Oslo - Part 1

To my faithful blog fans.  I am extremely sorry that I haven't had a chance to update this in awhile.  I have been busy with traveling, as well as getting caught up with school and work related stuff.  I hope to make it up by telling you about my trip to Oslo.

Prior to my trip to Harstad Norway, I had decided that at some point during my stay I would visit Oslo.  Although I had originally planned to do it later on in the semester, a perfect opportunity arose.   My friend Vanessa came to Sweden to visit her sister, and asked me if I wanted to go explore Oslo this past weekend.  It was absolutely perfect, because I would much rather tour with someone than alone.

So Saturday morning I started my journey to Oslo, and hopped on the bus to get to the Airport.  You may be wondering, "Why are you telling me this Brenden, obviously you had to get to the airport somehow." Well, a moose decided that it was going to cross the road, and our bus was inches from crushing it, I couldn't believe it.

The flight went really well, and upon arrival I quickly found Vanessa, and we hoped on the express train to central station.  What an incredible system, we covered 50ish km in no time.  Once at central station, we decided our best bet would be to the hostel.

Finding the hostel was not all that difficult.  It was about a 10 minute walk from the station.  We got there at about 11 am, and checked in, although we couldn't go to our room till 3.  Our hostel was 500 kroner for the 2 nights, which is about 94 dollars Canadian.  This included the linen and everything we needed.  In the world of hostels, this is quite pricey, but everything is more expensive in Norway.  We left our luggage in the storage room, and went to explore Norway. We had decided that our first stop would be the National Gallery, but on the way we found a old enormous church.  It was absolutely incredible.  The roof had been hand painted many years ago, and it had the coolest organ ever, here is a picture of the Organ, the front, the roof, as well as the outside of the church.

The Church Organ

The front of the church.

The painted roof, this picture really doesn't do it justice.

The outside of the church

After the church, we went to the National Gallery, which is one of the 2 big art gallery's in Oslo.  I am going to be honest, I have never been to an art gallery before, so I had no idea what to expect.  I wasn't sure if I would like it, think it was boring, etc. Well, turns out I loved it.  The art that they had on display was absolutely magnificent.  The gallery had it set up so that the art went in chronological order, and it was very well done.  One of the main features of this gallery, is the painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch.  It is well known around the world, and is actually in many books as one of the top paintings of all time.  Being able to see this was absolutely incredible.  I never thought I would say this about a piece of art. The gallery also has temporary exhibits, which change throughout the year.  Lucky for me the exhibit was "Painting Canada". It is going to be on for a couple of months. If I go back to Oslo again, I will likely go see the exhibit, but we simply didn't have the time to this trip. Here are some paintings from the gallery I took, as well as a stolen picture of  the scream from the internet.

The Scream

After we finished the gallery, I was exhausted.  I went back to the hostel and napped. We then went out for supper. We had quite a busy day, so after supper, we decided to just go to bed (mind you this was at about 10 oclock at night). I got back, met all my hostel roommates (4 swedes, 1 dane, and 2 serbians). Funny enough, all but the Danish individual had come to Norway to look for work.  Little did I realize, I would be sleeping a foot away from the monstrous snoring Serbian.  It made for a restless night of sleep. I will talk about the rest of the trip in Oslo Part 2.