Don't really count today as a Gothenburg day. Had to wake up at 5am and walk in the pouring rain to my train. Nice train ride, I could tell the second we were in Norway because the terrain wasn't just flat. There were hills, valleys and rivers; something I am yet to see in Southern Sweden or Denmark.
Arrived in Oslo at 11am and was set to meet Mike at 1:30, plenty of time to walk around and see a little bit of the city. Immediately found the main walking street and hung out there for a bit. I had a map but really had nothing in mind so I pretty much just wandered.
Eventually made my way to the main waterfront and discovered the old fortress. Not as cool as the one in Finland but still a nice find.
Went back along the waterfront to the Bryggen, the main part of the harbour that has been turned into a giant shopping mall. Wasn't very interesting so I just walked through it pretty quickly. Found the royal palace and then kept walking back into the main part of the city. The one thing I noticed about Oslo was the amount of beggars. There were beggars on every corner, something very strange for a Scandinavian city. And they were all playing accordions. It was kind of funny at first but then it just got annoying.
Found the 'hip' district of the city that had a lot of cool buildings with bright colors and graffiti everywhere. Turned south again and actually found our hostel even though I wasn't looking for it.
It was just about time to meet him so I went to the tourist office and waited. Worked out perfectly, he arrived 5 minutes after me.
After being alone for a week it was nice to finally have a travel buddy to share the experience with. We checked into our hostel and then went in search of metal history.
Black metal, the most extreme and satanic form of metal, had its second coming in Oslo in the early 1990s. Neither Mike nor I really listen to this music but we both think it's really interesting, and it's hilarious to see how these bands try to 'out-evil' each other. We went to the old record store of Euronymous, member of one of the most extreme bands, Mayhem. He was murdered by a fellow member of his band for basically unknown reasons. The record store is now a cafe called Our Daily Bread and we actually had some really nice food there. We asked the employees if we could see the basement where the black metallers held their meetings and they let us take pictures and hang out there for a bit.
We then went in search of the sculpture park, the biggest tourist attraction in Oslo. It's a huge park with giant granite statues, most of which contain weird babies. I don't really understand it but it was still incredible and unique to.
That night we checked out the two big metal bars in town. The first, Unholy, was really cool. It's basically a dive with black walls and candles everywhere. They only played really extreme metal and we had a long conversation with the bartender about Norway and its history with metal.
The next one was called Rock In, which is probably the most famous metal bar in Norway. A bit of a more upscale atmosphere but they only played metal so it was still fun. Mike couldn't believe bars like this existed in the world.
Oslo was a cool city, but we both felt that one day there was enough; all of our other possibilities of activities were really touristy. Tomorrow: Fjords and mountains!
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