Day 3, Hiking& Royalty

Saturday night was great J we ate the Thai soup, bread and played a card game called President. Simple to understand and very entertaining to play. I have made a personal mission to make sure my family sits down and plays cards next time I’m home. We don’t do it enough.

As Jan put it Sunday was a 16-hour Heidi camp day.

Heidi woke me up at 8; we were out the house by 9 in full hiking gear. Though I won’t be able to say (or remember) any of the places that we went, it was just over a 3 hour hike, with Ronya (their adorable Jack Russell). Beautifullllll. It was the first time I’ve ever used an outhouse. We also stopped at a cabin-café all the way up at the top, which was closed since so many Norwegians are at their cabins in July. Even so there was a little room where the family had left fresh cinnamon and vanilla buns, and a cooler full of different sorts of drinks. As with the trains, it’s trust-based. They hope you’ll leave the correct amount of money for what you’ve taken. I was amazed. Never had I seen anything like it before.

Karianne, one of Heidi’s friends is staying for the next two nights. After being picked up by Jan from hiking, and boasting of my epic ‘Hikers’ blister we went home to prepare for royalty. Well not the family. But the building at least. We had an hour-long guided tour (in English thankfully) of 16 rooms of the Royal Palace. The funniest thing I thought was a hole in the ceiling of the Birdroom. This is because the building was one of the first to get electricity in 1899, so a few years later they auctioned off all of their chandelier’s since they thought they weren’t necessary any longer. Some have been found and restored, but no one knows where this particular one is. Another room had replicas of the chandeliers that were once there (the Danish own them now), and for the first time they were being cleaned. Thankfully the replicas crystals can be put in the dishwasher now! I am now much more knowledgeable about the Norwegian royalty. Grandma will be proud.

From there we went to have dinner with Heidi’s parents at what is supposedly a ‘guide book recommended’ restaurant. Delicious Asian cuisine. Lots of sushi. Lots of laughing. Sadly we had to miss the dessert that Heidi’s mum insisted on us getting or we’d be late to the Dark Knight.

What a movie! We in this ‘THK’ sound movie theatre, with a massive dome ceiling and curved screen. One of the biggest in Europe apparently. On another note Oslo is the only place in the world that I have now been handed a free coco-cola can (in the street) and free Pepsi bottles in the movie theatre for no reason other than advertisement. I thought it was great!