September 27, 2009: Bergen to Oslo

We were heading to Oslo today. It was, of course, raining. I decided it would be a good idea to get up and try to jog up the mountain. That was a bad idea.

1) It was hard
2) It was pouring rain

I did my best, but ended up walking/running up the mountain. Shannon was smart enough to stay home and pack. After I got back from my jog, I had to blow dry my clothes so I could put them in my backpack. I am not a smart man.


We hit the breakfast buffet and headed to the train station. It was a short walk, so we didn’t have any issues getting there. We were quite glad to have upgraded our seats; the train was comfortable and that free hot chocolate hit the spot. The trip was 7 or 8 hours, but the time really flew by. The scenery was amazing, mountains, rivers, waterfalls, lakes, and trees as far as the eye could see.

The scenery

Not the sort of thing you see in Illinois. We read, slept, snacked, and watched the scenery all the way to Oslo. Shannon took some time to photo-stalk a tubby, young, red-headed Norwegian boy she thought looked like Riley.

Little Riley

We arrive in Oslo in late afternoon. We stopped at the tourist stand outside the train station and made the walk to our hotel. The walk was straight down the main walking street, so it was nice, albeit a little further than anticipated. And we got a little lost, which made it seem further. Luckily, we saw a TGI Fridays and a Hard Rock. Awesome. We did not eat at either.

Delicious

We got checked into our hotel room and went downstairs to talk to desk clerk, who was very nice and helped us make our way to Vigeland Sculpture Park. It was a bit of a walk, we had planned to have dinner on the way out there, but didn’t pass any restaurants that tickled our fancy. It worked out because we got to the park right at dusk, which made it even more beautiful. The park was a wide open 80 acres of manicured lawns, with a small creek and a couple ponds running through the middle of it. Sculptures were scattered throughout the park. Most of them were centered down the middle of the park on a bridge over the creek. The sculptures were all of people (naked people!) representing the circle of life, from birth to death. They were pretty neat to see.

The sculptures

After the bridge, there was a pyramid structure with some additional sculptures. We’re not high art people, but this was all quite breath-taking. Even if we did stop to take some silly pictures.

It was starting to get quite dark and we were quite hungry, so we headed out of the park and back towards the hotel. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday night, so most restaurants were closed. Luckily for us, Peppe’s Pizza was still open for business. We went in, split a salad and an appetizer platter (featuring meatballs!), had a couple drinks, and headed out. We stopped at a few little bars on our way back to the hotel, which we once again, had trouble finding, but we got there. Not surprisingly, we had no trouble finding the bars.