Torp and Oslo, Norway

"Skriv," eh.

On the road again... this time to Norway. I'm in Oslo, at a hostel I would not recommend. It is just after 1 AM. They are asking me for £15 to rent a set of sheets. I think I'll just take the bare mattress, thanks...





I flew Ryanair from Edinburgh this afternoon after spending a half-hectic, half-leisurely day getting ready and clearing out the rest of my stuff so that a friend could move into my room while I'm away. I have learned that rushing is not a good thing to do, so I gave up the non-essential things, such as making brownies. Fortunately, all the things I had to do were within a few doors of eachother. That did mean that I put a pound in the dryer to dry the last of my clothes for 15 minutes, then rushed next door to Cash Converter to look for a second hand smartphone, and then rushed back and forth in a comic fashion. Then, when I got the smartphone home, I realized that the camera on it was really not great at all, and decided to go back and get a proper camera instead. So no more cutting-edge technology for me, not for now at least.

Because Ryanair has draconian luggage limits (only one piece of cabin luggage free, 10 kg or less, unless you want to pay £25) I resolved to wear as many of my clothes as I could while checking in, so I wore two pairs of socks, two pairs of underpants, jeans, a skirt, two long sleeved shirts, and my warmer jacket. Thankfully they didn't weigh my bag as I was .5 kg over... Looking out the plane window, Scotland was a beautiful patchwork of green, but as my new camera didn't have any batteries, I couldn't photograph it. I fell asleep for most of the rest of the plane ride.

Touching down into Torp airport, I was struck by the thick layer of clouds which didn't disappear as we sank to the ground. And all the pine trees. It was raining and foggy. An hour early for the train into Oslo, I took the free shuttle bus to Torp rail station, which wasn't a station at all, just a platform. The shuttle bus driver suggested that I wait in the bus, but I was happy to sit there in the fresh, misty air, looking at the pine trees and the quaint straight-up-and-down houses on the other side of the rails. My camera wouldn't charge from the USB cable, so I took pictures with my computer. Here they are:

Me and the quaint railway buildings.

The quaint railway buildings.

Me looking very Wuthering Heights.

Got into Oslo, and got a smoothie to eat (as the only thing I'd been able to find thus far was a very large Toblerone.) The Norwegians certainly know what to do with berries, mmmmm. Then tried to find my way here, only to find that the first two people I asked didn't know what street they were on, either. Managed to find a map and got here. Oslo is a bustling city even at midnight. Was followed by a Greek for a while who wanted me to know that he loved me, thankfully he went away after I ignored him for a while... and got here to find that they're charging £15 for bedsheets and £10 for a plug converter... ah well, at least it was cheap. Since I don't have any kroner, though, I'm not going to spend any money. It's weird having to subtract a 0 from every price to figure out approximately how much I'm spending!

That's it for now, I'm going to sleep. Tomorrow morning I might do something interesting or just wander around, then I've got a train to Bergen at noon.

Here are some Norwegian words and phrases from blogger: "Ridiger," "Slett," "Legg inn" (means post, I think?), "Skrev," "Fast kobling" (means link), "Plassering," "flasker og bokser" (means bottles and cans), "oppdater." There are loads of Norwegians here! Hee hee.