That awkward moment when you can't eat in Norway because it's too expensive

This next post is going to be an epic one.

First, some more tame items…

Tuesday night, I saw The Tempest at the Theatre Royal Haymarket which was right next to school downtown. The lead role was played by Ralph Fiennes aka Lord Voldemort. I didn’t read the play prior to the performance so it was a little confusing. Mostly I just closed my eyes and pretended like I was watching Harry Potter, haha. The theatre itself was super cool though.

On Wednesday, I had my most favorite day of work yet. I met with one of the producers who was looking to do a story on Kate Middleton. The media is definitely obsessed with the royal family. We have so many archived tapes that involve the royal wedding it is actually ridiculous. Anyways, she asked me to go out with a camera crew and ask people throughout London what they wanted to see the Duchess of Cambridge do next. I had a great time! It is a bit intimidating to stand out on the street with a camera man and a giant microphone bugging people to talk to you, and I definitely experienced rejection more than I thought. It was also funny how some people refused to talk to me based on my affiliation with NBC. It made me wonder if NBC has a negative stereotype in the UK. I got a variety of answers from men and women, young and old. The women were definitely more enthusiastic about Kate and mentioned that they would like to see her hold a job, not get bogged down by the media, try to be her own person, etc. Most people had a very positive opinion of her which was nice to see. I was so surprised that they let me conduct all of these interviews myself! When I found the camera man he literally asked me “So what are we doing?” It was nice to be put in a position that takes a lot of responsibility for a change. I enjoy talking with people and interviewing is one of my favorite journalistic things to do.

Wednesday night, Allie and I attempted to go out to a foam party but ended up walking around London and coming back to the flats to drink wine instead. We then left ridiculous videos for our frisbee team back home. Too much fun.

Thursday, classes were successful and I am really beginning to enjoy my Shakespeare class. Zack made a great dinner and I organized my life for Norway.

Now, Norway… aka THE MOST EPIC WEEKEND OF MY LIFE.

I awoke at 3am Friday morning to start the travelling process, standard. We walked to Victoria and took the bus to London Stansted. We took off successfully and arrived in Oslo around 11am. The first thing we did was exchange money. Norway is probably the most expensive country I have ever been too. A standard dinner at a restaurant was the equivalent of $40 or $50 and a drink at the grocery store was $8 or $10. It was absurd. I have no idea how people live there.

We only booked a hostel for the first night so we were completely flying by the seat of our pants the entire trip. First, we went to this place called the DNT. They gave us some hiking suggestions and checked into the lodging options up north. As it turns out, it was some huge hiking weekend for the Norwegians so everything was booked. The woman also told us quote: “There is nothing dangerous in all of Norway” so we could camp anywhere and it would be fine. Too funny. We jokingly brought up the idea of a tent (totally joking) and this lady told us that there was a place nearby that gave out free tents to young people to encourage them to get out into nature. This place was literally closing as she was giving us directions, so we illegally rode the underground to make it on time and knocked on the door of the tent place. It was closed. We were doomed and had nowhere to stay. As we knocked on the door for kicks and giggles, this man, who we now know as Bengkt, opens the door and questions us. He leads us to a sketchy warehouse of camping gear, asks how old we are and where we are from. Apparently, the camping gear is reserved for people living in Oslo but he must have sensed our desperation. We got two free tents in exchange for 200 kroner (Norwegian currency that I jokingly called Coronas all weekend) that he promised to give back to us if we brought the tents back. It was unreal. No sleeping bags, no nothing, just tents. Oh and we did purchase a compass and map for a ridiculous amount of money at the DNT. We were ready for an adventure.

That night, we went out to dinner at this place called Sara’s Café where we spent our life savings on one dinner. We were ravenous though and the food was really good. We then walked around some of the city. We climbed atop the Opera House just as the sun was setting on a beautiful, clear night. We took pictures and continued walking towards the city centre. In our attempts to buy beverages, we learned that they do not sell real alcohol anywhere except for in two stores in Norway. Classic. We ended up buying some cider and heading back to the hostel since we were super tired. Our hostel was offering a pub crawl but instead, we practiced setting up our tents, drank some cider and passed out at 10pm. We were all super tired so the 12 hours of sleep was ideal.

Atop the Opera House

Some side notes:

-Once again, every single person spoke English. I am beginning to see how influential America is on a global scale. Everything is translated in English and everyone knows what you are talking about. America is #winning.

-Norway has a cute tram that rides along the streets that reminded me of San Francisco.

-IT WAS SO EXPENSIVE. Oops I already mentioned that…

-Norway has this weird obsession with trolls. There were trolls everywhere…

We woke up on Saturday morning and began to prepare for our adventure! We repacked our bags appropriately and went to the grocery store. The store actually wasn’t too expensive but we bought the cheapest possible food consisting of bread, peanut butter, nutella, more bread, these weird crackers, more bread and hotdogs. And marshmallows and chocolate. That was our meals for the whole day. We also picked up some champagne at the singular government-controlled alcohol store in the country. Before we started hiking, my bag had my jacket, champagne, bread, water and more bread in it. We eventually found the route we needed to take (we took the underground to a bus leading to Skar, Norway which is up north). The bus ride was very scenic and luckily a bunch of other hikers were headed there too so it wasn’t like we were completely alone.

We got off in the middle of the wilderness, took out our map and started hiking. It was so fun and pretty! We hiked a few kilometres, leisurely taking pictures the whole way, and eventually found a really pretty lake. The water was super clear and it was amazing how silent it was. We hiked all the way around the lake, stopping by a dam, a spot where Allie found a casual knife (aka murder weapon) in the middle of the woods, and an island. We had to balance over all these logs to get to the island which was a complete obstacle course. We also came upon a cliff looking over the water and Allie once again found an unopened beer in the middle of the woods. She found so many things! We struggled to find a place to make camp because most people took the best spots already. Eventually, we found a spot. Allie and I put up the tents successfully (go us!) and the boys worked on the fire.

The lake

 The fire was a near failure but we got it going and managed to keep it going for five or six hours! We won the fire contest on the lake. (There were about 10 spots of light at the beginning and we were the only one left at 1am). This means we went on many wood runs for fire wood and tended to the fire like a small child. It kept us alive. We roasted our hot dogs and ate some food and I earned the name DJ Campfire Kelly for playing campfire-appropriate music on my iPhone for six straight hours. It was so much fun. We had some major bonding and I got to know my travelling partners a lot better. At 10:30pm, we decided to pop the bottles of champagne over the lake while playing “Like a G6.” So appropriate. A few hours of general debauchery went down (Alex tried to climb some trees, I was playing mad jams and falling in the pitch black woods, Sean shotgunned the beer Allie found, Matt was a literal fire-breather and kept the fire going, etc.) before we went to bed.

By bed, I mean I don’t know if we actually slept. It was frigid. We knew that camping with no sleeping bags or blankets was going to be a struggle. Luckily we packed 6 people into the 4-person tent so we were spooning like sardines for warmth. It was one of the funniest nights of my life. I had my linen from the hostel on top of me which actually did nothing, haha, but it did earn me the name “Linens and Things.” We were all pretty much awake the whole time and there was always someone making ridiculous comments. For instance, Matt’s “Guys, what are we doing?” in the middle of the night and me condemning the other camp sites for being lame and actually camping with sleeping bags. At 7am, we immediately got up and got out of there. We were all struggling to mobilize and we still had to hike back to the bus. It was rough to say the least. However, the camping experience was definitely worth it. We could have booked a hostel for the second night but that would have been way less exciting. I will probably never again find myself camping in the middle of the Norwegian wilderness.

Sunday, we basically just wanted to get home after the epic times on Saturday. We walked around the city a bit more but ended up going to the airport really early since it was extremely rainy. I was so happy to return to the currency that is the English pound, the expense in Oslo was only bearable for a couple of days.

Overall, Oslo was quite the experience. I am very glad I went and we have been enthusiastically telling our camping story to everyone we come across.

Motto of Norway 2011: “Just don’t think about it.”