oslo, norge

I use the MapLoco widget to keep track of the places where views come in. Lately, they've been all over the world! Today I happened to go check where people were viewing from and the one at the top was from Oslo, Norway (or Norge in Norwegian). It brought all the memories of being there back, and I couldn't help but stop and just reminisce. I unfortunately only had a little tiny bit of time there, but I would love to go back, so badly. Being there in winter, I loved the cold. It was just all around, always seeing your breath in the air, the frigidness just wrapping around you as soon as you walk out the door. It was relentless; awesome. I've seen some videos of base jumping in Norway, and given that Oslo is pretty far south as far as the country is concerned, I'd love to go and visit the north -- where the mountains come into play, where the northern lights shine, and just more of everything. For those of you who live there, consider yourselves lucky to have such a beautiful country (albeit having Monopoly money... haha). Figured I'd just take a moment to visualize for you guys the time I had there. Enjoy. (Read more for pictures and captions)

Barcelona: Day 114 : Last Call .

We were up early today to get out to Gardermoen Airport outside of Oslo. As per usual, it wasn't really light outside the entire time... By the time we got in the air above the clouds though, the sun was gorgeous. Oslo was awesome -- I'm going to miss it. However, I think both Kendall and I agreed that two days was a good amount of time. We saw a lot -- and the point was really to see a lot of different architecture. It was interesting because this is not the general tourist things that people do... but more of our own little architectural excursion. We got to travel off the beaten path, and go through the sort of normal daily routine of a Norwegian.

Barcelona: Day 113 : Oslo has a sun .

Today we decided to get up even earlier. After realizing yesterday that Oslo's hours of daylight availability are few and far between, there was no reason to wait. We were up and out of bed at 6am, and out the door at 730. We had compiled a pretty large list of things to go see, and had written down the transportation and whatever else we needed (map locations, landmarks, etc) in order to find these things. And so, while it was still dark outside, the hunt began.

Barcelona: Day 112 : A Dark Wet Beginning .

So the first wake up call of this trip was that when we woke up it was still dark outside. And not just at 6am... but all the way until 9am. We didn't see the sun all day. The sun rises at 9am, and sets at 3pm. Yes, 3pm. Do Norwegians even know what the sun is? Probably not. The lightest it got all day was maybe 25% of normal sunlight at best. It was amazing that this was the case. Regardless, we were up and out of bed at 7am, ready to conquer Oslo to the best of our ability. Breakfast was delish.

Barcelona: Day 110 : Oslo-bound .

So we're leaving for Oslo tomorrow! I've kept my eye on the weather and despite some predicted blizzard weather for 2 of the days we'll be there, it seems to have lightened up a good bit and we'll be in luck. The place where Kendall and I are staying happens to have a webcam. You know what? They already have snow on the ground. I could not be more stoked. I feel like it's been ages since I've seen snow -- I'm such a winter junkie.