Day 8: Flåm (Norway) to Oslo (also Norway)

I had a terrible sleep last night. I must have woken 5 or 6 times.

To be completely accurate, I probably woke 4 or 5 times, and the other time I was woken by what felt like a nasty kick from my sleeping partner. I was snoring, allegedly.

When we have to get up on time for something in the morning, I like to keep the curtains open so that we get some daylight when the sun comes up. But there was a street light outside our window, and I was getting confused because it was so bright in our room all night.

The other reason I kept waking was because I couldn’t regulate my temperature – I was alternatively hot and cold.

I don’t understand the whole European approach to bedding. At home we have a sheet and a blanket on our bed, or when the weather gets really, really cold (less than 20 degrees), we put on a doona.

But here in Europe, you get a bottom (fitted) sheet, and a doona. But no top sheet, which I find unusual because the room is heated, and so you really only want a top sheet and maybe a light blanket, but not a really warm doona over you.

So you either spend the night with no top cover, freezing, or you pull up the doona and sweat like a fat kid in a marathon … which is what happened to me last night.

And when your brain tells you that it’s -10 degrees outside, you feel obligated to pull up the doona to keep warm.

I don’t get it, but I’m wiling to accept that it’s probably user error.

BTW – and just for full transparency – I expect to get a little more mileage yet out of the Norwegian word for speed: fart. I can amuse myself with fart jokes all day 😀

For example, if you get a ticket in Norway for travelling too fast in your car, is that a farting ticket?

We stayed in Flåm last night.

It was very cold – I’m sure I’ve mentioned that already. By 8.00pm last night it was -3 degrees with a forecast low of -9.

I’m not complaining about the cold – I’m merely reporting on it for context.

A lot of things seemed to be closed here in Flåm, like the museum. We had got into Flåm early – about 2.00pm – and found that the museum was closed until April … and of course everybody says you have to visit the Flåm museum. Bummer.

By the time we had done a lap of the CBD and bought provisions for dinner and breakfast, we were back in our apartment by 4.30 and exploring options for TV for the evening.

A new episode of Reacher has been released since we left home, so we signed into Prime and got comfortable on the couch.

Sadly – for reasons we could not understand – Reacher was being streamed in a foreign language, and we really only wanted to watch it in English. In fact there is only one Norwegian word that I know confidently. Fart.

And I was not hopeful that “fart” will be worked into the storyline.

Anyhow, after much jiggery-pokery, MBW got it sorted out and Reacher was speaking English again.

The place where we are staying – the Flåm Station Apartments – are very comfortable, as they should be for $300/night. Not only that, but it has a washer/dryer in the bathroom so we were able to get some of our clothes washed.

Not dried though, because it turns out it was only a washer. So we needed to get a little creative with hanging wet stuff so that it dries overnight. C’est la vie.

It was Sam’s birthday today, so we gave him a video call to wish him a happy birthday, but also to speak with Teddy and Lili.

Today we did part 2 of the Norway in a Nutshell trip.

The first train was only about 100m from our apartment which was handy. The “feels like” temperature was reported as -11, so I decided to be a wimp and I resorted to wearing my thermals.

I was speaking to the guy from Mississippi standing on the platform before the train departed this morning, and he was saying that his wife saw “the lights” for about 10 minutes last night and she was pretty excited.

And then, in his slow, southern drawl, he went on to tell me that he missed it because he was “on the toilet …” Probably more than I needed to know, but good to know anyhow.

And if his wife saw the lights, then I’m hopeful that we might too when we get to Rovaniemi – up in the artic circle – in a few days.

Before we left Flåm station we gave Elias and Isabel a call too, to show them the snow and the train. We got to speak with all 4 of our FLP today, so our emotional tanks are full.

The first train – the Flåmsbana – is some kind of historical train and it was pretty basic. That trip from Flåm to Myrdal was very pretty and only took about an hour but climbed from 2m above sea level to almost 900m.

We jumped off at Myrdal and made the executive decision to upgrade our seats for the next leg to the “Komfort” class. Better seats, more legroom, power outlets, and free coffee.

And a 5 hour train trip needs free coffee. Not the best coffee I’ve ever had, but not the worst either.

It was a very pretty trip, with these cute little villages and picturesque houses with everything covered in snow. Some of these villages only have a handful of houses, so I have no idea how they manage to survive and stay connected to the rest of the world. Or eat fresh fruit and vegetables occasionally.

Sometimes the snow drifts are a couple of metres deep, which is hard for my tiny brain to process. How do they live like this?

Snow covered houses, frozen rivers and waterways … all very pretty. Although I’d imagine that the locals get sick of it pretty quickly.

Much of the trip on the VY train was quite slow and winding down the mountain, but every-so-often the driver put the pedal to the metal and got the train up to 100+km/h … which frankly just made everything more complicated … using the WC, walking down to the Cafe carriage without falling over, and especially carrying cups of that free coffee.

Unfortunately the train lurched violently at one point when I was mid step with 2 coffees, and I spilt some onto some poor guy’s table a couple of seats back.

He didn’t seem particularly concerned, but I felt bad …about losing half a cup of coffee. At least it’s free 😀

We bought a couple of hotdogs from the Cafe carriage for lunch. Not the reindeer ones like we had in Bergen, and in fact I suspect that they probably had no meat in them at all.

I love train trips, but I am a train guy after all. One day I’d like to take MBW on the Spirit of Queensland up to Cairns.

Everything we saw was so pretty and just screamed to be photographed.

But the reality is that you can only take so many photos of pretty, snow covered houses in pretty, snow covered villages. I’ve probably taken about 1000 already, so I should be able to pick a couple of good ones to keep.

With a couple of hours still to go before we arrive in Oslo, MBW got out her Kindle, and I put on my headphones to listen to some music while I get the blog out early for the first time this trip.

We arrived into Oslo at about 3.30pm, about 30 minutes behind schedule. Put all of our warm clothes back on, picked up our backpacks, and we headed back out into the cold to find our home for the next couple of nights – Citybox Oslo.

It’s not the most welcoming place, with no reception desk and just a touch screen for a “check yourself in” adventure.

I’m not getting a good feeling about the hotel … while I know that we booked a “small double” room, the reality is that use of the word “small” is a serious exaggeration. The room is tiny.

In fact, to move around our room, we need to keep moving our suitcases. It is a very budget affair because you don’t even get a drinking glass in your room.

We dropped off our stuff and went straight out for a walk around the city.

Oslo is a very dirty city with lots of beggars. The cars are filthy (I assume from spray from melting snow and salted roads). Sadly, it doesn’t feel very clean or welcoming like Bergen or Flåm.

We wandered over to the Opera house and did a lap of the city to get our bearings, and find something for dinner. A slice of pizza and a bagel with sandwich filling will be dinner for tonight, and we will go in search of coffee shortly.

That hotdog I had for lunch is playing havoc with my digestive system because I’ve been speeding all afternoon.

Tomorrow we have another walking tour, and hopefully we will get the gossip on where to get good hot food and coffee.

Just two nights here in Oslo, although to be frank I suspect that will be enough for us.

Ciao

#Europe2025