Arrived Oslo

Am now ensconced at the Thon Terminus Hotel at Oslo, and have been since about 2:00pm local time (10:00pm Melbourne time) Thursday. Then had what I intended to be a short siesta, but turned into a deep sleep.

Woke up some hours later and looked at my watch, which has Australian Eastern time and Norwegian time on it. It said 20:00 and 4:00, so then I had to work out whether it was 4:00am Friday or 8:00pm Thursday. In either case it was much later than I expected. Worked out that it must be 8:00pm Thursday, in which case it was desirable that I have a short walk and get some dinner to start to reset my body clock! (At this time of year there are very few hours of darkness in Norway).

So, not in no mood to get lost, I decided to stick to familiar territory and went to Oslo Ostban, a magnificent nineteenth century railway station of the train-hall variety, which is no longer in use as a station, but rather than demolishing it, has been made into a shopping hall, with pubs, restaurants, newsagents, a supermarket, and various other shops. There is even a McDonalds there, which I avoid like the plague.

Normally when in Norway I would look for Norwegian food, but I wasn't particularly hungry, nor did I want to spend much time, so I found an Indian fast-food place, and got a "mixed grill" for 99 kroner - about $A18.00, with a large glass of water supplied without asking, which was much appreciated. This demonstrates that it is possible to eat in Norway at a reasonable price, and was way below what I had budgeted to pay for dinner!

Weather here is fine, but at some time in the afternoon there was a lot of rain, but it was brief. I notice that the hotel provides each room with two umbrellas for guests to cope with the changeable weather. However they are red, and the thought of using a red umbrella is very discombobulating, I am sure people would think I was a communist.

Will give a run-down on the trip over shortly.