Exploring Oslo

A few weeks ago I traveled to Oslo, Norway, to visit a friend of mine, who is doing a semester abroad there. I had never been to Scandinavia before, so I had high hopes for this place and was not disappointed in any way.

We did a whole day of sightseeing in the center of Oslo and even went on a boat trip.

 

We went all the way up on the Opera! It was insanely windy that day and the fact that there’s open spaces on the Opera made it almost impossible to walk straight. Anyway, some girl did some shooting up there which looked a lot like a music video. In case you ever see a girl in a huge grey scarf walk in the background of a music video on top of Oslo’s Opera, that’s me.

 

The area around the royal palace is really pretty and green.

 

As we were a group of three and wanted to make the most of our trip to Oslo we opted for an Airbnb located in trendy Grünerlokka. The apartment we chose was really cute and cozy, the IKEA furniture made it feel like home.

 

 

One thing that shocked me about Oslo was the high prices for almost everything. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mind spending money, especially not on vacay, but I believe the price should be justified in a way. For regular meals you can expect to pay around 20€, almost double the average of Austria.

According to my friend, most locals don’t really go out for lunch or dinner during the week, because of the high prices. The same goes for clubs; a regular drink is around 12€ and they close at 3am. In a way, social life is really restricted by these strict Norwegian laws on alcohol etc., which seems rather contradictory to the fact that Scandinavia is viewed as an extremely progressive place.