Exploring Norway

Oslo, Norway

I flew Norwegian Airlines. (Either I do not know what a good quality airline is or I got a really good deal. Sure the coffee/tea costs extra, and there were no complimentary  peanuts, but I’m going to Europe; who needs those things? )

While I waited to board the plane, I asked random people nosey questions like where are you going and why. I scored a temporary traveling companion; her name is Helga. She lived in Oslo for twenty years, and she offered to help me navigate the train to my hostel. Helga is going to Spain to meet up with an old friend she dated back in 1977. So far, she topped my charts for coolest person I’ve met. She was one of the first female boxers, and was deemed “the blond Viking” whilst fighting in Las Vegas. Seriously badass.

If I die, let my tombstone read “No adventure too big or small; knew no stranger.”

Somehow I had lucked out in the random draw to have a window seat behind the wing of the aircraft. The clouds laid out across the atmosphere like miles of untouched snow. Which looked cool, until the descent it actually became miles of untouched snow. Brrr! The coolest site was when the clouds broke apart to reveal a huge island. It kind of looked uninhabited. You think you grasp the vastness of the ocean, but it doesn’t really settle in until you are flying over it.

Once I landed, I started to lose my vision; a migraine. Helga helped me navigate to my train stop, and her friend gave me directions on how to get to my hotel. I am horrible with directions. For awhile, with a migraine, I was walking up and down the same street lost. I asked one stranger where my street was, and I think she purposely told me the wrong way. Thank God I went with my gut feeling and didn’t follow through on her directions. I stared at a map by the train station for about twenty minutes, trying to guide through the unfamiliar street names. I remembered that I had grabbed a map in the train station, and I pulled that out. It wasn’t long after that, that I was struggling to open the door to my hostel. The headache was bad. Lucky for me, the room was available and she let me check in early. I slept for probably six hours. I lost my day in Norway.

I did some brief exploring while the sun was still up. Ate a fast food burger because the train ticket had wiped out my budget for the day. The exchange rate was not in my favor, and I was in the second richest country in the world. (Known for being expensive)

I’ve decided when I come back in a week, I will have taken the time to really study the map and decide what I’ll be doing, minus a headache. It will be a much more productive day.

❤

Bucket List: Get lost in a foreign country