Etappe 4- Oslo

[Editor's note: The following post is written by photographer Chris and describes the experiences from the Norwegian border again from his perspective. This happens completely unintentionally, but may serve as a help for some readers to get back into the travel flow.]

After a long debate and comparing all available weather reports, we finally decide not to stay in Strömstad, but to drive directly to Oslo. It's already getting dark when we approach the border. There is a traffic jam because all cars have to be processed individually due to the pandemic. While we're stuck in 'stop & go' mode, Steffi takes the time to make delicious cheese and tomato sandwiches with basil & Swedish bread and cut apples.
Just as she finishes and has the plates in her hands, the voice of the border guard comes from the left: 'Sorry, if I am interrupting dinner. Can I see your CoVid Vaccination certificates? And if I can also see some ID - I am happy.' Done, no problems with the German CovPass. We reply 'Happy is good' - a tired smile. 'Where are you going?'. Truthfully, we answer 'First Oslo, then we are not sure' and throw the ball back 'Where would you recommend to go?' After a short hesitation and a surprised look, he says 'Go to the west coast and then head north'...

But first we arrive in dark Oslo, passing by promenades and the harbor as well as some 'Toll Road' signs, where we wonder why there are no familiar Italian toll booths (with the tinny voice saying 'Ticket pleaaaaseee', which can only be silenced with a few coins). Worried that we might have forgotten a Swiss vignette, we ask Google, which fortunately also helps abroad - the license plate seems to be recognized by cameras on toll sections and afterwards you receive an invoice for the toll fee by mail. For foreign cars, this seems to be handled by a Swedish company. Crazy...

Finally, we arrive at the Bogstad campground around 10:45 pm, the reception is open for another 15 minutes. We get a site with electricity and fall into bed...

The next morning we sleep in first (probably until 10:00 am!?) and have breakfast. I have a lot of things I still want to do on the car, Steffi prefers to enjoy the 'leisure time' brought along in the sun...

We unload the bicycles and ride downhill (and it's a long way down...) through the forest and suburban areas, past the US Embassy towards Oslo Sentrum. It's supposed to take about 30 minutes in total, but this is extended by parks and other sights. Here we see a monolith ('Monolitten') that initially seems very strange to me. There are all kinds of stone human bodies climbing up along it, at the top there are children. Overall, it looks like a figure from a work of art (if I dare to judge), which represents hell from the perspective of ancient Christianity. But on closer inspection, there are many individual stone statues around the artwork, apparently depicting human relationships and emotions. In short - it's Steffi's new favorite monument!

We continue past small boutiques and cafes in the beautiful (apparently diplomatic district) Uranienburg to 'det kongelige Slott'. Sounds funny, but it's the royal palace of the Norwegian royals. Overall, they seem to be much less humorless than their British relatives, because here the palace guards are not lifeless and the entire green area of this small, but handsome palace is accessible to the public as a park. The Norwegians are just exemplary, apparently it is also lived that way from the top down...
We then continue along the most expensive street in the most expensive city in the world (probably before Tokyo) in already very expensive Norway, the Karl Johans Gate, to experience the magnificent buildings there.

Finding a parking space for the bicycles is not that easy at first. In a country where every other car feels 'electric' (every other one of those being a 'Tesla'), people apparently only ride racing bikes as a sport and not so often in the city. Unfortunately, many e-scooters are used there, which makes walking in the city center partly exciting. However, there seems to be a nighttime ban on scooters...
Anyway, there are hardly any bike parking facilities in the city center, but eventually we find a battered bike stand and leave them there. The immediate city center of Oslo (until 1924 also called 'Christiania') is small and nice, but with few really impressive or old buildings. It is not until you reach the harbor that the city reveals its charm with its promenades, museums, libraries, artworks, and cultural sites.

But before we go there, we first strengthen ourselves at 'Oslo Street Food', a food market where we treat ourselves to Asian and Italian dishes. Then we pick up the bikes from their battered bike stand again and head to the harbor.
Here we see the breathtaking opera house from the outside, which rises like a rock from the fjord. The building alone justifies the visit to Oslo...! Interestingly, you can walk on the slanted facade all the way up to the roof, and currently there is also a temporary diving tower by Red Bull, which is probably 15 meters high, because the cliff divers will be jumping from the opera house the next day.
We plan to watch this and also admire the Deichman Library and the Munch Museum from the outside. In addition, there are apparently several small houseboats moored at the beach promenade, including sauna and bathing boats. It seems to be common for young people to regularly jump into the harbor basin from the boats and swim there.
We want to enjoy this a bit more and sit down in a harbor bar (a 'culture bar' as it turned out...). Just as we try to order a drink (prices are around 10-15 euros per drink), 5 meters away from us in the bar, psychedelic sounds start playing as a duo begins to perform. One of them apparently randomly plays with the buttons of the sound mixer to create distorted electronic sounds, while the other blankly recites a kind of Norwegian poetry slam. It's interesting and funny at first, but after 15 minutes it becomes too much for me at full volume. Since ordering drinks with an app from the menu is cumbersome (apparently introduced in Oslo during the lockdown for further contact restrictions and has since been maintained in many areas of the gastronomy industry), we still haven't ordered any drinks, so we decide to move on.

By chance, we end up in the old city fortress 'Akershus Festning', where we finally get a wine on a terrace with a fabulous view of the harbor and the city hall.

We shorten the way back to our elevated campsite a bit due to the steep ascent and take the bus with our bicycles. While waiting for the bus, we stand across from an old building of the Norwegian branch of the Freemasons. We are not surprised when about 15 old, white men come out of the building one after the other with suitcases. What was going on inside remains their secret...

The next day we decide to get up earlier and get going around 9:00 am. We spontaneously decide to extend our stay in Oslo for one more night and plan our second day in Oslo.

First, we ride our bikes to a small cafe in Uranienburg that Steffi saw while cycling the day before and has been drawn to ever since... There we have delicious walnut rolls the size of a craftsman's fist and delicious strawberry jam for breakfast. On top of that, cinnamon buns and pudding pastries - yummy...!

Well nourished, we ride to the 'Museum Island' Bygdøy (basically a peninsula) because we want to visit the 'Fråm' museum. If you're not familiar with it, you can read about it. It is the most famous sailing ship of Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen. It was, among other things, the ship of the expedition during which Amundsen reached the South Pole as the first human being. It was also frozen to an ice floe by Nansen in the hope of reaching the North Pole and carried out a 'drift' with it (analogous to the just finished Mosaic expedition of the 'Polarstern').
In this exhibition, the original 'Fråm' boat and the also original sailboat 'Gjøa' (with which Amundsen became the first human to conquer the Northwest Passage) are on display. Here, life and adventures on deck and in the ice during these months and years-long expeditions are brought closer to the viewer with many pictures, texts, and exhibits. It was interesting to read about the people and animals (dogs are the key to success!) of such expeditions and above all overwhelming to see with what courage and trust these people lived. We end the museum visit with a walk on the Fråm and the purchase of two books about Amundsen and realize that we have completely lost track of time. Meanwhile, the cliff diving is almost over and unfortunately on the other side of the bay. Initially disappointed, we decide to visit another museum, the 'Kon Tiki'. This is also a maritime museum, where it is shown how Thor Heyerdahl sailed from Lima to Polynesia on a wooden raft with 5 other men (4 of them without sailing experience) in 1947. He wanted to support his theory that Polynesia was settled from the east of South America by the Incas (hence the simple raft) and not from the west as originally believed. As if that weren't exciting enough, it should be added that Heyerdahl himself apparently had a fear of water and could hardly swim, and 4 of his 5 crew members had no sailing experience at all...
This much smaller museum (again with the original raft) is extremely impressive and entertaining!

Overwhelmed with impressions and information, we take the ferry back to the harbor and ride again to Oslo Street Food - we saw so many delicious things there the day before that we couldn't order all at once. There are various Asian dishes and desserts again.

Afterwards, we go to a special district of Oslo, which surprisingly is called 'Vulkan'. This is a modern, creative district that is also supposed to be mostly energy self-sufficient due to several geothermal sources at a depth of 300 meters. There we drink the unfortunately worst Moscow Mule at the proud price of 14 euros to end the day. We take the bus with our bicycles today as well, but now the chandeliers in the Freemason temple have already been extinguished...

On Sunday morning, we start getting everything ready at 8:30 am. Despite the queue at the campsite disposal station, we still have to perform 2 washing cycles according to Dr. Keddo's special recipe, fill the fresh water tank, empty the gray water and the toilet. In addition, the bikes had to be recharged (no, not e-bikes!), which had been worrying me for a day. I think of the laborious charging at home with Nils & Nico, but surprisingly, it goes smoothly and quickly using a photo from my phone showing the starting state!

When everything is neatly done 15 minutes before checkout and only a warm shower is missing, a small Belgian with a mustache from across the way comes up to me and says in perfect German: 'Du, dass das Abblendlicht links nicht geht, weisste aber, ne?' (Hey, you know that the left headlight doesn't work, right?). I don't know. Damn it. And on a Sunday.
We realize that we can't continue driving without a headlight. It also doesn't seem like a good idea to set off like this (with many tunnels and questionable access to workshops and automotive markets in rural Norway). I know that changing bulbs from the engine compartment is not always trivial. So there are two options left: firstly, to find a workshop to do the replacement, or secondly, to replace the bulb ourselves (whose type I have now identified). Both options cannot be implemented on a Sunday, so we reluctantly have to spend another night in Oslo to look for a solution fresh on Monday.
After all the preparation and research, it is already early afternoon, but we decide that it is still breakfast time. After all, it's Sunday AND we're on vacation.

So we drive to Steffi's new favorite cafe again and this time get bread, jam, and pastries to take away. And now we enjoy the advantages of camper life: we drive with the cinnamon bun right up to the park next to the Monolith, take breakfast and cutlery with us from the bus, and sit down for a picnic on a blanket. Absolutely beautiful and delicious again! I lie down and fall asleep in the sun. When Steffi wakes me up after an hour, it starts to rain slowly (the weather changes in Norway from bright sunshine to rain within minutes). We take refuge in the bus, sleep a little longer, and then drive back to our well-known campsite. It honestly starts to feel a bit like home...
Steffi spontaneously decides to test her new neoprene wetsuit and swims in the mountain lake nearby. I stand guard like a lifeguard at the Neukölln outdoor pool. The water temperature is estimated by the only other swimmer present to be about 17°C and he is very satisfied with that. However, Steffi is not satisfied with the visibility underwater, which is surely due to her medieval swimming goggles. Refreshed and proud, we walk back to the campsite.

Steffi takes a shower and I go for a run for half an hour. As a reward and to prepare for the upcoming repairs the next day, we have lentil soup and buttered bread! Then we fall happily into bed and browse through the Norway travel guide before falling asleep.