Rathus – City Hall, Oslo
The next morning I got my camera, packed and went outside to park the car in an area the receptionist recommended. Everything around the center of the city is extremely expensive and very strict, with parking cars being seen so often. I drove about 5 minutes away, close to Anker Hotel and I found the free parking on the street in a very quiet area. I walked back to the hotel and picked up everybody and went to eat to the same place where we ate dinner the night before, close to the hotel. The pizza/ bar places are way less expensive than the regular restaurants but the prices are in any case higher than US or Euro zone. I went to a 7Eleven that abounds in Norway and I purchased some bread rolls. They do accept any kind of currency but they cannot tell you at what exchange rate. It is kind of weird and it ended up costing $6 for 3 small rolls of bread!!! The breakfast was good and the cappuccino was great.
After breakfast I wanted to go and see how I can change money at the only open place the Forex bureau in the train station. This is a big rip off . I did not do the exchange because it was a long line but latter on I did it and the rate was so bad and he commission so high that for $50 I got about NK250 no matter that the official rate is 6.67….Walking back I started to look for an AC adapter. In New York costs around $1 and can be found relatively easily. Here it was a trip and when I found a specialized store it was NK299, about $50!!! They told me that it exists another version that is only NK99 and after several tries I found a store that had it and I bought it happily not without pointing out that is expensive. And the salesman confirmed: “Norway is a very expensive country”. It was the first time I heard the statement done by a local and I kept hearing after that on and on. I walked and shot video in Karl Johanes gate, the main pedestrian area in Oslo going all the way to the STOSSEL the royal palace and at 12 pm I was at the RatHuis to get to visit the place where the Nobel Foundation offers the Nobel Prize for Peace, awarded this year to President Obama. The halls are impressive, made out of material from Norway and completely painted with frescos done by Norwegian artists. Impressive is the large hall on the first floor where the ceremony is held. Across is a pavilion dedicated to the prize that now housed an exhibit with Obama and another about the South Africa.
Thor Heyerdhal Museum – Ra
From there after another very quick tour on the Aker Drygge we went to National Gallery that has a great collection of Norwegian artists, having in the middle a hall dedicated to Munch, that has also the “The Scream” plus many other interesting paintings. Jumping from one to another I went to get the car and after a short stop at the hotel to pick up the luggage we drove to Bygodf , a very close suburb of Oslo that has an amazing collection of museums. Short time, long list so we decided for the seafaric museums. So we visited the Vikings Museum, a museum that contains three Vikings ships and a number of carts and other artifacts found in Ostenxxx. The next museum visited in a hurry was the one about Kon Tiki and the expeditions of Thor Heyerdhal. This one it is a very inspiring for anybody who has a relative sense of adventure. Both Kon Tiki and Ra are in the museum. Right before we left we were able also to pick inside the museum that houses Fram the ship used by Nansen to go to the North Pole. It was already 6pm but this does not mean late in Norway because you have at least 5 good hours of light in front so we started to drive towards Bergen on very nice roads in a great mountain landscape through dense forests planning to stop on the way after about three hours. The road from Oslo to Bergen takes about 6 hours and we split it is two at Gol, a summer and winter resort, where we were able to get a room at a Best Western Hotel for the promotional price of NK1200. Food is an issue if you want to eat latter. Because of the driving many times we were forced to eat around 9-10 pm and almost everything is closed. But luckily we found some Turks with a Pizza/pasta place open. We noticed latter on that not only they have the lower cost food in a country where restaurants are prohibitively expensive for the regular guy but also these immigrants are the only guys open till 10-11 pm.
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