was looking pretty good. I was quite the fashionista with my artfully tied scarf and rather mod looking black slacks with zippers (never mind the Sketchers Go-Walks on my feet---yes, they MAY have taken away from the look a bit). But all-in-all, I was thinking that I was fitting in quite well with these finely-dressed Norwegian women. I thought they probably didn't even know I wasn't Norwegian. But then Ken happened to remark to me, “Have you noticed there aren't any fat Norwegians?” And there went my lovely illusion in 2 seconds flat.

   Sigh.  Yes, in my subconscious I had noticed how thin the people all were.  And healthy looking overall. They definitely exercise more than most Americans. As one guy we met told us, “Yes, we ride bikes everywhere. We can’t afford gasoline.” And we found out how expensive the food is--they probably can’t afford to eat either!  But my nice little dream that I looked quite like a native was gone.   No question--they knew I was not one of them.

END OF DAY 2

Top left: One of the beautiful buildings in Oslo, Top right: The flowers were beautiful, Bottom Left: We sat for quite awhile at this fountain, Bottom Right: Elise poses with the flowers