Trip to Oslo !

A few weeks ago, I went to Oslo with the Interlink society (international student) for a couple of days. This trip was amazing ☺!

I’ve never been to Oslo before, to any Scandinavian country actually. Some Norwegian friends told me before I leave that it could be a bit cold at this season and guess what … that was true. We left Newcastle on a sunny Friday and we arrived at the beginning of the night in Norway. The first thing you see when you get off the plane is the snow of course. The airport was 1h30 from Oslo’s centre so we took a coach and I think we were a bit in the middle of nowhere cause we were surrounded by the snow! The landscape is very different than in the North East of England, we went from factories to woods and snow!

Once we arrived at the youth hostel we decided to have a quick walk in the centre and maybe grab a drink but we learnt, that night, that it’s not that easy to have a drink in Oslo. They have lots of rules, like you generally have to be 21 to enter in a bar, sometimes even more and don’t think you can cheat coz they check everybody's ID. For most of us, the age wasn’t a problem but as there were quite a few of us that evening there were people younger than 21, well I don't want to mention any names but ... . We tried some other places to hang out but unfortunately we just walked around that night! hihi It was maybe better to save some money coz everything is expensive in Norway, for example we compare the price of a Mc Donald meal, it’s about 80 crowns, which means about 12euros …

Luckily for us, you don’t always need money; there are plenty of nice places to see for free. We visited the basic stuff the first day, went to see the see, the fortress, the castle … that was a nice day, a bit cold coz we weren't really equipped for this kind of weather!

We slept in a different hostel the second night, it was a bit further away from the centre, that was good for us coz we were like in a park with a slope (small one of course but still) so we spent the night there having fun and we even managed to get some homemade sledges (trash bags)! That was a great night, a bit cold at the end but as professionals of snow we had some warm drinks with us ☺! hihi

The day after this freestyle sledge session we went to a real downhill for sledges only, we took the subway and as usual in the subway, everyone had a pair of skis or a sledge with him. The subway brought us the slope and we walked on it, we still had our trash bags but it was a bit hard to use them sometimes coz there was a lot of people on it so we had to be careful ☺! We were surrounded by snow in the wood; it was amazing to be in such landscape! The next stop on the visit was the ski jump, as you all know, there was the Olympic games in 19…. in Oslo. So we decided to go on the Olympic site, the ski jump is something huge! You have to be brainless to get on this!

To finish this day wewent to the outdoor ice skating ring! It’s in the centre, there is a good atmosphere, music … was fun to go on the ice, it had been a while since I last skated and for some people it was the first time, so it’s always funnier in this case.

The last day, we went to another part of the city where we visited the Viking museum, it was impressive how big the boats were but except for the drakkars there was nothing else really… We finished the day with a last walk in Oslo and then got back to the Airport under the snow. I had never taken the plane when it was cold and snowing, it’s not like I’m scared when I fly but it’s not my favourite place to be and as it was cold … the plane didn’t take off directly, there are 2 trucks which prepared the wings, they sprayed some strange liquid on them before we left. Then, the plane could go onto runway and try it before doing it for real just in case it’s too slippy! I mean it’s a bit strange when you see that before taking off! But the plane finally brought us back to Newcastle.

I'll do a files with pictures later.sorry bout that.