Olivia Takes on Norway: Oslo!

Monday the 12th marked my two month anniversary of being in Norway! Sometimes I look back at how insanely terrified I was the first few weeks and think how far I've come. I cannot wait to see my friends and family back home, but I'm already dreading leaving my new friends here. They truly adopted me into their friend group and have helped me out so much.

This past weekend I had the awesome experience of going to Oslo to where Aspect Norway is located. Aspect was so great, they knew how much I was missing museums and being in a big city so they invited me up to spend the weekend there!

Before I start telling you about what an amazing time I had here are some fast facts about Oslo...

It's the capital of Norway
Population: over 618,000
Area: 454 square kilometers, 242 of them are forests
The Nobel Peace Prize is presented here every year
The Oslofjord has over 40 islands
Oslo, according to the UN, is the best place to live in the world. It is the highest on the HDI and has the lowest unemployment rate.
Oslo is the only city in Norway with a bigger population than Pittsburgh

I didn't have school on Thursday or Friday last week which was very nice so I got to leave Friday morning for Oslo. The bus ride there is 4 hours long, but it wasn't too bad because all the leaves here are starting to change colors so the scenery was great!

When I arrived at the bus station I got to go to Aspect's office which is right next to the palace and have some pastries, which were really good. Then the girl I was staying with, Ragnhild, picked me up. She works for Aspect and went to France with them two years ago. She is a ball of energy and so nice. Ragnhild and her family were a great host and she showed me so much of the city! After she picked me up and we walked around the palace for a bit. The security there is very minimal. Ther isn't a big fence around it and I only saw two security guards there. Much different from the White House and Buckingham Palace. Then, we went to a coffee shop and talked for a while about our experiences as exchange students. From there we went back to her house in an area of the city called Frogner (her house is gorgeous). In Norway, it is very common on Friday to have pizza or tacos. For the first time ever I had homemade pizza! The pizza here is very thin but still very good. After dinner, we watched a movie called A Thousand Times Goodnight which was very good but so emotional. I called it a night and went to bed after that.

The next day I woke up and had breakfast with Ragnhild and then we went on a two-hour long walk through Bygdøy which is a countryside peninsula a short walk from the city. We got to take some lovely pictures and see the King and Queen's summer house. When I got home Rut from Aspect picked me up to spend the day with her, her daughter, and her dad. They planned an amazing day for me! Aspect got me an "Oslo Pass" which worked as a museum ticket for all the museums and as a bus pass for 14 hours. Oslo isn't a very big place and it doesn't take long to get from one side of the city to the other so we used the pass a lot.

First, we went to the Viking Ship Museum. As you all know the Vikings were sea explorers from Scandanavia and the Viking Age was from the late 8th century to the early 11th century. The Viking Ship Museum has amazing artifacts from the Viking age. The museum has two very large Viking ships on display. One is the Gokstad Ship which was built in about 850, buried in about 900, and excavated in 1880 when some children were digging up a mound of dirt and found the old ship. The other ship is the Oseberg Ship. The Oseberg Ship was buried in 834 and was rediscovered in 1903. It took 21 years to restore the ship. Both of these ships were buried in the ground with prominent members of society. Today we have coffins, the Egyptians had the pyramids, and the Vikings had 70-foot ships to house the dead.

The Holmenkollbakken Ski Jump came next. The jump is located on one of Oslo's hills and overlooks the city. It has been rebuilt many times, higher and higher each time. I can't imagine going down the jump and soaring off. There's a simulator that you can try and see what it's like to jump off and that just reassured my feelings of never wanting to be a ski jumper!

From there we headed back into the city and went towards the harbor. The weather in Oslo while I was there was fantastic! Well, fantastic for Norway. The temperature still barely reached 50 degrees, but it was sunny the whole time! After walking around for a while, we headed over to the Nobel Peace Museum. I was really excited to see this because these people are some of the most incredible people of their generations and it's amazing that this award recognizes them for that. I also know all about Alfred Nobel thanks to Patrick's World Hall of Fame project from the 7th grade. While I was there, there was an exhibit on Malala and Kailash. If you are unfamiliar with them I really recommend looking them up because both have done amazing things in their fight for children's education rights. There was also a huge room that had information about every Nobel Peace Prize winner. If you ever happen to be in Oslo you have to check it out.

After all that it was finally time for dinner. We dropped of Rut's daughter and went to the Nighthawk Diner. The diner is based off a 1950's American diner and serves diner food. I chose the most American thing on the menu and got a burger and fries. Rut also ordered us all milkshakes. The milkshakes were a close second to mine at Bruster's but still really good. The burger was very good, a lot of the burger's in Norway are very thin, so thin they don't even ask how you want it cooked. I, of course, being from Pittsburgh, put my fries and Heinz ketchup on my burger. Once I finished scarfing down my burger Rut, her dad, and I talked for a while which was very nice. After they dropped me off at home Ragnhild invited me out to a party but I elected to stay home because I was exhausted. I watched Satan's Little Helper and Kick-Ass with her sister instead before I went to bed.

On Sunday, I spent the day with Ragnhild. We used the Oslo Pass from the day before and went down to the Astrup Fearnley Museum. It's a modern art museum, and not being fans of modern art, Ragnhild and I didn't like it too much, so we headed off to another art museum! The National Gallery in Oslo is much more my taste. I got to see The Scream (skrik in Norwegian)! Edvard Munch is a Norwegian artist, he is probably one of the few famous Norwegians that non-Norwegians know. Him, Henrik Ibsen (who lived in Grimstad when he was younger, btw), and Nico and Vinz (if you follow pop music) are about the only really, really famous Norske men.

After our museum trips, we met a friend of Ragnhild's for lunch before looking in some cheesy touristy shops. From there we made our way back down to the harbor. I swear I did so much walking this past weekend, haha. While we were down there we walked up on top of the Opera House. Both the inside and outside of the house were beautiful. I was craving something warm to drink so we went to Olaf Ryes Plass which is the cool/ hipster/ Lawrenceville area of Oslo and had hot chocolate. I'm sorry to say Mom, but the hot chocolate here is a lot better than the stuff we make at home. Then it was nearly time to catch my bus home so we stopped at home, picked up my stuff, and headed off to the bus station!

That was the conclusion of my very long Oslo post. Thanks for reading it all and I promise to never make a post this long again! Also a special thanks to everyone who made this weekend happen! I had a really great time and enjoyed every second of it!

P.S. I'm really sorry I didn't take more pictures (plus I transferred them from my camera to my phone to my computer so they aren't the best quality)!