East Oslo

I find myself on another train after a quick, quick stopover in Oslo. This time I’m on No. 105, express to Copenhagen via Gøtenberg, Sweden. I’ll arrive to Denmark later this afternoon. So two nights, one full day in Oslo. Too short, much too short but then, too expensive.

My wonderful train experience from Stockholm ended with my arrival to Oslo’s Central Station. I hopped off the train, walked around the station a bit, grabbed a sandwich from a convenience deli, and got some Norwegian Kroner from the ATM machine. Oslo is a small city, much like Helsinki. The main portion of downtown is pretty centrally concentrated, as are the major means of transport, and luckily the main train station. But since Oslo is so expensive, I had to carefully shop around for a hostel that wouldn’t damage my budget too terribly so I had to be a bit flexible when it came to location. I chose one of the cheapest options (still twice as much as most European hostels I’m told and twelve times more expensive the China’s hostels), a nice hostel located high on  a bluff rising above the city center, up on Oslo Fjord, about four kilometers from the train station. Four kilometers is just a little too far to walk even though the streets seemed pretty easy to navigate. Oslo, like most Chinese cities, conveniently built its major roads in concentric rings around the city center. My hostel was in a neighborhood just off the intersection of one of the major roads that stem from the center and the third ring road. But my pack is a little too heavy to be making that trip uphill in the cold. I aimed for public transportation. The hostel’s website gave a good set of directions on which type and number of public transport (you could take metro, bus, or tram) to take and where to get off, but it offered a very vague description of where the hostel was actually located from the stop. But first of all, Oslo’s public transportation system is probably the most thorough, for such a small city, that I’ve ever seen. You basically buy one ticket per ride that covers everything. You can use the pass in the metro, on a bus, tram, ferry, commuter train, airport express, all kinds of things. And all the stations, between all of the transport types, are so close together that you could literally take public transport from your doorstep at home, to the doorstep of your workplace in the city, without ever having to walk more than 50 meters. Pretty good. The other weird thing about this system, and this was also the case for Helsinki (not Stockholm though) is that nobody really pays for the tickets. In fact, there is no one to check the tickets even if you buy them. So people just hop on and off as if it was free, right in front of the conductor who sort of seems like he expects that they won’t pay. It’s really strange. But I guess when each ticket costs the equivalent of six dollars, it’s no wonder no one wants to pay. But I wonder how they make any money. Actually, I’ve felt a side effect this morning. My tram broke down on the way to the train station. Buying tickets probably would have helped prevent that. But I’m not complaining.

I took the tram from the train station, two afternoons ago, and found my stop easily enough. The stop is located in a suburban neighborhood, surrounded by soccer fields and housing complexes all leading up this steep hill that continues to rise up the bluff. Even in this area, halfway up the bluff, you get sweeping views of the city below and the rest of Oslo Fjord that extends to the south out to sea. It was a beautiful area. But the hostel, as stated before, blended into the rest of the buildings in the neighborhood and was poorly labeled. I wandered around feeling a little foolish for 10 or 15 minutes, staring at buildings and spinning in circles, before I finally found my way, walking up walking paths rather than roads, past the soccer fields and up a hill to the hostel. The hostel looked a lot more like a hotel, or a fancy motel rather, across two buildings that looked like apartment buildings in a sort of culldesac with other homes. It was very residential. But it was mid-afternoon, I checked in and had to prepare a bit. I was meeting a friend of my dad’s a little later in the evening for dinner.

Øystein Trunsjø is a professor and director of an institute that influences national policy in defense towards China in Oslo. He’s Norwegian, born and raised in Oslo, and my dad put me in contact with him so that we could meet up for some dinner and drinks and I could get the chance to talk to a local. We had planned to meet up at 7 at a local microbrewery near my hostel (I need to get a European SIM, coordination would be so much easier). So I had a few hours to collect myself and walk around the city a bit, get my bearings, before meeting up. I took a quick shower, stowed my bags, and hopped the tram back towards the city center. I found the place we were supposed to meet, and then continued on down the hill on foot towards the train station.

A Norwegian fashion shop along Karl Johans Gate

A look down the main shopping street of Oslo where the protest marched

Real-time pause here. I’m nearing Gøtenberg right now, maybe 30 minutes away. Gøtenberg is sort of aimed straight south of Oslo, while Copenhagen is straight south further still. And the snow is gone. No, no, let’s try that again. THE SNOW IS GONE! Where did it go? How did I miss that? Should I dare to remove a layer of socks?

Right then, back to the past. The area around the train station is sort of Oslo’s main stream, cosmopolitan walking area. And a good place for protests I guess. I’ll admit how out of touch I’ve become with the outside world recently and say that I really don’t have a good grasp on what the protest was about. Maybe you can tell me. A large parade of about 150 or 200 people, all of Middle Eastern descent, marched with candles and banners, shouting something in unison in Norwegian. It was altogether very peaceful and organized. They had banners and flags of different types. One of the flags was yellow and had the face of a Middle Eastern man on it. Another had a green background with a yellow sun shape in the middle and a red star in the center of the sun. And there were a few others as well. For what it’s worth, I think it had something to do with something that recently developed with the conflict in Syria(?). Again, I’m wanderlusting around Europe at the moment, a bit out of touch.

I followed them for a bit. They were handing out these large candles, more like torches actually, to anyone who wanted one (I didn’t take one), and they had a large peaceful gathering of bystanders. They must have arranged this protest legally, they were led by two mounted police officers along the main walking area, Karl Johans Gate, by the train station. It was pretty interesting and after a little more wandering around the area, I started walking back up the hill towards the microbrewery.

This fishing boat sold fresh fish from its bow to people on the dock

I met Øystein right at 7. He had also invited two of his PhD candidates that worked in the institute with him saying that they were closer to my age and might have some good insight into what I might like to do during my full day in the city. They weren’t locals. I can understand that. I would have a hard time making recommendations for stuff to do tourist-wise in Boston. But the others hadn’t arrived yet so the two of us headed in to the microbrewery for a drink before dinner. This spot was awesome. Øystein had told me that he wasn’t too sure about the beer here, that a lot of places in the city were calling themselves microbreweries so that that would give them an excuse to overcharge their otherwise pretty regular beer. But we tried the dark beer that they recommended, one they had just brewed the day before, and it was really good. Actually, one of best beers I have had in a very, very long time. They even had some free food trays, for samplers, in the corner which we made use of - some good Norwegian starters.

We drank our beer and then headed out to find a place to eat. Here, Øystein had many recommendations. We walked through the suburban neighborhood towards a river where there was a new up and coming development along its banks. They had converted these old factories to a sort of trendy bar and restaurant scene. Walkways and bridges crossed the high cliff walls of the river, leading in and out of the factory complex. Inside one of the old warehouse buildings was a type of upscale food court. An open area with fancy settings over picnic tables with candles ringed by these fancy bakeries and restaurants. Bars and pubs and tappas places and dessert shops filled the space. It was pretty cool. We decided on a tappas place in the corner. We ordered several small dishes, many of them were Norwegian specialties, fish based mostly, and some more local beers. Eventually we were met by one of the PhD candidates, Chris, a Swede from the Malmo area, who joined us for a few drinks as well. Chris is a China scholar and has lived in China for several years, his Chinese is very impressive. The other scholar, Annie, was unable to join us but she apologized and then promised to host me the following night, so I made out pretty well there.

Eventually we finished our meal and since it was pretty late in the evening, we headed out for home. Chris took a bus back to his nearby apartment and Øystein and I were picked up by a childhood friend of his who now works in the city as a train conductor. He was just getting off from work and was able to pick us up and take us back towards the hostel, the same area that Øystein lives. While we were in the car, Øystein was telling us a bit about the neighborhood that he grew up in. Apparently Oslo, back in the eighties when he was growing up, was split into two sides, west and east. It sounded a little like London. The upperclass, high scale neighborhoods were all located in the west side of the city and the working class families all lived in neighborhoods in the east end, the two halves separated by the river where the old factories used to be operational. Now, the East End has sprouted some really artsy, hip neighborhoods as a result of its working class past, much like how London’s East End is now famous for its hip clubs and music scene. In fact, the neighborhood that my hostel is located is one of these old, east end neighborhoods, and the same one that Øystein grew up in. He played club soccer on the same fields along the hill near the hostel.

I had a pretty great night. I learned a lot about Oslo, its inner-city history and culture, and was treated to a really stellar meal and evening of excellent beers. After I was dropped off at the hostel, I opened the door to my room and was met by the sweet sound snoring coming from three different directions. But the beer made me drowsy and I fell asleep immediately. In the meantime, Annie, the girl who wasn’t able to meet up with us, did email me a list of must-do’s around the city. She is an American Fulbright scholar, living in Oslo, and knew the things that I would be most likely to enjoy. So I had a pretty solid plan for my one full day in this nordic city.