Stefan…

IT’S DONE! Finally I’ve been to Oslo, although 10 years later than originally intended!

It has been about 12 hours of driving, doing a little bit more than 1000 km and spending way too much money for just two days, but it has been worth the effort!

Markus, Uli and I arrived in Oslo on Friday night just in time to check in the Anker Hostel after I picked them up in Göteborg where they had spend two days. On Saturday it was again the good old schedule for the classical one-weekend-one-city program: 1st get a map, 2nd find the tourist info, 3rd get going! Yes, you noticed correctly, in this schedule the breakfast is missing we had to speed up because of the short time with sunlight in this time of the year – there are things you can do while moving! And yes – we’ve been busy in Oslo! We’ve been to: Karl Johans gate and the complete downtown area with Universitetet i Oslo, Nationaltheatret, Stortinget … – Slottet – Aker Brygge – Rådhuset – Munchmuseet – Akerhus slott og festning. In the evening we’ve spend some time at Akerhus festning to watch the sunset.

Later we checked out Grüner Løkka and ended up in a Britsh Pub right in Karl Johans gate with great music and audience But the Norwegian prices are incredible high, especially regarding alcohol… 70 NOK (that’s ca. 8,50 €) for a pint of Strongbow! And just like in Stockholm there seems to be an “interesting” dress code for the weekends… there have been at least three girls dressed up as Playboy bunnies on the tram from Grüner Løkka to Nationaltheatret
On Sunday morning we went on a sightseeing bus tour (we tried on Saturday, too, but November seems to be a little off-season…). The tour lead us to all the other parts of Oslo and the museums we had planed to visit! Perfect timing! We went to see Frogner Parken, the nice quarters right outside the downtown area, Holmenkollen and the surrounding quarters with an unbelievable view to the Oslofjorden and Oslo itself and stopped by at the Vikingskipshuset, the Kon-Tiki museet and the Frammuseet. And guess what: At the end of the tour it was nearly dark outside!

And as a last hint – there is a tourist information booklet called “Streetwise – your budgetguide to Oslo”…

… no this is not just the German way of saying “So long, and thanks for all the fish” but the reaction of my German corridormate Markus after the first pieces of “Bratwurst” today (you can’t just simply translate this to fried sausages! Just ask Markus and he’ll explain the differences to you!). Sorry Markus, but I told you this sentence will be part of my next post.

So today we’ve been to Lidl! Tina mentioned in her blog that finally Lidl opend in Linköping so we went the hole way once around the town to “go shopping”. It was both a nice experience to be able to read and understand everything written on the things you’d like to buy and very confusing at the same time because you realize they are labled in German… but never the less: It’s cheep!

And then there was the Bratwurst incident. Suddenly in Lidl Markus was smiling all over his face holding a package of sausages in his hands and explaining to us that they are “from Germany”. Gladly he was able to resist and waited to rip the package open until we arrived at home and were in the kitchen. Five minutes later he was already having his first real Bratwurst since he went to Sweden and it was obvious that he was very happy with the situation: “Fish is good, but Bratwurst is better!”

The trip with the ferry from Travemünde to Malmö was a good choice – this way the trip was divided into two parts and I was able to arrive at Linköping without being too exhausted. I got the keys for my room and was able to say “Hello!” to my corridor-mate Markus (Uni Kassel). There are no signs of the remaining six corridor-mates as the semester for the rest of the students begins in about three weeks as there will be only the intensive swedish course at the moment.
The ESN staff is great and we were able to enjoy a BBQ at our first evening in Sweden and get to know the other Erasmus students.