When somebody asks you to name a country in Scandinavia, there's only about 3 that you can technically name (5 if you pushed it to the limit). One of them is Norway, situated at the western part of northern Europe's peninsula and is closest to Britain across the North Sea.
On Wednesday, 8th of October, we ventured forth to this foreign land. Actually, t'was a bad day to go because the weather was grey and wet and it was Grace's birthday. Unfortunately, 3 weeks ago, at the time when we booked the ticket, the importance of this date slipped my mind, unsure at first of when it was in fact. Churrri. Babawi ako pwamis.
Our journey began from Stepney Green. Alex stayed over the night, after a couple of hours after dinner he prepared, being awkward with sleeping arrangements and other domestic things but it's good sleep eventually came to him. We woke up at 1.30am (usually the time I go to bed, like for example now), rushed ourselves silly, bus skived, run after a bus and eventually ended up catching an Easybus coach to Stansted at Victoria with much huffing and puffing. Useless trains in London aren't working past midnight and this bus ordeal took an hour. A further hour and 40 minutes, we got to the airport, sleep deprived.
The wait for the plane to take off was not long. We tried to catch a few more minutes of sleep before a jampackful day in Norway but it wasn't long until we got to Torp Airport at about 6ish am.
First impressions: Norway is not cold as expected and is unbelievably expensive. The coach from the isolated airport to the central Oslo (Kroner 260 ~£25) and other various things, we later found out such as Burger King double cheeseburger (Kr 84), hotdog (Kr 79), a pint of lager (Kr 94, that's like ~£8!!!) and a bottle of coke (Kr 50!) seem to be way too overpriced.
But, despite of this (huge) oddity, Norway looks really pretty. The tube posters do not lie. Landscape photographers certainly would take much pleasure here. On the way to Oslo, we passed by about 3 small lakes of such beauty, you'd feel like you want to just swim in every single one. Breathtaking to say the least. Norway, I found, even in central Oslo is quite woody. As we rode and trekked around the city, the leaves of the thousand trees clustered pretty much wherever you set your sights on are turning to many different shades of red and gold. 6 years here in London, I have never yet seen something that can come close to this.
My amateurish photography skills hardly gave this picturesqye setting any justice. I can only hope to improve.
On top of its natural beauty, Oslo is like a life size architecture portfolio. The most obvious one, in the city centre, is the Operaen (Oslo Opera House). Stood by the fjord port, it's massive angular modernist design resembles a frigid glacier, cutting across the landscape with such elegance and luminous sophistication it's difficult to remove it from my pictorial memory. I found this to be a great photo place not only for it's brilliant design but because it's like a giant softlight box and reflector which are good in reducing shadows in shots. Brilliant, literally.
The rest of the other buildings, have varying design. Apart from their much humbler Parliament, there is nothing that could be as prominent as the Opera House, or at least judging by the areas we covered. Unfortunately this means that the Royal Palace didn't make much of an impact to me. Weren't it for the more mobile [compared to Brit's version] royal guard, it would have just meld perfectly with other structures in the city.
Another thing that makes Oslo such a beautiful place lies with its people. Admittedly, that statement predominantly stemmed from the fact that a lot of its citizens are pretty white people. Even their chavs and streetdwellers look sophisticated. It's almost too surreal to be surrounded by a mass of fair skinned, almost-all-blonde people. I declare this bias honestly without contempt. It's a change from the cosmopolitan population of London. Rather less impressive, their language is too foreign and sounds difficult to learn judging by the complexities of intonations and the existence of many major dailects.
There was still so much of Oslo to discover but unfortunately our time was heavily constrained as our plane left at 21:20 on the same day. Overall, there is no doubt that Oslo is indeed a beautiful city, and Norway as a whole will sure not disappoint. I look forward to immersing myself to the Norwegian outback. One day.
Link to photos I took:
Photobucket (60%)
Facebook part 1 (100%)
Facebook part 2 (100%)
