Oslo

Huge thumbs up to my stop over in Copenhagen!! Clean, modern, available seating and eating areas and the most surprisingly a huge duty free shopping center!! Tres cool! I may have bought what was described by the assistant as a traditional Danish dress.. hmmm :) Watch casual Friday I'm coming in!!!

On the left as I flew out of Denmark, Oslo bound, and on the right a fabulous coat in the duty free shopping area!!

I had a bad feeling at check in. My luggage tags didn't have OSL as I would have expected for Oslo but instead TRP. I asked at check in if there was more than one airport in Oslo and was assured there wasn't. I still didn't feel quite right prior to boarding when I saw I was flying on a tiny prop plane to the country's capital (only 11 rows!!) but alas my ticket from a major airline, said Copenhagen - Oslo so I had a vague sense that everything was going to be OK. As we descended into landing my fears quickly rose as I saw no immediate harbour, city and only a meagre regional airport and my heart rate increased rapidly. Upon landing, with no information desk I found transport to Oslo with a bus transporting passengers to the train station so I felt better. I was still confused when arriving at the train station with NO other passengers to see the station, no ticket machine, no shelter from the snow and cold and definitely not what I had expected! Seeing the humour in the situation - that I had arrived at the low cost airport and as I discovered later now one of Oslo's three airports and in total isolation I soaked up the wintry peace and quiet and waited for the train ... Brr..



















OSLO
Once again I found myself with a day layover in a new city so tourist central it was! After some of the most wonderful hospitality and amazing cooking from a couple who are friends of my parents I headed to Akker Brygger down by the harbour. It was gorgeous with the ice freezing right alongside the docks, seagulls swooping past and sunshine. Even though I spend my entire life in winter and are usually super prepared (just ask the boys at work who tease me for wearing so many winter accessories!!) I sometimes drop the ball. When in the mountains I prepare for the cold but when I head into a city one can be falsely lead to believe that it will be warmer than in the mountain especially since it's sunny. WRONG. I was shockingly caught out cruising around Oslo in negative something silly (-12 at least) without gloves or a hat. Silly silly KT!

One of the highlights of the day was visiting the Nobel Peace Prize Museum. Did you know that Norway awards the Peace Prize and Sweden awards the other four prizes? I had no idea. It is also interesting to realise that the Nobel, the man responsible for the endowment creating these prizes including Peace, was also the inventor of dynamite. The irony.