Norway

With my legs still feeling like jelly, I boarded a red-eye flight to Oslo (because, what could be better for sore legs than not sleeping and being cramped in an airplane seat?). The flight was only 2 hours long, but because of the time difference, we arrived in Norway in the wee hours of the morning.

We attempted to take a train into the city, but ended up getting on the wrong way after asking a local guy. He felt so bad and kept apologizing to us since the mistake ended up adding an hour or so to our trip. We didn't mind too much since we couldn't check into our hotel anyway, and the trains in Norway are super comfortable, so we were able to squeeze in a quick nap. A very tired me explains all of this in video form here:

After napping on both the train and in our hotel's lobby, we bought tickets for the Hop On Hop Off bus.

We were clearly more excited than anyone else (or perhaps just slap happy from sleep-deprivation).

Our first stop was the Viking Ship Museum. I had been to a Viking ship museum in Copenhagen before, but the ships in Oslo's museum were way bigger! I was amazed by their size and detail.

We walked around Oslo, rode the tour bus around (where I snapped the below pictures), and napped it up in our oh-so-IKEA hotel room. I also stopped at a local burrito place (kind of like a Norwegian Chipotle) where the guy working there was an American from Miami. Again, I had visions dance in my head of moving to Scandinavia and working there. Unfortunately, the line was too long for me to fully inquire how he was able to work in Europe as an American (especially since, he admitted to speaking no Norwegian), so instead, I just imagined myself living in Norway while wolfing down my guacamole.

At night, we headed out to see more of the city. First, we grabbed a coffee at a cute little outdoor restaurant that epitomizes everything I think of when I think outdoor, European cafe. It was filled with flowers and made people-watching quite easy.

Can you tell I was tired?

Some of the buildings we saw:

The Nobel Peace Center.

City Hall.

I'm pretty sure I took this picture so we could remember how to get back to our hotel, but I think it's kind of pretty.

I had heard so much about the unique architecture of the Oslo Opera House, so we headed there as well. Unfortunately, the pictures I took at night didn't really do it justice, but I did get a shot from the Opera House of the building across the street.

We also saw some street performers, including this guy:

We didn't go out to dinner because we were so tired. Instead, we just bought way too expensive things at 7-11 (I believe I paid $9 for a bag of popcorn and an orange juice) and called it a night.