Oh Oslo, Oh My!

Quite often the landscape on both sides of a border between two countries looks pretty much the same. I know that on a recent trip  to Montreal I looked out my train  window and saw corn stubble poking up through the snow in enormous flat fields on the New York side of the border and later saw miles of the same stubble filled fields on the Canadian side. On the other hand, sometimes you immediately know you have just slid into one country from another. The border between Sweden and Norway fits this second situation. The mountains separating the two countries begin to rise in Sweden. The landscape there is indeed piney and fresh, but when you reach the crest and you can see the country of Norway unfolding before you, all of the alpine sights and  smells become more distinct and noticeable. The air seems fresher and the atmosphere healthier. You immediately know you’ve entered Norway.

Admittedly, my imagination may be influencing my memory  here, but I remember knowing I would like Norway the minute my buses wheels rolled over the border. And roll it did. There was no stop for a passport check, customs search, or even a “Hi how are you?” My bus immediately began its descent into green valleys spotted with small cozy farms. Everything looked prosperous and clean. No rusting cars were left in the farmyards; no beer cans cast out along the side of the road. It was all so carefully tended that it didn’t seem completely real to someone like me who lives in the rural United States.

The trip from the border into Oslo took a bit longer than I expected. While Norway does have a few four lane super highways, most roads are two lane country roads, and it  my bus took its time threading its way toward Oslo. Not that I minded much, though it was starting to get dark, and I still had to find my hotel which was located about 12 miles outside of town.

I found my hotel which at first seemed a great disappointment but turned out to be fine in the long run. Not only did the hotel’s location force me to ride a city bus to and from the Oslo each day, (which I expected), but the hotel was also under refurbishment and the smell of paint and plaster dust was constantly wafting down its corridors. Finally there was nothing of interest near the hotel: no stores, no theaters, and no people: just a huge parking lot. The staff were very friendly and did their best to make up for the hotel’s bad location. They offered a descent breakfast, and put out books and games on all of the tables in the lobby/bar. They would even play the games with you if you looked appropriately forlorn. 🙂

I got up early the next morning and took the bus into Oslo packing a camera with fully charged batteries and an empty memory card. The bus/train station was magnificent. It was spotless and contained a wood paneled craft beer pub, a upscale sushi restaurant, and several other high end restaurants. Up until about a generation ago, Norwegians were considered to be Scandinavia’s country bumpkins by their neighbors in the other Scandinavian countries. Then Norway discovered oil off its coast and the money started rolling in. At first Norway’s neighbors continued to mock them by calling them Scandinavia’s “Beverly Hillbillies”. (Those of you too young to remember the “Beverly Hillbillies” TV show look it up on Wikipedia.) 🙂  Norwegians quickly proved that such a characterization was nothing other than an unfair and snotty  stereotype motivated perhaps more by jealousy than anything else. They managed to become rather cultured, sophisticated and cosmopolitan almost over night.    (Lots of spending money can often do that).

Oslo’s residents were well dressed and sober. Its stores loaded with a vast variety of expensive goods. Its streets  filled with plenty of public art and museums seemed to pop up every few blocks.

All right, occasionally some of the street art indicated that there might be a little truth to the Beverly Hillbilly stereotype.

The downside of all this oil money floating around has been price inflation and a very strong Norwegian Krone. Norway was very, very expensive. If you come to visit bring suitcases full of money. 🙂

The harbor area was lined with new condos, coffee shops, and expensive yachts.  Yes you can find enclaves of rich people in just about any country, but in Norway there doesn’t seem to be any poor people. No slums, and very little crime. The State pays for all health care, and education, and operates a very efficient public transport system. Yes, taxes are high in Norway, but life is comfortable even for those Norwegians who don’t own those yachts.

Although Oslo provided a vast array of things to eat and places to eat them, I decided to save money by returning to my hotel for dinner. I had a sandwich and a dark beer. I think the beer cost about 9 dollars. Still it would have been much more expensive if I stayed in the city.

The next morning I woke up to sporadic rain. I was lucky to get so many sun drenched photos the previous day. Shooting more pictures in downtown Oslo didn’t seem profitable, and since I had gotten so many good pictures in Lithuania at an outdoor museum, I decided to take a ferry across the bay to Norway’s version. Despite getting drenched I found Norway’s open air museum even more interesting than Lithuania’s because it also included buildings and exhibits from relatively recent eras, and included not only rural farms but also urban apartments and offices as well.

The museum also contained some rural scenes similar to what I saw at Rumsiskis in Lithuania.

As was the case in Lithuania, I was a wet bedraggled mess after walking around the museum for several hours. I knew what I needed. I checked my museum map and made my way back to the museum’s cafeteria. I had stopped at the men’s room before entering the cafeteria, and yes, I was bleeding again. The cafeteria offered everything I needed at that moment. No, not just the apple cider and cheesecake I bought, but more importantly, the cheerful atmosphere it provided. A fire was snapping away in the fireplace, and people were comfortably chatting. The room was warm and busy. It was a happy room! I hung out in the cafeteria for at least an hour because I knew  I would have to walk a mile back to the ferry and then endure a long, damp ferry ride  to Oslo. The next day I would sit through an even longer journey back to the States on the budget Norwegian Shuttle Airline.

As I was leaving Norway’s shores the next day I looked out my window at the frigid black sea below. The wind had whipped up the waves to the point where I could see them even from my 20,000 foot altitude  crashing into and over small islets just off the coast. My mind turned back to previous travelers, the vikings, whose journeys were much more difficult than mine. What courage, or perhaps desperation drove these men to cross such seas in open wooden boats to places they were not sure even existed, or if they did exist would ever be able to find. Yes, many were murderers and thieves, but there was some part of them that I found admirable.  Though today’s Norwegians are a bit softer and less blood thirsty than their viking ancestors, some of that old resilience and determination remains within them today. By combining their new found wealth with  equitable ways to share this wealth, they’ve come a long way from the hardscrabble lives they lived as little as fifty years ago.  As I looked out the window I felt that I was flying home toward a less admirable place.