Part 1
In July 2014, I done a bit of sightseeing through Scandinavia and Germany. I started off in Norway, but it was a bit more complicated than that. You see, I thought I had booked to fly there on the Saturday, and had the trip planned around these dates. When I got down to Dublin airport, the boarding pass I printed off wouldn’t work.
I tried to scan it again, still wouldn’t work? Bollocks to this, why isnt this working? Then I had another look at the pass; I had booked to fly out on the Sunday. I felt like a total plonker, I ummed and arghed for a few minutes, wondering whether I should just can the whole trip, then I thought “fuck it, I’ll get a few connecting flights, and continue on with this”.
I ended up flying to London Stansted, and got my connecting flight from there to Oslo, Ryanair style, which usually means an hours journey outside the place you’re going to. While waiting for the train to take me into Oslo, I got talking to a guy from England, whose job it was to take students on travelling trips around Europe, in a way giving some young people a bit of hope, showing them that there was more to life than the usual every day drudgery.
Oslo, when I got there, seemed okay, it looked clean, a fair amount of people in it, anyone I spoke to, were helpful. I was only there for one night, so I couldn’t say much more about it, other than the fact that quite a few things were horrifically expensive.
I booked into my hostel, seemed clean, got a pre made breakfast in the morning, which was nice, but I couldn’t say that I had any affection for Oslo or Norway, nothing wrong with it, I just didnt click with it.
Maybe my opinion would change if I went there for longer. From what I seen of the scenery (the train from Oslo to Stockholm, Sweden, it looked nice, the few Norwegians Ive ever spoken to, have all seemed really sound good people, so maybe it will be a place I check out again someday.
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