HiBAiSHi

Oslo in the wintertime: where everybody can fall asleep and nobody stares at the window from their beds; where at 3 pm the sun is down and sea birds and crows all disappear; the streets are (not so) strangely quiet because everyone is smart enough to stay inside, while I am the only one on holiday. I know, clever huh? By the way, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? is a great album.

Unfortunately I didn’t really think about this too much when my Canadian hombre Joey and I set out at three in the morning on our last day of classes, as we had to be in Stansted for a 6:30 am flight just to conserve daylight. Despite being one of the most expensive cities in the world, with a GDP per capita through the roof, Oslo is really just an ugly city. Maybe it’s just the harsh, harsh Norwegian winters. Maybe it’s the disgusting statues everywhere.

After a great dinner at the only place that didn’t charge about 250 NOK for a meal, we set out to explore the town only to find it very quiet and empty. Granted, it was below freezing outside, but these Norwegians should be used to it. We wandered into a bar that advertised karaoke and figured there was nothing wrong with watching Scandinavians try hopelessly to sing awful songs from the 1970s. However, after some deep thinking – the oddly high number of guys, the two affectionate males handling the karaoke machine, and the black guy in the cowboy hat (really, in Oslo?) at the bar made us think that we had accidentally wandered into uncharted territory. After all, Let’s Go tends to advertise a very specific type of nightlife.

Norwegian art is a tricky, ugly thing as we went to the statue garden the next morning and could only think of dirty dead baby jokes and couldn’t figure out why naked males body-slamming little girls was appealing in any way. We walked around and went to the other side of the city while Joey educated me about this Norwegian who so desperately wanted to prove that South Americans populated the islands in the South Pacific that he decided to set out on a small raft just to prove his theory. Well, he succeeded. And he now has a museum. Norwegian art and accomplishments, in a nutshell.

After a night bus we arrived at Stockholm and stayed at one of their fine “Boatels,” basically a hotel on a boat. Which sounds cool, until you realize the bastards were too cheap to spare warm water (the warm water taps in the sink were twisted off completely) and the shower would keep going cold. Which would be fine, except it was about -5 degrees outside. But Stockholm is beautiful, and we watched as hordes and hordes of little kids (on a field trip, maybe?) swarmed the middle island and fought to see who could win the giant candy bars that they were giving away.

Things you learn about Stockholm: in the bathroom at McDonald’s, you can fine more beautiful blonde women than you could find in PiPhi (ah, if only I was a foot taller); if you try to go out on Monday night, everything will be closed (sad but true, their Monday is our Sunday); if you’re planning to walk the streets, wear warm clothing; finally, no matter where you go you can always find classy, ultramodern furniture. All in all, this was probably the best time I’ve ever had in Scandinavia.