Nige and Shelley Take Over The World: Olso, Norway

We arrived in Oslo after getting up at 2.30 am in the morning to get on a bus to get to the plane and then after arriving we got on another bus to get to Oslo. The day was a chilly -3 at the start.

Here is the view of the houses from the bus window. Covered in thick snow like royal icing.

Nige was so excited to see what they do with all the scraped up snow from the streets (it snows about 4 months of the year so there is a lot of snow) when we were there it was everywhere! The trucks carry the snow to the port and here they are dumping it onto the ice covered sea.

We walked around the castle Arkishun (not sure about the name...) It was used for defending Oslo from the Viking attacks. Unfortunately it was all closed up. As we went about Oslo it became obvious it wasnt really a tourist city but we didnt mind, we enjoyed wandering around in the snow.

Here is Nigel preparing to eat Reindeer, it had better taste nice, it costs 37 pounds! Oslo is the most expensive city in Europe, which was okay as we were only there for 2 days and we stayed in a hostel. The next photo is the taste test!!! Will he like it? Wont he??? The answer was, it was like venison but blander. Oh yeah. def worth 37 pounds, dont think of it in kiwi dollars it will be horrendous. It was worth it though for the experience.

Oslo's Royal Palace. We didnt see any royalty. There were children tobogganing down stairs though.

Here is Parliament

Nigel continues to find 'cool' cars on our travels and loves to pose with these beasts. Here is Buddy (look at his license plate for his name!!)

Here is a ship we read about down at the port of Oslo. The ship got lost in 1913 during WW1. It was found in 1925 in the Congo (?!) River. Then it was used in WW2 and it went missing again. It was found in NewFoundland in 1947 with no trace of the crew or where it had been for the last 3 years. Spooky boat.

View out to sea, its hard to see but the water is iced over

Nige enjoying a rest on our walk around the port. I bet the seat was nice and warm.

This is a millenium time capsule out at sea. The people of Oslo wrote their own time capsule letters etc and the government put these out in the little lighthouse bobbing in the sea.

Here is the ferry coming into port, these are the big boats, which can drive through the ice.

Here are some of the lovely yachts for dad to look at, note the snow covering them

There is snow dumped into the sea in the foreground of this shot.

Here is the view of the port. We were so disappointed as we were planning to do a winter cruise around the fjords to an island to see the viking museum. What a shame about the ice over the sea.

We stopped in a pub for a drink along the way and this guy wouldnt leave us alone until he could buy us a drink. He is Ugandan. He discussed a lot of politics and even knew who Helen Clark was. His name was Soloman and he told us stories about boarding school in Uganda with a husband and wife teaching/matron duo that were stuffy english types. They wore only white clothes and the matrons name was Deborah. Apparently she didnt like him very much.

High street Oslo, view from Royal Palace

Here is the Opera House. It is special because its been designed for people to walk on the roof. We walked all over it and the views of the Fjords were cool. The snow is deep up there and we sunk up to our knees in it sometimes.