The Waiting Room; Oslo, Norway

Jetlag gets a bad rap mostly. It’s not all bad sometimes – especially when it gets you up early enough for the 7 o’clock breakfast rush and in time to see a bit of Norway pass by. The hills aren’t as high as I thought they’d be, but perhaps the high fjords and mountains are farther north – and I suppose there was no reason to get disappointed yet, we’d only just arrived.

In the States, Sunday is a fine day to travel. It’s a bit sleepy, but the 24-hour economy of America keeps the Walmarts and the Walgreens open for most of the day and you’re able to get whatever you need. In Norway, and most of Europe, working on Sunday is, in fact, forbidden by law. The nice lady at the tourist center told me that once a book store had opened on a Sunday, but it was all over the papers by the next day and they never tried that trick again. You are only allowed to open on Sundays if you have “kiosk status” – which seems to be reserved by the surprisingly large number of 7-11′s in Oslo. That’s right, step right up and get your Vikings Slushies here folks, only 50 Kronos.

All I wanted to buy was a pen, just a simple writing utensil. I took them for granted back home, but here they seem to be the most highly guarded of personal effects. I thought briefly about stealing one from the tailors yesterday during my fitting, but the prospect of prematurely ending my time on the W******* because of “pen stealing” sound like a silly way to go. I thought they might be a hot commodity in Oslo.

With it’s price location and high population, its no surprise that Oslo is a major shipping port. Primarily an industrial town until the government decided to spruce it up a bit in the 1950s, there are 13 miles of docks in downtown Oslo. I walked about 4 blocks east of our ship’s mooring to the East Train Station looking for a pen. The weather was damp and cold – the way I expected Scandinavia to be year round.

I didn’t find a pen, but I did find an open book kiosk and bought a few books for the road, including a bright red guide to the finer tourist points in Oslo and hundreds of picture of a sunny and warm paradise the book claimed was Oslo itself. I found it hard to imagine.

I sat down near the steps out the station and soon enough a girl came around and sat down next to me. Considering the size of the country of Norway, and all the available space, I felt it odd that she decided to sit so close to me. She had a large duffle bag with her – and it was afterall the train station – so I asked her where she was from. Norway. Duh.

She was a bartender at the pub directly behind us, inside the train station. It was 9am – a curious time for bartenders to be up. She was waiting for the rest of the pub staff – they were all taking a camping trip together. The pub was closed (it was Sunday afterall), but when her boss arrived she invited me in for some coffee and that’s around the time the day started to get a bit more interesting.

Her co-workers were startled to see an American drinking coffee in the pub at 9:30 in the morning, as an good Norwegian would be, but after the initial shock passed they seemed to welcome me into their little community. They were a little hazy on the history of their country, but between the 6 of them, they managed to put together a simple picture of Norway for me. May 17th is the big day here, as independence day, although none of them knew exactly who it was that they had gained their independence from so many years ago (turns out to be Denmark from what I hear). Today was the queen’s birthday and the Norwegian language has three extra vowels, all of which, when spoken, reminded me of someone desperately trying to dislodge a foreign object from their windpipe. It’s a pleasant language though, as long as you don’t pick it apart like we had just then.

I finished my coffee, they loaded a truly copious amount of alcohol into the back of their small Toyota and we all left the pub. They were headed 1 1/2 hours north to a cottage in the wilderness and I was headed to the Viking Museum, to learn a bit more about the country’s history. The girl’s name was Nina, and the name of the pub was The Waiting Room.

The Viking Ship Museum holds some of the most famous Viking ships ever found in Norway. the building is small, but houses three impressive Viking ships, several artifacts and a lot of American tourists with accompanying tour guides in bright blue dresses with thick eyebrows meticulously penciled in. As with most museums, I walked around listlessly for a bit, took a few pictures and left as soon as I saw the next horde of Americans come off of the tour busses.

As the bus stop i was thankful to find a group of Australians that were able to read the bus schedule. They were from Melbourne, all 7 of them (except for Michael, who was from Queensland). They all have jobs in London – one an engineer, one a pharmacist, etc. – and seem to spend all of their money traveling together whenever they can. They wanted to hear about what its like to work on a cruise ship, but I’m afraid I couldn’t give them that much information, considering I’d only gotten here myself.

I made my way back to the ship. Already its time to eat again, and at 3:30 I’ll be playing background music to people throwing their money away at the casino. The weather has become considerably better since the morning, and it’s actually downright sunny and hot in Oslo today. I guess the guidebook didn’t like about the climate.