Bad Lounge Music and Good Food

If I could only stop laughing at those girls asking where all the kids go to get drunk...

We'll skip the plane flight. I mean what more can be added to the communal knowledge of airline travel concerning a trans-Atlantic flight, an eight hour layover and hop over to Oslo. Oh, but the hotel bar. Nice looking place outside of Oslo (bad location, but all we did was sleep there), but oh, the music. Imagine if Neil Diamond had a Norwegian accent and was drunk and maybe even had a mild stroke previously resulting in partially paralyzed facial muscles. Add to that $12 beers. As I have quickly learned, everything here is awfully expensive. Cup of coffee: $4 - and we're talking Dixie cup size of Folgers. True to Europe, though, the pilsners are quite good, which is important since it is often the only choice at the bar besides that American of pilsners, Bud. I did not spend thousands of dollars to travel to Norway to drink Bud. No way!

The bar tonight is stunning. It's an old hotel. Very old. The name, you ask. I'll have to look at the china in the dining room, it's printed on it. A decent piano man because he isn't singing and the local pilsner is quite good. Plus it has wireless. Hence this post.

Oh, the food. I'm gonna love Norway. The buffets are indescribably both in breadth of what is offered and how it is presented. I've never seen anything like it in the States. Separate tables for all the fish and seafood (good thing I don't like shell fish and most other sea food, so it was one less table to fill up at), another table for salads, another for main courses, another from bread and cheese and another for desserts. Oh, I think there is another table for everything else. My mom and I talked about what makes a good relationship. We'll leave that one alone. I did try reindeer. I told my mom she must not tell Jasmine that I ate Rudolph. The chef said, and this is honest to got the truth, not to worry, that this was Richard, Rudolph's brother. I wonder how many times a night he cracks that joke? Well, it was funny to me. The reindeer, it was kind of bland. Maybe knowing I wasn't eating Rudolph took the fun out it.

The day itself was spent taking a train from Oslo to Flam. Actually two trains. Oh, wait, three since we had to take the hotel shuttle back to the airport (at $20 each! I told you everything was expensive here), then take the express train to Oslo Central Station (made that by the hair or our chinny chin chin), then to Mydral. The train to Mydral was stunning. It started out looking a lot like Germany which looks a lot like western Oregon. And I started wondering why I traveled so far to see the same as I see at home. But this changed as we climbed the mountains and it turned to alpine plains dotted with homes that must be completely covered in snow all winter long. There was already quite a bit of snow. And idiots bicycling in the snow. I mean, you'd think that either they wouldn't do it or have some special Norwegian technique. But, no, they were skidding and sloshing all over the road just as I would have if I tried it. Only I wouldn't have.

In Mydral, we changed trains to take what is essentially a special train designed to jump off the edge of the fjord and survive a crash landing in Flam. You drop over 4000 feet in less than 10 miles. Through some tunnels, across a bridge or two, and through some stunning landscape. Places I could see myself living. I took photos of the train rides, and some are posted here, but they are limited by shooting through plexiglass.

In Flam, we transfered to a ferry and took a short trip through the beautiful fjord to Balenstrad (or something like that) to this really stunning hotel. See my first test post for a picture from the balcony.

All in all, a very nice day. I'll talk about our luggage woes later...