Norway

It's been 11 years since my first trip to Europe that ended in Norway. My original intent was to have nearly half of THIS trip focus on Norway, but the US dollar had other suggestions. After finding out that an economy car rents for $150/day here with $10-12/gallon in fuel, I very quickly had a change in heart. Oslo is where I have based out of the last two days and it is prohibitively expensive. Even a cheap McDonald's meal comes out to $10-15. everything goes up steeply from there.

The coolest stop here was stopping in at the Viking ship museum.



They have three Viking ships on display that were uncovered and date back to the Vikings in 800 and 900 AD. They are very remarkably intact too. I rode the Oslo subway/train car up the mountain to the newly built ski jump complex. Ski jumping is HUGE here, as are just about any alpine sports. The jump was just finished last year in time for the 2011 World Championships. I got to ride to the top right where the athletes start their lunge down the slope. There were amazing views up there as well of Oslo and Oslofjord (the harbor).



I came upon the Oslo Cathedral last night and had momentarily forgotten about the tragic bombing from 3 weeks ago that occurred here. There were thousands of flowers on the cathedral grounds as a quick reminder and still plenty of tourists and Norwegians stopping by in the rain to pay their respects.

I have a 6 hour train ride booked foe tomorrow morning to Sweden. I'm looking forward to the uninterrupted, no transfer trip.