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Oslo, Norway

Ready steady go…. 22 countries in 60 days. This is the game we call Travelling, Morton Style. Basically the objective is to see, experience and taste as much as you possibly can in the shortest amount of time. The rules are that you are limited to: primarily utilising the 60 day Eurorail pass, a daily budget and to finish in either Turkey or Greece on the 23rd October. The flexibility of the starting point was purely determined by cost.

On the Monday (3days ago) we opened the Sky-tracker app which has all flights out of London on the Wednesday (today). A place called Bergen in Norway was one of the cheapest destinations in the right ‘corner of the map’ – at only 300 flipping dollars for a two hour flight. Although expensive, It was quite liberating knowing the flexibility you have when choosing which country you’ll end up in. It was only after we booked the flight that we realised the whole, yes whole town was booked out for the night. All hotels, motels, b&amp;bs and hostels within a 1hr radius of Bergen city were booked. One room was available on Air BnB (where you rent a room in a stranger’s house for the night) at only $120! It’s lovely but slightly odd making breakfast in a stranger’s kitchen.
Bergen is a beautiful little town that I am glad we have come , if only for 1 night. It’s nestled in between seven hills and seven fjords with a buzzing harbour as its centrepiece. The small city climbs the hillside between the pine trees and coloured timber clad houses. Back in the 12th &amp;13th century Bergen used to be Norway’s capital. We spent time wandering through the active fishing market. It’s post card beautiful, just like the locals. They are taller than the average Jo and have the beautiful Scandinavian features.

So what do I think of this game to date, let’s see…
$36 for a public bus from airport to accommodation
$58 for three trips on a 10 minuite public bus ride to the city
$0 for the amount spent on the boat trip around the Fjords that I really wanted to do but couldn’t justify selling my kidney for
$35 for 2 deli bought microwave dinners as restaurants are too expensive
$8 for two 600ml bottles of water
$25 train reservations
Our first day of being on our own in a foreign land: priceless. We have nearly doubled our daily budget and not done a thing…. We’re not in Vietnam now Toto…

Side note: I very much wanted to visit Finland. They have very good berries there so the website told me and if we met a Finnish man named Ed, he’d be FinnishEd! Dave agreed to booking a flight &amp; ferry if it was cheap… Guess I’m not going to meet Finished 😦
However, Odd is actually a first name in Norway. A boy’s name. Who knows, we may meet an Odd Norwegian or have an Odd Finnish!

Day 1, our adventure begins today: the first train trip from Bergen to Oslo. Prior to leaving we bought the 2 months Unlimited Global Eurail Pass which means throughout the two months we will see us much of Europe by rail as we possibly can. As we are ‘older’ than 26, we were eligible to pay a bit more for the first class carriages. There’s heaps of leg room, free tea and coffee, fewer people and comfortable, bigger seats. The only disadvantage is we haven’t seen any backpackers to pick their brains. The trains even have canteens (but we are the only ones in 1st class with our jam sams).
{I have added this part in later: we just found out a lot of the trains require mandatory reservations. There is a mandatory booking fee of between $20 – $100. Although second class have fees also, it’s less, so we will be doing that even though our tickets say 1st class. How nice it would have been to have known that before leaving. This prepaid rail ticket is going to cost us a lot of money. I wouldn’t recommend it that’s for sure.}

Throughout this particular trip (8hours) we are 1,100m above sea level at points. There’s snow on some of the mountain tops and deep green pine trees coming right down to the edge of the dark blue lakes. Each country uses their own trains for the Eurail. My thought on the Norwegian trains is the free hot chocolate machine is a winner. The toilet facilities are also substantially better then those in India…
Anywho, we have arrived into the worlds 4th most expensive city so it’s 2 basic Burger King hamburgers each for dinner, no drink, chips or dining in. Their taxis are even Mercedes! It is depressing being poor but when the cheapest accommodation in town is more than the days budget there aren’t any options.
The next day our (my) mood didn’t brighten either. The Hop on Hop off bus which is normally the cheapest and best way to really understand a city in the shortest amount of time was twice as expensive as anywhere else we’ve been. I tell ya, attempting to stay within a budget and knowing you’re going to fail for at least a few weeks is depressing. We have 259 days to go in this year abroad. If I don’t sound upbeat, trust me I’m not. This way of travelling sucks, feeling like a turtle with a heavy backpack and dirty clothes. Unlike in Asia, South America or Africa, we are not on an arranged tour or like in America where we will we have our own car to base ourself. Europe is the first and only time we will feel like we a truly alone and backpacking, and it’s the most expensive time of the year. Dave is loving the flexibility, trying something new and backpacking. He’s a great person to bring the spirits up. As it’s school holidays, even though they’re coming to an end, most places are booked out – as we are finding out fast. Prior to leaving we booked 125 days of the year and left the rest to booking a few days ahead, so that we had flexibility. Unfortunately that’s not going to fly this time of year. Trying to find any reasonability priced accommodation this short out is taking 4 hours out of a day when we only have 1 full day in each city. As Oslo is too expensive for us to actually do ANYTHING we opted for staying in and booking a few weeks in advance. I would have even given into the worst thing ever and done mixed dorms of 12 which you’d think would be the cheapest. They are between $40-$60 each x 2 people in Northern Europe. The private rooms in hostels are exy too. I’m sure as we get closer to Spain the prices will decrease and it will be less busy. For the time being it looks as though our only option is AirBnB. With most places $120pn, it’s still over the budget. Although they are strangers to us, they have good reviews, central locations and at least we have a local to interact with.

What better way to turn a mood around than have a plan and an Anne! We need a routine too but that didn’t rhyme. Starting from tomorrow we (meaning me) need to try and make the most of being a turtle. (The analogy with the pack on back, not the speed). A good routine will help us get into swing of things. For the next two months we will leave the departure point, catch the train to the next city in the morning and see the city either in half a day or in one and a half days, then repeat in a new country the following day.
It’s very difficult orientating your way around a new city with a new language and having to immerse your self in it, and it’s food and culture in a short amount of time. That’s where we need a PLAN! On the train to each city we will read the Lonely Planet Guide, ‘Europe on a shoe string’ and go for it.

As for the Anne, well she is half the reason my mood drastically improved and am not on a plane home (Dave’s the other half). We met Anne on our African trip, therefore we only saw her last week. She talked to us about Norway and planted the seed in our head, and we’re so glad we did. Throughout the last few days I haven’t really spoken about Norway, but more how I’m feeling and how I am handling this new way of travel. Anne met us on our last afternoon in Norway. She took us around Oslo showing us the sights. We saw so much more through the eyes of a local. The city is truly magnificent and obviously wealthy, yet the locals are the friendliest people we’ve come across. Not much is translated into En
glish but it’s very easy to navigate around. In the 1960’s oil was discovered in Norway’s offshore waters and transformed it from one of the poorest countries in Europe to one of the richest. As mentioned before, Oslo is the 4th most expensive city in the world, but more importantly it’s one of the most beautiful we have been to. Norway has a population of 4.7 million, one of Europe’s lowest population densities.
Oslo has a great feel to it and is surrounded by forests, hills and lakes. What I love about summer in Oslo is that it’s perfectly light until 10pm (further north it doesn’t get dark at all, whereas the winter there’s only a few hours of sun light).
Anne took us for the fanciest meal on the waterfront. We sat in the sun on chairs with fur, drank wine and ate the world renowned Norwegian salmon. It was great to feel like a tourist again rather than a traveller. The great company and atmosphere was the pick me up I needed.

It’s all about your attitude.

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