Road to Oslo

We just went to Oslo, Norway, to get my passport renewed. The last 3 days have been absolutely action packed. I am currently on a 6 and a half hour train journey home, so I think now is probably the most appropriate time to catch you all up on current goings on.

We got up at 6:30am on Thursday the 21st of Feb 2013 (to be specific) to get our train, and we left Oslo at 16:00 on Saturday the 23 of Feb 2013 (to be the exact same level of specific), so pretty much everything in this blog is going to be between those times. I'll do my best to keep it as accurate as possible.

We basically packed up the night before our trip began and made some food for the road so that we could just get up and roll out on the departure day. Editors Note: Danger Zone by Kenny Logins just came on Spotify, that song is so cool, but not for blogging! I feel like I should fly a jet, not write a blog. Yeah, so we packed up and Emz decided she needed a fully packed suitcase for these 3 days, and I just grabbed a backpack and a small case to carry my shit. The backpack was FULL of food. We were prepared for a month on that train. Well, maybe 2 days more so than a month, but it was still a lot of food for a 6 and a half hour trip.

We left bright and early on Thursday morning and got ready to go. We were both pretty damn tired. I'm the kind of person who thinks of 11am as early, so 6:30am shouldn't even exist on the clock. Nobody needs 6:30am. We got to the station, hopped on the train and basically just listened to some dude snore incredibly loud for most of the journey. It was a good trip, all the same.

We got the the Hotel around 3:30pm that day and just threw our stuff in, lay down for a while and then went in search of food. We stayed in the Anker Hotel. It was a wonderful hotel that was pretty nice and had almost everything we needed. However, the street the hotel was on was the biggest shit hole. It's as if all the crime and drugs in Oslo decided to take a stroll down that fucking street. It was wild. The hotel itself was so classy and amazing, so it was a pretty weird mix.

We went in to a mall and immediately some guy attempted to steal my camera. I thankfully happened to look around and I saw him as he was going for my bag and he panicked and went off in a different direction. 30 seconds more and I may not of been so lucky.

We continued our search for food and decided to go to Karl Johann Plass, which is apparently a street you just HAVE to see in Oslo. We failed to find it, so we went to some small local place and just got some pretty normal food and went back to the hotel to sleep.

Friday, oh wow. OH WOW. We walked so much! Basically we got up at 8 and went for breakfast and then head off for the Austrian Embassy and got the paperwork out of the way for my passport. Some of the files were missing but I was lucky that I got such a nice person who helped me a lot. In the end we got everything done and I think everything was all clear, but I'll find out soon enough. Hopefully I'll be legally allowed to leave the country within the next few weeks!

It's Rabbit Season, Bitch!

We finished up there at about 11 and then we went to this HUGE park that was close by. It was called Vigelands park, I think. It had the most amazing statues I've ever seen. So, so, so, so many statues! I hope I have enough space to show off some of the pictures. It was amazing. There was a bridge covered in statues and at the end of the bridge was a fountain held up by statues and then at the top of the hill behind it was a pillar made of (and surrounded by) statues. It was insane.

We left that park between 12-12:30 and hopped in a cab and went to the Natural History Museum, where I got to live out a childhood dream. We got there and checkout out the first building which was just FILLED with stuffed animals in different situations. It was creepy and weird, but I'm still happy I saw it. There was a definitely a sense of humour in the place. Some of the animals and picture opportunities were pretty amazing. If you want to see some of the crazy places I managed to stick my head, check out Emily's blog post on it. We also found out Slash was playing that night with Myles Kennedy but it was sold out. I was PISSED.

After that building we went across to their other building, which was far more.. me! The first thing you see when you walk in is a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. It was INCREDIBLE. I've ALWAYS wanted to see one up close. I can only imagine that it was a young T-rex, as the skeleton was not as big as I had expected, and it was not as big as the ones you see in some of the more famous museums, that's for sure. It's well worth seeing, though. They have a really impressive library after the skeleton, which was pretty cool. Up the stairs is coated in skeletons, skulls and fossils. It was amazing.

In the rooms upstairs they have a replica skeleton of a dinosaur which is cool. Far more impressive, however, is Ida. Ida is a monkey fossil that is 47 million years old. Darwinius is a genus within a group of primates from the Eocene epoch. Ida is the only known fossil of this particular species, which is incredible. A paper was released a few years back that basically claims that Ida is the missing link in human evolution. She is a step that helps see the link between humans and monkeys, which is insane.

This is Ida

In the other rooms are some amazing things, too. There are rocks from Mars and the Moon and there are a lot of horse bones and then a few more dinosaur bones. It was amazing. I think it was 50Kr to get in, which is absolutely nothing. It was so cheap! It was amazing, and so informative. I highly recommend visiting there. We bought a gift in the gift shop for my mother, which I can't talk about much since she doesn't know yet, but the people in the gift shop told us what it was, how it was used in history and wrote a little note, too. It was a very personal visit, and the staff are incredibly helpful. It was amazing.

We wanted to see the botanical garden that was surrounding the Natural History Museum but unfortunately it was completely covered in snow, so we skipped that for this trip. We walked to Karl Johann Plass and took a look around. We visited a few places and saw a few different things, just general tourist shopping. I got my first Hard Rock Café t-shirt, which is amazing. I got Emily a Hard Rock charm bracelet and I'll pick her up a different charm at each Hard Rock we visit.

We basically spent 2 hours there and then just grabbed food and brought it back to the hotel. On the way back we passed a sign for Biffy Clyro playing in Oslo and I casually noticed the date and said "ah well, it's on the 22nd of Feb" and then Emz and I took about 5 more steps and just paused and looked at each other with a stunned expression as we both realised that was the date. It was almost hilarious because we did that whole progression in unison and it was almost like a sitcom. Unfortunately we just could not afford it. I feel like my finger is way off the pulse in the music scene when I don't know my favourite bands (Slash ft. Myles Kennedy) show up in Oslo and the next night one of Emz favourite bands show up and we had no idea either were even playing in Norway. It's crazy.

We stayed in for the rest of the evening and just watched some stuff on my laptop and ordered a pizza. We walked about 13km that day. We traveled way more, but I didn't include the cab journeys on Endomondo tracker. Endomondo is a great sports tracker. I use it for stuff like this to know how far I went and how many calories I burned and shit. It's pretty motivating to keep working out when you see your progress. It also has a bitchin' map feature which means I can see which was we went, too. My favourite feature is that it doesn't need 3G or anything. It means I can use it while I travel without it eating in to my roaming or anything. I use it pretty much daily, though. I use it to track general activities and work. It seems more rewarding to actually see how much I've done after I've done it. It's a nice feeling to see you've gone 12km in such a short time, for example.

Today we got up, had breakfast and high-tailed it for luggage storage in the train station. We wanted to get everything done as quickly as possible to fit everything in, but we also had incredibly limited time. We went to check out the new Opera House after the luggage dump. Talk about going from one dump to another. That place looked like modern art rolled through and took a massive shit, which then resulted in that building. Norwegians LOVE their modern art, but I think some things are better left to the classics. It has modern and experiments sound technology and acoustics which is incredible from a sound engineering point of view. But from an "I'm looking at this building" point of view, it hurts my head.

We bailed from the modern eyesore and headed straight through Karl Johann Plass and up to the King's Castle (which is actually not a castle). I think it's actually called the Royal House and we were misinformed. It was a stunning building and you could see right up Karl Johann Plass from there which was incredible to see. You could see over the buildings and see some pretty amazing and incredible stuff from the view.

The most impressive part of all this is that I got to hang out with a giant lego man. I'm sure that's a childhood dream come true! When I was a kid I wanted to be a cartoon character, and I'm sure at some point I also wanted to be a Lego man. I love Lego. I STILL love Lego. I'm pretty sure that's why I have such a fondness for Minecraft. It reminds me of my old Lego building days.

I love this dude!

Danger Zone just came on again. Spotify needs to sort out the shuffle feature. Anyway, yeah. We made it back in some record time. It took 25-30 minutes to get there and 10-15 to get back. I'm not sure how we managed that, but we did! It was amazing. Editors note: I just threw a grape across the table and got it in Emz mouth. Fucking. Epic. 

We got back in time and the train wasn't quite there yet so we grabbed some food. My wonderful mother sent some "Coffee" money to my Irish account so Emz and I could grab a coffee. She always does really nice things like that! Thankfully she did because Emz the Treasurer had major bank malfunctions today which meant I had to buy food and shit for the train, which is fine usually but since my passport expired AND my tax card expired (and I can't get a tax card without a passport) I haven't been paid in a few months, which isn't so bad because people are helping me and I'm going to give it back the second I get paid, but it meant that without Mum's help today, we would of been starving. I'm a bit of a hunger Hulk. You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry.

Anyway, that pretty much catches up to now. I finished this blog ages ago but the internet disconnected and my browser froze and it hadn't saved in a while, which sucks so much. But, I think I got everything back in here again, so worry not my little Ken-panions. Ken-panions, get it? Companions? Ken-panions? SHUT UP, IT'S FUNNY!

So yeah, in the typical fashion of my blog I will end this with a quote. This quote hails from Norway, but I translated it for you lovely people. If you think I should visit somewhere else on my travels, let me know! I'm always excited to go to more culturally advanced places. If you have any ideas, hit me up in the comments! I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to offer me, world. Take it easy!

A Thousand Words Will Not Leave So Deep And Impression

As One Deed

- Henrik Ibsen