5 Sep 2007
Norway, land of expensiveness
I arrived to Oslo Torp a couple of hours later (early, as RyanAir fligths usually are). I got some money from the ATM while I had no idea what the exchange rate was for Norway (mental note to self: look this up before entering my next non-euro country π ). I felt that 1000 NOK sounded like a nice amount of money and it later turned out this is about 125Γ’βΒ¬. I got on a bus and was immediately confronted with the ridiculous prices: 150 Krone please (for the smarties under you: almost 19 euro (!)). I didn’t know the exchange rate at that moment, so I paid and took the bus ride to Oslo Central Station. Apparently RyanAir thinks an airport that is 1 hour and 45 minutes from a city canbe called after that city π
After a nice busride I arrived at central station and messaged my friend Ricard who was going to host me together with his lovely girlfriend CΓΒ©line. We met a little later outside the station and walked to their house. We took “the most dangerous road in Oslo” which was full of (a bit too) friendly hash-dealers. There are so many hash dealers there that all ask if you want to buy something that suddenly the backstreets of Amsterdam look like deserted roads
We arrived at Ricard’s place and he made us some nice spaghetti. After we ate half of all the dishes he can cook (according to himself π ), we went out to a CS party in Oslo. I love couchsurfing:4 hours after you arrive in a totally new city you are partying with 25 extremely laid back cool people. The party host was Ross who would later turn into my host for a couple of nights. The party was very nice and we got a little too drunk (what else is new π ). I met some cool new people! I also met Raymund, a german guy i had talked with online for a little while. I didn’t know he was there and didn’t expect him to be, so after 5 minutes of talking he goes: “wait a seconde you are walter? walter heck? I’m Raymund!”. Another totally random unexpected experience!
After the party we took a taxi home (apparently no nightly public transport) and I slept on the very lovely sofa
Allright, here’s for futere reference: 1 Norwegian Krone is worth about 0.127893 Euro, remember that and you’ll be OK.
By the way, did you know that Oslo was founded in 1838, it has a population of 553,396 and that a dive called John’s bar (http://www.johnsbar.no/) is reputed to be the cheapest bar in town.
Gr
Ruud
Ruud
September 12th, 2007 at 19:55permalink