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Well here I am in Norway where the daily maximum temperature is around 8 each day. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, however, as there is literally no wind at all so it's not too bad outside. Everywhere has heating. Lots of heating.
Anyway, backtracking slightly, I had an hilarious last day in London, meeting up and with Schembri and one of his friends who are doing a 4 week jaunt around Europe. We went to Madame Taussaud's and took hilarious photos with the wax mannequins of which the photos will eventually find their way to this blog. I think it would have been a very dull place to go had I not had friends to take photos for me. Tim, Di and I went out for dinner and a play featuring Di's cousin in the evening.
I didn't manage to get much sleep on Tuesday night and got up early to catch my flight to Oslo, which I pretty much sleep through (why I can sleep on a 1.5 hour flight but not on a 12 hour flight is a bit beyond me). I got to the airport a bit early which was handy cause I had to pack, unpack and repack my bag about 6 times to try and get all my stuff into 1x 15kg bag and 1x carry on. It really didn't work and I think the girl at the check in counter felt sorry for me because she waved the excess baggage on my bag which should have cost me about £48. More than my flight in fact. The Norwegian airport serviced by Ryanair is 125km out of Oslo so I had to catch a bus and a train from the airport. I managed to fall asleep on the train and woke up not in Oslo and had to get off, figure out where I was and go back in the opposite direction. Oops. I think next time I'll fly with an airline that is normal to avoid baggage and transit issues.
Anyway, I got to see some of the Norwegian countryside on the train and both it and Olso are very beautiful. All the trees are tall and skinny and in various shades of green, gold and red. I spent yesterday (Thursday) just wandering around Olso and caught a ferry over to one of the islands in the fjord. I caught a bus around the island just to look at the views, which the bus driver seemed to think was very strange, but he did slow down when going round a bend with a particularily nice view.
Today I had a harrowing time at Oslo S, the main train station here where all the signs and arrows on the signs seem to point in random directions (actually that seems to be the case in Oslo in general - the signs and maps are all very average). It took me about half an hour to find where I was supposed to be booking my train to Stockholm tomorrow. And it's lucky I found it when I did cause I was on the verge of a tanty in the middle of the train station. I spent the rest of the day going to a few museums - the viking ship museum which was very cool, the kon-tiki museum which was really not very interesting at all and the zoological museum which was possibly the strangest place I have been on this trip so far. The museum consisted entirely of stuffed animals in various scenes, many of which had no explanation at all and a few of which had some norwegian names and no further explanation. There was an exhibit of Australian birds which no indication at all that they were Australian. There was one marked Australian exhibit which consisted of a mish-mash of random Australian animals thrown together, including a platypus in a desert setting, a quoll up a tree and some strange, very un-Australian creature. I asked for a translation of the Norwegian name and was given 'Spotted pouch monkey'. I suspect it was some kind of South American Opossum or something.
Anyway, it's very nice here. Although possibly not the smartest choice for my first non-English country. Everyone speaks English (though not preferably) but all the signs are only in Norwegian which bares no resemblance to English. I must look like I fit in though because about 5 different people today have either tried to sell me something or asked for directions in Norwegian. My Norwegian must fall well below par though as when I try to order food or something in Norwegian, people quickly switch to English.
Anyway, I'm off to Stockholm tomorrow so switching languages again.
Love and hugs to Neptune and Bunni. Love to Sammy. (PS Becca, when are you home from Sth America?)
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