Oslo, a summary

Having left Oslo this morning I thought I might attempt to capture a few impressions whilst they’re still fresh in my mind. I therefore offer Oslo, a summary:

  • Your taxis are sodomisingly expensive.
  • Your people are lovely
  • Your Ubers are not quite as expensive as your taxis and being picked up in a Bentley Flying Spur was a bit of an experience(the driver clearly didn’t need the money so we assume he was looking for a worthy passenger to whom he might bequeath the deed to his chocolate factory. Sadly we had no golden ticket).
  • The lab techs at the Radisson Park Hotel have managed to crack the molecular code that has, for so very long, prevented bed linen manufacturers from weaving pillowcases out of 40grit sandpaper.
  • Your Fjords are lovely and the tiny bathing houses that line the shores are “totes adorbs” (Norwegian for rarely sold and usually inherited).
  • Your airport express train is relatively cheap and efficient.
  • You’ve a chocolate treat which is suspiciously similar to a KitKat (that is relatively cheap and efficient)
  • You’re difficult to predict which lead us to coin the phrase, “Norwegian Assumption”, e.g. “... but I thought it was definitely going to stop raining”. “Well, that was a Norwegian Assumption then, wasn’t it?”.
  • In the 12th century there were a group of  Cistercian monks which set up shop in Oslo who adhered to a strict policy of waking and sleeping with the rise and fall of the sun. After a year or two of having to sleep all winter and stay awake all summer, they wrote to the Pope to ask if they might give this policy a miss. The Pope agreed and this was known henceforth as the “Scandinavian Exception”.
  • The Norwegians have a cheese which can only be described as brown cheese. It’s known as Brown Cheese and looks like a child crafted it from expired Play-Doh. As a rule I love all cheeses but when it comes to brown cheese, I make a Scandinavian Exception.
  • We suspect this was not the best time of year to visit Norway and that to truly experience all that it has to offer one is best off visiting in the summer or spring and venturing outside of Oslo and into the countryside and villages. This may however be an assumption ... of sorts.