We’ve got two full days in Oslo to explore to our hearts’ content. Armed with our Oslo Passes, we have free rein of the public transit and free entrance to many exhibits and attractions. I discovered that it would also get us via bus to the fancy spa, as it was just on the outskirts of the free zone. The person who recommended the spa to us assured us that you could go in with your swimsuit. Oddly specific, but I’ll take it.
But first – we explore Oslo. I thought this was mildly unremarkable on Tuesday, but as we were pulling into port, from our room I spied a US Coast Guard ship being pulled by a tugboat (pictured below because Rhett didn’t believe me). I was moderately perplexed but figured “idk NATO???” and didn’t give it much more thought than that.
On Tuesday night, Oslo was pretty devoid of cars. I figured it was just successful European de-carring of a downtown area (yay for the road Norway built under the city) combined with the fact that Oslo is not that populous (about 1m people, including the burbs) and enjoyed jaywalking to my heart’s content.
We ended up meeting a friend for dinner on Wednesday, and we learned that was most certainly not the case. A huge aircraft carrier and several American warships were in the area, preparing to embark on joint naval exercises in the Arctic circle (for funsies clearly) with Norway. This makes Russia grouchy because Clearly There Is No Reason For This Behavior and it has been spewing some grouchy rhetoric. It does border Norway and contrary to propaganda at home, the rest of the world is not always keen on us being the World Freedom Police, so security is extra tight.
So thanks my tax dollars I guess, because I’m sure they subsidized the security measures which were probably quite inconvenient to everyone else, but allowed us to walk everywhere without getting run over by just one of the many sneaky EVs roaming about.
All that aside, the public transit was mostly up and running for our entire trip (except for the one time our tram was shut down due to the event at city hall). Our first stop: the Folk Museum, an open-air museum that has lots of old Norwegian farmhouses from the 1600s onwards, demonstrations, and guided tours by hosts in local costume. It was started by King Oscar II in the late 1800s, when national romanticism began to grow and Norway began to agitate for its divorce from Sweden.
Norway is Just Trees, and importing stone was extremely expensive, so all of the old houses are made of wood and have really delightful sod roofs. The roof was changed every 30 years, so when the farm was inherited, the right of passage was replacing your sod roof.
Everyone lived in a tiny one-bedroom house, which was definitely especially pleasant in the winters, when there was almost no light outside and you were snowed in and probably stinky. If you really wanted to flex on your neighbors, by the 1700s, you’d have windows on your farm house (and a proper fireplace and chimney).
The folk museum has an old stave church, built in the 1200s, and moved to the folk museum in the late 1800s. Inside, our guide showed us the graffiti from the 1200s. Most of the graffiti was about prayers or faith, but one said vagina (as you do).
Oh yeah, and they had farm animals!
We were looking forward to the Viking Ship museum (located behind the Folk Museum), but it’s closed until at least 2025 for reconstruction 🙁
After lunch, we wandered to the Fram museum, dedicated to the exploration of the arctic and the antarctic and the search for the northwest passage. The ships Fram and Gjøa are both preserved inside the museum, restored and held up for tourists to crawl all over them.
The museum contains movies, diaries, and a lot of exhibits about surviving (and not) in the harsh arctic conditions. The Fram was designed ten years after they had figured out theories of ice floes, and had been designed to be lodged in the ice and float on it for years on end. Over winters and not, the crew spent a lot of time clearing ice buildup off of it and making sure it wouldn’t get crushed, in between doing Science and punching each other. It also had a collapsible windmill that was used to generate electricity.
In fact, at one point, for a few years, the lead scientist and explorer, Dr Nanson, left the ship with one other crew member, in search of the north pole. The crew was mostly happy to see him go as he had become an ass.
Crawling onto the boats gives you a sense for how packed in the crew was, and how much room they all had to share all winter long. Definitely very claustrophobic and probably stinky.
We took a boat back to the city center and met up with a wonderful friend for dinner (this was when we learned about the traffic restrictions).
We told our friend we were also thinking about going to The Well Spa, which has all kinds of hot tubs and hot springs. She joked about checking to make sure it wasn’t nudie night before we went. Ha ha. Nudie night. Imagine that. Iceland had been pretty insistent about wearing your swimsuit in spas and pools and surely every Nordic country was the same, right? Yes. That’s gotta be right.
Our Thursday was mostly plan-less and slower, so we made our way to the sculpture garden (also at our friend’s recommendation). The sculpture garden is an entire installation of works from Vigeland, one of Norway’s most prominent sculptors and the designer of the Nobel peace prize. His sculptures are mainly studies of the human form and are designed to depict everyday life.
The sculpture park is the most famous for the angry boy, but I would like to submit that the guy drop-kicking babies is the best statue in the whole park and possibly even the world.
Lunch was Yet Another Food Court, Oslo street food. I will eat at these things forever. Our friend spoke highly of it and also said it can get really crowded. We went at a bit of an off time and really enjoyed our meals of noodles and korean food. When in Norway…eat asian food.
And then we revisited city hall – which we had been told was closed for a while due to an event. I checked on their website and it seems they’re open a few days with an odd schedule. We got in after all! But only the one floor was available to visit due to whatever event was going on (overhead people saying it was “some EU meeting” but I couldn’t figure it out, as all the English language news is about the warship). The murals inside are incredible. I wish we had been able to go upstairs.
We detoured to the church on our way home just to check out the interior. Rhett pointed out that it was sponsored by Microsoft, because the ceiling said “Excel is god.”
After a siesta at home, Rhett’s mom and I decided we wanted to check out The Well spa because what are the chances it’s nakie night? It’s not too bad for the cost – 490 kroner/49 bucks gets you in from 5-10 pm. Just before we booked, I remembered our friend’s warning – better check and make sure it’s not tits out thursday or something like that. I scrolled through the website.
And I kept seeing a smiling, naked dude enjoying the spa’s various activities on their marketing pages.
I mean that was great marketing clearly, but why was he everywhere and naked always? And then I found their schedule of events – “Swimsuit Tuesday.” Why just Tuesday?
So I thought “let’s check the reviews.” And….most of the reviews mention you use the spa naked.
My prudish American sensibilities are intimidated so we tabled this excursion. We decided to enjoy a leisurely night in with some nearby Indian take-out and we called it a night.
Lastly, a small note on the expenses of being in Norway: certainly it is more expensive than most places I have been and usually go, but I was really expecting it to put Iceland to shame, the way people talked about it. And if you were here five or even ten years ago, that definitely would have been the case (looking at the exchange rate, it seems like it was between 5 and 7 kroner to the dollar-ouch). But today it’s just about 11 kroner to the dollar, which makes it Not As Bad as Iceland. So I guess – pleasant surprise?
Dinner out for five at a decent restaurant – 1300 KR (about the same as home, maybe a little high)
Entry to the nudie spa – 490 KR for an evening pass
Lunch for me and Rhett at the street food court – 360 KR (a little high)
A bottle of Coke Zero – 20 KR (on par for an island country)
Lattes and bubble teas – 60 KR each (about the same as home)
Convenience store sandwich – 30 KR (about the same as home)
Tomorrow is a transit day, as we are heading to our home in the fjords for the weekend.