Northern Lights Next Time

Oslo has been a very different city from the others. Where the places we have been previously look like an amalgamation of the old with the modern, Oslo appears contemporary and new. Architecturally it felt like any large city you would find in the States. 

The difference lays in all of the natural beauty surrounding the city. Norway is a very wealthy country. We experienced that first hand when it came time to purchase anything. I think the best way to describe it is as if you were to buy anything at home and then multiply that price by 3. A simple head of lettuce cost us $2.50, two avocados were priced at $11.00 (which we chose to not buy), and our hostels here were by far the most expensive of any we have reserved. 

We enjoyed the time we got to spend here. Originally we intended to pick up a free museum pass because it was "be a tourist in your own city" day, much like the first free Sunday in Paris. However, we literally could have stood in the line all day to receive that pass and it would have expired by the time we were out and able to use it. Taking our situation into account we grabbed some coffee in a cute plaza and formed plan B. 

We had read that there was an extremely neat park called Frogner Park across town that featured the Vigeland Sculpture Arrangement, showcasing the works of Gustav Vigeland. The walk took us a good 45 minutes but we figured one of the best  ways to experience the city would be by foot. 

The park was interesting. It was artistic in that the grounds were laid out in a visually pleasing way and that there were countless intriguing statues to take in. 

One area seemed to be conceptualizing the tree of life. 

Others showed a variety of intimate and violent statues in close proximity with each other. 

After the park we decided that it could be really nice to sit back and enjoy a movie together. The Colosseum Theather in Oslo is known as the largest THX theater in Northern Europe. 

The only other movie theater that I can use to draw comparisons would be the Metreon in San Francisco. 

We caught the showing of Tom Cruises new movie "Oblivion". It was alright, I don't know if it would make our list of movies to recommend. If you really want to see some intriguing sci-fi watch Star Trek. We have been watching some of the Voyager series on our long train rides and it kicks ass. 

On our long walk back we stopped outside of the Royal Palace. 

While walking around Oslo we also explored the Opera House. It was created to look like an iceberg.  

You can walk to the top of the building on some of the slanted platforms, giving a nice view of the harbor. 

It was windy and I (Amanda) was slightly fearful that I would fall off directly into the harbor. 

The inside of the building was lovely and not what I expected to see based on the outside of the structure. 

Norway was an interesting experience and we plan to go back and spend more time in all of Scandinavia. It was a really beautiful place and we both want to explore it more and hopefully see the Aurora Borealis. Up next is Stockholm and the DreamHack tournament. 

Bremenhaven

*Title=Combination of Bremen and Copenhagen (also known as Kobenhaven)

Bremen

We left Amsterdam early in the morning and took a large train out into the countryside towards Germany. After a short ride we had to make a connection to a smaller station that was really out in the middle of nowhere but reminded us of home. We were in a shallow valley with farms and small towns dotting the area. I think we've said it multiple times but Germany looks a lot like Oregon. 

After another couple of hours on the small commuter train we got into Bremen which turned out to be a little bit bigger than we had anticipated. Bremen has a population of about 500,000 complete with it's own football team (where Ozil came from before he went to Madrid) and a beautiful river running right through it.  

After checking into our hostel we took a walk out into town and went to a Thai/Vietnamese restaurant that the people at the reception desk had suggested for lunch. Ordering was a little bit confusing, we had to rely on my (Gabe) understanding of german (which is nothing) in order to order. I ended up choosing two things that said curry, one which had a word with the letter R in front of it. It ended up being the german word for red and the food ended up being delicious. 

When we got back we met a couple of guys from England and a Croatian/German who were super friendly. We ended up cooking dinner at the same time and grabbed a drink with them. It was really cool hanging out that night. We busted out the hostels two chess boards and had a bit of a tournament. Four of us ended up playing; me (Gabe) the two english guys and a local who was temporarily living in the hostel. I played about 6 games with one of the English guys named Alex while the local, Ali played the other englishman Ben. I won all my games and Ali won all of his so by the time Ali and I started playing the tension was growing. It might have just been me getting over pump up also. Anyways the match went back and forth multiple times with long periods of staring at the board imagining scenarios followed by quick successions of piece exchanges. Multiple times I felt like I was about to lose when all of the sudden I would take stock of where we were in terms of pieces only to notice I was up several points. In the end I traded a bishop and a knight for a rook and forced a trade that left him with a bishop, his king, and several fewer pawns. The game ended a little while afterward with a handshake and a sigh of relief from me. 

The next day we got up and explored the town together with Ben and Alex. Bremen was a cool city but the ratio of cultural buildings and activities to residential and commercial is significantly lower than a city like Amsterdam or Paris. Because of this we ended up just walking around taking in the city and chatting with our new buddies. 

We did find the bremen town musician statue based off of The Brothers Grimm story. 

We also ate at one of the coolest restaurants ever situated on top of a boat where we got some delicious pancakes again. 

After that we walked along the river towards the Werner stadium where the Bremen football team plays. 

The total distance we covered was around 5-6 miles so on our way back we picked up some supplies for dinner and had a relaxing night eating some german sausage on kaiser rolls with some noodles and beer. 

Copenhagen 

We caught yet another early train out of Bremen en route to Copenhagen.  This one was different from the rest however and I don't think either Gabe or myself (Amanda) was prepared for it. We commented on the unusually small size of the train while first boarding but didn't give it any further thought apart from wondering how we were going to secure seats for ourselves. *side note* The way our rail passes work is that we are free to sit anywhere we like as long as the seats are in second class and are not already reserved. Most trains don't accept reservations for second class anyway so we just make sure we are some of the first people to board the train. Only twice have we had to camp out a bit awkwardly somewhere on the floor of the train.* Anyway, turns out 2 hours into our ride that our train was boarded up onto a ship which then cruised us over what I believe was the Baltic sea for a good 45 minutes. Surprise! Due to safety regulations we couldn't stay on the train while on the boat so we made our way up to the deck for a breath of fresh air. 

We were immediately enchanted with Copenhagen. We stayed right next to a small artisan market where we picked up some cream cheese spreads and bread to munch on while walking around. Something I really enjoyed was the color palette on many of the surrounding buildings. They have a rich, earthy tone about them but still maintain a vibrance that is aesthetically pleasing to my eye. I took plenty of pictures so I can remember to incorporate them into our household decorating later!

Gabe and I decided it would be best to grab a nice dinner out and get to bed early. We planned on catching an early walking tour of the city that was going to last anywhere from 3-4 hours and wanted to be well rested and prepared. Our dinner…wow. Trusting in Gabe's choice of cuisine we ordered herring prepared three different ways and muscles. This was my first time eating muscles and the only way I know how to describe it is by saying that the beach was in my mouth. All of those sensations that I attribute with the beach, I could taste them. It was disorienting but in an awesome way. 

We woke up all stoked on our walking tour and ready to learn all about the history of this really cool place. Unfortunately, the tour guide never showed up. Diverting to plan B we took out a map and created our own tour. The weather was really windy but we were not to be detoured! Turns out Copenhagen was home to one of my (Amanda) favorite authors, Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen is probably best known for his contribution to the genre of fairy tales. Some of his most notable stories are "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Match Girl", "The Little Mermaid", "The Princess and the Pea", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "Thumbelina", and "The Ugly Duckling". There is a street named in his honor 

and many statues commemorating his life and work. 

One statue that is of particular fame around the area is that of the Little Mermaid. 

We also walked around the Langelinie Pier

Gefion fountain

St. Alban's Church

Kastellet- a preserved star fortress

The Garden of Rosenborg Castle

and Frederik's Church

Unfortunately we also had something of a Beiber sighting. We didn't see him so much as we saw his crazed fans waiting for him to appear outside of his hotel. We were walking past to meet with our tour and saw a large group outside this building chanting what we thought was "Justice". Upon further inspection we figured out they were saying "Justin". Not wanting to stick around we left to find our tour. Obviously that didn't work out so about an hour later we passed by again.  As it turns out we are following him on a portion of his world tour, unintentionally of course. He was in Amsterdam the same time we were (look into the Anne Frank comments he made), now in Copenhagen, and he will be having his concert the day before in the same venue that we will be attending the Star Craft DreamHack Open in Stockholm. We have heard reports of fans going nuts but I've never seen celebrity like this personally. It's no wonder that he is outrageous. I don't think I could cope if there was a hoard of people following me around everywhere I went acting obsessed. 

After Copenhagen we had a loooooong train ride up to Norway where we would be spend the next couple days.