Oh Oslo. I’ll admit it. I probably shouldn’t have taken the train to Oslo. It was a 7 hour ride from Stockholm to Oslo – which normally is fine but I just had bad luck with seats. It was about the same price as a flight so I decided to take the train so I could see some of the countryside.
While I technically had a window seat, I only had a sliver of a window to look out since in front of me was just a windowless wall. Jokes on me God. I didn’t really see much.
I arrived at Oslo, trying to keep my hopes up but I was already feeling that I was near the end of my trip – you know, when mentally you’ve ignored a bunch of stuff because you have so far to go but once you get to the end, your body knows and refuses to let your mind talk you out of it and you start to feel all those miles you’ve walked, all the different foods you’ve eaten and all the weight you’ve been toting around (or maybe it’s my body trying to convince me that I am in fact getting older).
And then I left the train station. Everything was covered in ice. Literally – a sheet of ice. The sidewalks were solid ice. And I had over a mile to walk to get to where I was staying. I had flashbacks to Bari, Italy. But it wasn’t snowing in Oslo. Just sleeting.
So I began my trek. Oslo is not a flat city. There are some hills. Which are never fun to walk while carrying all your current life possessions of a month much less carrying them while said hilly streets are covered in ice. (Like I said my mental game was falling apart – something you’ll probably notice a lot with this post).
Onward I trekked and while I was proceeding with caution, every old lady went walking right past me. Even when the uphills turned to downhills. That just frustrated me more. I never learned their secret to walking on ice.
Anyway, one mile and over an hour later (it was icy remember? But I never wiped out!), I finally made it to the apartment and I tried to get in a better frame of mind while I got settled. Later I headed back out and all I could see was ice. All I could feel were my feet sliding. And cold. And sleet. And I was (mentally) going downhill fast. So I grabbed some groceries from the store and headed back to cook at the apartment.
The next morning, after eating a good dinner, a hot shower and a warm night’s sleep, I felt much better and was ready explore Oslo. I put the past behind me and was pretty excited to get going.
And so I went. And was greeted with fog. Apparently a massive cloud had settled right on top of Oslo. I was hoping it was just a morning thing so I went to the film history museum (which was so much fun!)
It was very interactive and they had a lot of visuals like the one above showing Eadweard Muybridge’s work in studying motion (the horse would trigger the cameras when he crossed each line). I think he was the first to do stop motion. But anyway, it was a lot of fun and definitely worth a visit. However, the seats for the Norwegian short films are for display only. If you sit in them, an alarm will go off.
After setting off alarms in the museum, I made it to the first vantage point over at the fortress. When I was researching, this is what I found:
Obviously that is not in January so I wasn’t expecting blue skies. But I was expecting basically that with everything covered in snow maybe and cloudy skies. Instead, I found this:
You’re killing me smalls. I was really trying to make Oslo work but it’s not helping me out. Everything was taking longer to walk to because of the ice, the visibility was frustratingly low and it was cold. Plus I was tired. I was starting to hurt. And I was cold. But I wanted to give Oslo a fair shot. So I tried to remember my good time at the film museum. Then I walked around until I couldn’t stand the cold any longer and went back to the apartment to warm up before going back out to wonder around.
The next morning however, I woke up to this
The sun! The sky! This is what hope looks like people! So I jumped out of bed and got ready as quick as I could because who knows how long this would last. I decided I would start at the Opera House that I had skipped yesterday because I had gotten so annoyed at the low visibility.
The Opera House was made for walking on. Like they built it with tourists in mind. So you can walk up to the top and see the city. Behind me was a cool view of the city – with a ton of construction cranes. In front of me was a cool view of the water with the sun coming up.
But there was nothing to make it beautiful besides the sun. I mean yes. There was the water. But there were also the random buoy things and random buildings that were just far enough in to be distracting but not well placed to add to the composition. And it was about this moment that I realized Oslo has no chance with me. It’s too late.
As a last resort, I headed back over to the fortress to try and get a better view than the previous day (aka a view) and I was still disappointed.
I decided to head to a new section of the city and I saw the most beautiful sunset on the water there. (PS This was at like 2pm)
So beautiful that I kept filming it even though I could feel the feeling in my fingers slipping away. When I could hardly hold the camera, I tried to break it down but my fingers were too far gone. I had to concentrate so hard to tell my fingers to squeeze. Finally, I got it broken down and in my bag and I quickly found a coffeeshop to warm up.
As I sat in the coffee shop trying to figure out why I disliked Oslo so much, I realized that I couldn’t see Oslo’s personality. While the sun was beautiful when it was out, all my sunset pictures look the same. And as I walked around the city, a lot of the stores and restaurants are chains (read no personality). There’s not a lot of local stores and restaurants that I saw anyway. Maybe I didn’t do a good enough job of getting off the tourist routes in my explorations but seeing more than a handful of chain restaurants when traveling always makes me a little sad.
Even though it seems nice to have chain restaurants from the States abroad, I can’t help but think what a misrepresentation it is. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in Atlanta where we have so many local chefs and restaurants but those are the kinds of places I think of when I think American (or even Atlantan) food. Or homecooking.
Chain restaurants are neither. And it’s kind of sad to think they have become a thing in other places where I go to experience the local (not commercialized from home) culture. Instead of finding local restaurants, I find chains all too often. I get it. I do. I have even eaten at them abroad.
But in Oslo, they were everywhere. And I think that’s the real reason I didn’t like Oslo. I couldn’t get a real feel for the city and I feel like its personality was hiding behind the chain restaurants and storefronts, the clouds, the ice and the construction. And I guess I don’t like to work so hard to figure out what a city is about.
Sorry Oslo. I’m grateful you helped me reach my 30th country but this is probably our first and last adventure together.