As it happens, I had beautiful weather while I was in Oslo last week. Two things are striking about any visit to Oslo: it is beautiful, and it is expensive. I was there during the off-season, so a lot of the tourist-y things were not open or not running as often as in summertime, which suits me fine. I was able to visit some museums and enjoyed several strolls around town. I also took a public transportation ferry out among the islands in the Oslo fjord and was delighted by the views from the boat. The street art (both legal and illegal) was particularly fascinating and varied. You can see some of the images from my visit below.

Flying in Europe is an interesting experience. The London airports (LHR, LGW, LCY, LTN, & STD) use a purgatorial approach to gates: you wait in a lounge area (after the obligatory walk through Duty Free) until your gate is posted. Then you rush to your gate before they close the doors. As a reasonably able-bodied sort, I find this stressful. I can only imagine it is more so for folks who have more trouble getting around. I used to travel full-time for work in the States, so it seems like I’ve spent a lot of time in my life queuing up to get on airplanes. Airlines in the US have a needlessly structured approach to this process. The European airlines use a more straightforward approach – they still have Priority lines, but everyone else just lines up and gets on the plane in the order they lined up. That’s it. If you fly one of the budget airlines (Easyjet or Ryanair), you board the plane via stairs on the tarmac, and your boarding card tells you which set of stairs to use (front or back) based on where your seat is. I can only assume the limitation of jet bridges adds to the cost, so they’ve done away with them.

Title quote: Norwegian saying