Then on the way walking back to the hostel, we met up with a group of Norwegians college students just walking down the street. Once they realized that we were American, they started talking to us. It was Tom, Thomas, something, and something. Four guys, the last one someone they grabbed at college to go out drinking. We ended up hitting the homebrew place and then wandering back to the library bar once the homebrew place closed. It was a blast, they were fun guys and for whatever reason they loved the hell out of me. It was the long hair and tattoo I think, they kept saying I looked like a heavy metal singer. So we ended up drinking and doing many shots.
So late morning as I was a tad hung over. But we got up and out at around 11am and decided to walk downtown. We ate at a nice, very busy place down the road that seemed popular, but I had avoided since they had no English menu. Since Craig knew Swedish, we could figure stuff out well enough. Had some OJ, a nice egg and bacon sandwich, and a double latte and we were good to go.
We managed to hit Oslo at just the right time. There was some kind of book festival happening on the walk downtown that was cool, with tents of books and other goods all the way down to the central station. Then when we hit the docks to book a 2 hour boat trip to see the local fjords, we had a two hour wait... and there was a gourmet food festival happening at the dock/waterfront. Life is good.
So we wandered around sampling cheese, pickled and smoked fish of all variety, cook meat and sausage from many animals, fish pancakes, organic fresh juiced fruits/veggies, etc. Most of it was free, but when it wasn't it would be only 20 kroner (three bucks) for a nice sized portions of mixed cheeses, meat, or juices. So we filled up on samples of tons of stuff for less than 100 kroner. Nice. I ended up buying a bottle of organic apple/sour cherry/some native berry juice that was delicious.
Then off to the cruise where we scored on some seats in the very back of the boat. It was pretty cool boating by private islands and fjords and such.
I was pining for this.
After we got back, we headed down to the modern art museum and Craig was interested in checking it out. Unfortunately, I though it was open until 7pm. In reality I had managed to hit it the one day of the week when they stayed open until 7. Normally they closed at 5pm. Whoops.
What, me worry?
After this we decided to have a nice more authentic Scandinavian meal at the boardwalk. Ridiculously expensive, of course, but it was quite tasty. I has a lobster and spinach baked ravioli and langoustine soup, reindeer with pickled fennel and apple, cider sauce, gnocchi, oxtail terrine, and finished with a sweet cheese with elderflower sorbet in an elderflower "soup" (sauce). It was worth it. Then a hop back on the tram to hit the hostel.
After dropping off out schtuff, we headed back downtown to check out the scene. We walked around and had a couple beers and ended up in a go go bar. This was a step up from the failed strip club I went to. The beers were reasonably priced and there were actually (gasp) naked girls on the poles. I ended up chatting to a gal from Romania named Sasha. She was pretty cool and we ended up hanging out for an hour, which likely costed her some money - but we were having fun talking about our different culture and I didn't have to buy her uber expensive drinks like the last place.
We bailed from there to catch the tram back to the hostel and managed to hit central station for the last train back to Uranienborg (which awesomely stops right in front of the hostel). Lord save me from temptations. The seats open were in the middle of about 20 gorgeous 18-20 year old college girls, mostly blond blue/green eyed. Once they heard the American English accent they proceeded to chat up me and Craig about their travels to the US and where they've been and where we had lived, etc. And they were pretty drunk. With the street construction, the last stop was in front of our hostel where they all left the train.
Temptation, really, really, really, sucks sometimes. But they really were too young and too drunk. Plus partying in a bed and breakfast hostel would have kept all the people on my floor awake. So discretion was the better part of valor. Or some silly shit like that. <sigh>
Cest la vie.
After dropping off out schtuff, we headed back downtown to check out the scene. We walked around and had a couple beers and ended up in a go go bar. This was a step up from the failed strip club I went to. The beers were reasonably priced and there were actually (gasp) naked girls on the poles. I ended up chatting to a gal from Romania named Sasha. She was pretty cool and we ended up hanging out for an hour, which likely costed her some money - but we were having fun talking about our different culture and I didn't have to buy her uber expensive drinks like the last place.
We bailed from there to catch the tram back to the hostel and managed to hit central station for the last train back to Uranienborg (which awesomely stops right in front of the hostel). Lord save me from temptations. The seats open were in the middle of about 20 gorgeous 18-20 year old college girls, mostly blond blue/green eyed. Once they heard the American English accent they proceeded to chat up me and Craig about their travels to the US and where they've been and where we had lived, etc. And they were pretty drunk. With the street construction, the last stop was in front of our hostel where they all left the train.
Temptation, really, really, really, sucks sometimes. But they really were too young and too drunk. Plus partying in a bed and breakfast hostel would have kept all the people on my floor awake. So discretion was the better part of valor. Or some silly shit like that. <sigh>
Cest la vie.
GOOD BOY! (I know...)
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