Day 10: Train ride and arrival in Oslo

We woke up really early this morning, at least in comparison with wakeup times this past week, and walked through a rainy Stockholm to arrive at the train station at 7:30. We validated our Rail Europe passes (this particular pass is valid for 4 days of travel within 2 months in Sweden and Norway) and confirmed the departure time with the service agent at the SJ (Swedish Rail Agency), then grabbed two American sized coffees while we waited for our train. Everything went exactly according to plan and we got two comfortable seats, which were clean, had fold-down trays, and two power outlets. Traveling by train in Europe is pretty awesome.

On the train, we mainly read our Kindles to pass the time. For anyone interested, we are both reading the Game of Thrones series – Daryl is on Book 1 and I am on Book 2. We also wrote some postcards and did some blogging. I also took a fun and somewhat scary photo of Old Spice (my new nickname for Daryl...maybe I will elaborate in a future blogpost) while playing with my camera settings. The 6-hour trip passed fairly quickly.

We pulled into Oslo around 14:30 and the weather was overcast and chilly. We proceeded into the train station thinking we had done pretty well so far, only to be completely inefficient in the train station. We wanted to take out NOK (Norwegian Kroner), get something to eat, get a locker for our bags, and reserve tickets for our trip to the fjord land tomorrow, but we couldn’t decide which order to complete these tasks. We walked one way, then the other. We looked at some lunch options, but decided they were too expensive. We reserved our train tickets, then decided we were too hungry not to eat and forked over $18 for a single sandwich and water (if you think that is expensive, just wait). We stashed our bags in a locker and proceeded out into downtown Oslo, but not before seeing a new mailbox (for you Flynn).

Hmm…first impressions were not positive, not at all. We had heard that the area around the train station was kind of rundown and full of homeless people, but it was still shocking and disheartening to see upon arrival. We struck out in a random direction and started to try to see the positives. Luckily for us, the buildings and scenery slowly started to improve as we moved away from the station. Unluckily for us, the weather quickly started to worsen, and soon we were walking in a veritable rainstorm. We had a single umbrella, but started to get pretty wet. With spirits sinking ever lower we decided to find a pub and duck in for a pint.

We found a solid looking place and sat down to dry off. Daryl went up to the bar to order a couple beers. While the portions were generous (0.6L each), the price was outrageous. The cost of two beers was 178 NOK, which translates into $33!!!!!!! HOLY MOLY. We did the math quickly in our heads and were shocked...what were we drinking, liquid gold? We decided that the deal was done and to just enjoy our beers (see picture below). We will not be in Scandinavia for long and the prices will get much better once we hit Central Europe (Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary). Until then, we will just have to “enjoy responsibly”.

After the beer (sadly, and understandably, we had no money left for dinner), we headed back to the station, grabbed our bags, and took a tram to our hostel, which is 10 minutes outside of central Oslo. The hostel is very nice…I feel that my faith in such institutions has been fully restored after the negative experience in Uppsala. Currently, Daryl is fixing dinner while I write in the communal kitchen. After dinner, we are going to try to get to bed early as our train leaves at 8:10 tomorrow morning to Flam, Norway.

Farvel (goodbye in Norwegian)!