F.R.I.E.N.D.S. in Oslo
Being the last leg of our journey with friends, Oslo, Norway gave us a good beginning. We landed with no hassles and booked a van for ourselves because we finally realized we needed it, instead of two cars. It was a good thing we selected the vehicle because the 1 hour drive, from the airport to the hotel, just flew by. No, the driver wasn’t flying, but the van had a karaoke system with some old English songs and many of us sang the hour away. We also wished we had this on the 8-hour drive to Riga, too, but then that grumpy old driver would have had a problem for sure.
After a long time, I sang ‘There’s a kind of hush’ and recalled my days with the band. I was new, back then, to the glorious world of singing and enjoyed every day we practiced. Alas, it lasted for only a year but that’s when I began performing on stage. Yes, the ride to the hotel was a nostalgic one. The song in the picture was another one I had sung with the band. Memories. Sigh!
After we checked into another Radisson Blu Plaza (read my complete review here), I realized one thing. Their hotels in India seemed much grander than the ones outside it. Personally, I found the rooms, the tiles, the air conditioner and the structure, all not so impressive during this trip. Maybe, I’m just scrutinizing everything for no reason. Or maybe, we Indians love spoiling our guests, so, most of our hotels are grand.
In a country like this, we, Indians, go through a major culture shock as we are forced to follow rules and do things we never do in India. I’ll give you several examples from the day we landed there. Everyone stood behind the yellow line surrounding the conveyor belt. I could not recall a visible line anywhere in our airports (maybe I should look more carefully next time). When we got into the van, every child was strapped to a mini seat (sitting position) and it did not matter if he was asleep or not.
In the night, Hard Rock Café forbade us from ordering a bottle on our table because, apparently, it was illegal to order for liquor bottles. In India, we always order a pitcher or a bottle if many of us are having the same drink. Also, Uber is illegal in Norway. It is all over India. If you have forgotten to buy a ticket before getting on a particular train, you will be sweating and almost wetting your pants because the strict rules are known but the punishments are not. Lastly, we were forbidden from entering strip clubs because we had not worn closed shoes and it did not matter how sexy our sandals were. I was appalled at the fact that we had to cover our toes in order to see someone dance naked on stage. I have yet to check the rules, for entering strip clubs, in India.
Our night out was funny. We left from Hard Rock Cafe after they behaved horribly with us and walked around the block to find a strip club. The first one rejected us because we were well dressed but in sandals. Fifteen minutes later, we got rejected because we did not have our original identity cards or passports for identification. After walking for twenty minutes, we found an Indian driving a cab and we sat in it for a mere fifteen minutes until he dropped us back to Hard Rock Cafe. The meter flashed a good NK 400/- (Rs. 3280/-) for that little trip.
All this happened because our 3G had betrayed us, so, we had no way of knowing our whereabouts after a certain block. We finally got into an open air club right opposite Hard Rock Cafe and enjoyed ourselves.
By the way, if you love Arabic food, try Carmel Grill. Hubby and I miss Arabian food, so, we had two consecutive lunches there. It was delicious. Read my review here.
Time flies when you’re having fun. We visited Holmenkollen and one of our friends went to the famous ski arena there which is open to zip-lining in the summers. Six of us waited below to become the paparazzi. Several minutes later, we got restless and began dancing on the grass. Before we knew it, our friend was on her way down and we hardly got anything on camera. View some of it here.
The beach in Huk was small. Juhu beach in Bombay is bigger than that. We spent around an hour there as the kids enjoyed playing with and eating the sand but none of us dared to get into the ice cold water. The nude part of the beach had no one nude there. Though we were not quite interested in the beach, the kids had a ball of a time. Sometimes, the children need their space, too. My son kept finding things, in the sand, to taste while my daughter kept burying her legs under a lot of sand. Parenting can be tiring sometimes.
I was amazed with the Vigeland Sculpture Park (free entry) which had more than two hundred sculptures in different poses. Each one had a different posture and gesture but the two things that they all had in common were nudity and their creator Gustav Vigeland. It seems that he wanted to portray people in various parts of their lives but did not want them to belong to any particular caste, country or era, so that anyone and everyone could connect with the sculptures. Personally, I found this thought quite impressive for someone from the early 20th century.
At the end of the park stood a monolith which was 18 meters high with 121 statues on it. This monument took the artist 14 years to create. The best thing about this park was that it was wheelchair/pram accessible up until the monolith.
The Akershus Fortress was like entering another world. It covered a large area and had stunning scenic views from it. Check out the view from one of the sides. Inside the fortress, there were several well maintained rooms, halls and museum. The dungeons and closed doors were quite spooky but I still went to see what was behind them. Banquet halls lead me to imagine faceless well-dressed men and women dancing the nights away. I wondered how happy they were back then.
The Royal Chapel was a part of the fortress and it was beautiful! Each floor had huge halls but only the topmost hall had a high roof and a huge window for ventilation.
We did not find Outlet Mania all that interesting, so, it was not worth the travel time, with kids and prams. We finished shopping in no time. The travel time was probably longer.
Having said that, Oslo was an amazing city despite the rules that stress you out if you are not familiar with them. It was around 12 degrees C but I love cold places. I want to visit Norway again to see and experience the Fjords and the northern lights (Aurora Borealis) which were not possible on this trip. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Have you been to Oslo or anywhere else in Norway? Or experienced the Northern Lights? Tell us about it!
2 Comments
Lovely read… the funniest part was wearing closed shoes to a strip club.. lol
Thank you, Tris. Yes, it was a joke and we laughed all night because of it.