Old Gregg, Pizza, and Olav

Hey, so I'm back from Norway. What a place... what a time. I'm smiling just thinking of it. So let me include you in on the joke.

I went to Norway with Jenna and Kathleen. Kathleen of course being my flat mate, and Jenna just the girl who hangs out in our flat so much, I'm surprised she hasn't bought a bed and just sleep in our hall. Hahah, just kidding. I went to Ireland with Jenna, and that was a great time, so I was really looking forward to this trip. In the few days before our trip, we have been watching the Mighty Boosh like there is no tomorrow. We um actually all bought Seasons 1 and 2... um yeah well. So right before we left, I mean seconds before we left, we watched Old Gregg, and yeah that was probably not a good idea. I talked about the Mighty Boosh before, but without seeing it, it's hard to describe. It's just two guys who work in a zoo, and it's British humour at it's best. But Old Gregg is my new favorite character, I'm thinking my Halloween costume next year, because he's just that awesome. But we quoted Old Gregg the whole time. We would be walking down the street, and all a sudden one of us would be like, "I'm Old Greggggg." or "Love games." and the other two would burst out laughing. Actually one night in a hostel, Kathleen was listening to the Mighty Boosh, and it was silent, and all sudden Jenna started laughing. Kathleen had her music up a little loud, and she heard, "I'm Old Gregg." I didn't hear it, I was above Kathleen on the bunk bed, but they laughed, so I laughed, and the three of us were laughing, and we weren't alone in the room. So embarrassing.

ANYWAY! Off the Mighty Boosh, though I am listening to it right now, yeah I have the DVDs, and the songs on my MP3 Player... it's sick I know. But to Norway. So we slept in the airport on Friday night, because our plane left at oohhh you know 6:30am. Ick, early. We took the last train to Victoria, and then caught the National Express to Stansted. We got to Stansted around 2ish, and I was kinda surprised how many people were in the airport. Some people had blow up mattresses, and this one guy was sleeping on the scale, and had his head against the counter. LOL! Kathleen of course decided we should sleep right in the middle of the floor. We weren't the only ones doing it though, so it was okay. I did not sleep that night, Jenna and Kathleen kept quoting the Mighty Boosh, and decided it was like a slumber party so we should tell stories. I told a few, but my eyes started to close, so I tried to sleep, but those two kept going. I called for quiet time, like we were 5 years old or something, and it worked, but just as sleep was taking me over, people started to move. Yeah all of Stansted was up at 4am. Er. We had to move, lines started to form around us, so we went off to the corner, and tried to sleep for another half an hour, and I might have fallen asleep for 10 minutes. Oh well.

So we checked in, and went through security with no problems. I was so tired, that I couldn't think properly, it took me a while to decide that yes I was hungry. Of course I thought ahead, and brought some cookies, but we ate those in line for check in, so we were all hungry again. By the time we all got food, we had to basically run to the gate, but Stansted was being slow that morning, so we were fine. Kathleen had priority boarding... not sure how, but she did, so she grabbed seats for Jenna and I.

I don't really remember the plane ride, I was out like a light. I don't even remember the plane taking off, so yeah quick ride. It's what I like. Every time I fly, it gets to me even more. It's horrible, because I like the fly, but I get a stomach ache every time, stupid motion sickness. I can go on roller coasters, but can't fly. Er.

When we got to Oslo, we had to take a bus into the actually city. We were in the Stansted of Norway, so we grabbed the bus, and took the hour and a half ride into the city. Once again, I was out like a light.

Around 1pm, we were in Oslo, all three of us tired, and just wanting to sleep. Jenna had the directions for the airport, but being tired, she didn't really read them right. We were looking for Karl Johans Gate for some reason, and we stopped to look at a map, when I looked at the directions, and realized our hostel was on the road we had just been walking up and down. Great. So we found our hostel. It's not bad, the Anker Hostel. We couldn't check in yet, because it wasn't 3pm, so we left our stuff, and went to get food. We stopped at a Pizza place down the street, and 5 minutes after getting our pizzas they were gone. Great pizza. Of course, a few seconds after we sat down, I see this guy walk past the window, and he has a Yankees hat on. AH! Stupid Yankees, even in Norway people wear those stupid hats. Oh well.

After we ate though, we walked down the street, and came to the store that had everything I desire in life, well almost. It had Lord of the Rings stuff (Helmets and swords), and Maximus's helmet!!!!! I put it on, it was so cool. Loved that store. Jenna had a great time in it too, we both just wanted it all.

But then we kept walking down to the Cathedral, and then to the Palace. By the Cathedral, we saw our first Viking. There are some people in Norway who seriously look like Vikings... big beards, weird clothes that so do not match, and either bald or way too much hair. Jenna and I both turned to Kathleen at the same time though and said, "Viking." Yeah we spend too much time together.

The Palace is cool though, it's up on a hill of course. We walked up there, and there are no gates. You can walk right up to the door, of course the guard would probably shoot you, but you can walk up to the guard, who is really close to the door. There is a gate by the side of the palace, but not around the whole place, like at Buckingham or the White House. There is a statue in front of the palace, but I don't really know who it is. Not Olav though.

Okay I must explain Olav. In the Guide to Oslo, a book we picked up at the hostel, there was an article about Olav V, the people's king. He died in 1991, but before then he was the Defense Minster in the last years of the War, while the rest of his family was in exile he chose to stay with the people. Then during a time when cars weren't allowed to be driven in the 60's I believe, he rode the tram to go skiing, and he rode it with the people. He didn't have to pay for the fare, the driver said that the people had already paid his ticket. He was asked later if he was afraid to be among the people, and he said no, that he had 4 million bodyguards. He was a really popular king, and actually the great grandchild of Queen Victoria, his mother was Princess Maud (daughter of King Edward VII of the UK). But we took a liking to him, and the whole time we were in Norway we looked out for a statue of him. Did we find one? NO! We didn't go to the right section... so sad, we tried so hard.

After the Palace, we went down to the harbour, saw the Nobel Peace Centre, and the fortress. We went up to the fortress, what a cool place. We never made it inside the castle alas, it was never opened when we went. But the view was cool, and we did go into the Resistance Museum upon returning to Oslo. Personally, I knew nothing about Norway and the War, but they did have some action. Sweden of course opened the door for Hitler, and let him into Norway. Norway resisted, but the Royal family had to go into exile. Olav's family went to the States, to Washington actually, but Olav stayed and helped fight the war. The museum was really interesting, it gave so much info, and had a lot of original letters and other pictures.

This was also the vacation of ice cream, we ate ice cream by the water, it was nice enough to do so. There was so many people out eating by the water, it was so nice.

So by now it was getting kind of late, especially since we had been up since ohhh 4am, and only had around 3 hours of sleep. We got MacDonalds because it's cheap, and quick. There we saw another Viking... so cool. He was behind me talking to himself, and playing with his chips. After that we went to bed. We were all so tired. That was Day 1 in Oslo, and the next day we were going to Bergen.