i Norge

This morning I woke up around 8AM Oslo time to find us still over the ocean. I was hoping we might go over Iceland or Ireland and England, but no dice. Apparently our flight path took us over the open ocean between them. Cara slept a little while longer until our breakfast came. I have to say we were both surprised by the amount they fed us on this flight! Not long after 9 we pulled below the clouds and I caught my first visage of the land from whence Wogslands came. The recency of glaciation was overwhelmingly obvious in the topography (Norway only emerged from under a sheet of ice a few thousand years ago).

All the pics from our first day in Oslo

Kanutte picked us up at the airport after a surprisingly quick interview with the customs agent. I think it's the Cara factor. We wizzed through Canadian customs last summer as well with her along, rather than the usual 2 hour ordeal we'd come to expect crossing the border. The she drove us to the hospital to pick up her laptop so she and Cara could work at home to prepare for the conference. Unfortunately jetlag walloped Cara pretty hard and she ended up getting sick on the drive. I also discovered that Norway, unlike Tennessee, has 7-Elevens. I was super jelly until I went in and discovered that they don't actually sell Slurpees here. I have so far confirmed this in two locations.

So Cara got cleaned up and laid down to rest while I headed out to see some sites in Olso. You can't fall asleep while you're walking around, right? Staying up and powering through is what most people have told us in the best route to overcoming jetlag. Just like changes in altitude do, the extreme timezone change was too much for Cara though. It's interesting how different people are affected differently.

I took the trail through the woods Kanutte recommended to the Mortensrud station where I planned to pick up the train to downtown. The 7-dagersbillett is apparently the way to go for our length of stay, but it can't be purchase at the machine. One must go to a kiosk. English, however, has altered kiosk to the point where it means the machine at which you buy things rather that the newspaper stand the Norwegians believe it to be. Also, the kiosk was in a mall next to the train station...so how do I tell which one's the kiosk? I ended up having to message Kanutte to figure it out. But figure it out I did, and then I was on my way downtown.

My goal for the day was to visit the Akershus Fastning, basically a 700 year old fortress that protected the harbor. The Norwegians are also pretty peeved about the Nazis taking it over during WWII and have built a whole museum to showcase their resistance. It's really hard to compare to an American fort. Whereas here you can follow a linear path of fort improvement from say the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine to Fort Pulaski defending Savannah, the length of the construction of Akershus means it's a jumble of different architectural styles and periods. It's interesting to imagine generation after generation living there, making improvements, and adding things. Parts of it you can imagine cavalry departing from gates to go off to the crusades. Other parts you can see where the train would have come in to deliver supplies to the cannons above. It was also well preserved, and like all good historical forts somewhat dangerous if you're not careful. And in a quaint European touch I got to witness the changing of the guard on what is still an operational military installation.

I walked around some more and got hungry, so I got a bratwurst and walked along the quay listening to the Germans wandering around off their cruise ship. I tried to find the ferries which my 7-dagersbillett also provides access to, but Google Maps is a dirty liar so it took me a while. By then I was tired so I decided tomorrow might be a better idea.

Not sure if I'm going to be able to keep up with these for the whole trip, but I'm going to try to record as much as I can.

Back at home, Cara is feeling much better so I'm going to try to convince her to go on a little walk with me...