Capital City Eight - Norway: Oslo. 187 to go.



October 24th 2010
Norway - Capital City: Oslo
Picture by myself at Oslo Airport as no uniformed locals the entire trip.
187 Capital to go.

Had never been to any Scandinavian countries before,  so was looking forward to this Oslo capital. Stayed at Rico hotel in the centre of Oslo, the room was really weird with having no window to look outside, instead two sides of the room were glass and the view to be able to look down at the massive restaurant. I did wake up on the first night in a panic, thinking if there was a fire how the hell was I going to escape?
I had heard Oslo was expensive and it sure was - one drunken night saw me spend £30 on chocolate snacks, and if you ate and drank your way through the mini bar then that would set you back nearly £50!!

£30 worth of snacks!!

Hotel mini bar

The first night I was knackered from travelling, so went out for a couple of drinks and went back to the hotel and ate some of my  £30 party - very slowly! And watched Norwegian 'X factor'.

'The ginger version of Dermot O'Leary'

I was quite lazy in Norway and just wandered around, the streets were spotless, I walked along the waterfront, along back streets where there were some cool smaller shops, then back along the busier part. I stopped for a hot drink, it was about -4C in the day time, even though it was cold it was sunny, I  sat outside the restaurant, each restaurant had blankets on the chairs so you could wrap yourself up whilst you sat and ate or drank. I loved that idea.
In the evening I went for dinner, a glass of wine, a beer, pizza and a salad cost about £50. I had done some research before I went and found this club that had been rated quite good, after paying to get in, I  stayed for 5 mins, it reminded me of a really 80's yuppie club, it was really tiny and pretentious. I wandered a bit and found a busy bar 'Ett Glass' I went in, it was heaving.
 After awhile I noticed that apart from me, I only spied two other women - that would be a gay bar I had ended up in.
Had a couple of drinks and then headed back towards the hotel, further down the street I spied people queueing to get into a bar, I thought that, that must be a busy good bar so joined the queue, when I got to the front, I was actually queuing for the Snowboard convention evening, I was lead through to the other side of the bar. Down these steps I found the busiest sweatiest little club with a live band playing, Every hour found me stripping off another layer of clothes and I ended up at the front of the dance floor till after 3am!

Sweaty man on stage.

The following day,  I had a bit of a panic that I had found no uniformed local - even went into shops looking for security guards - nothing!! I think it's one of the few capitals where I've not even seen any police.

Picture of Oslo Train station where I also went looking for uniformed people.