Saturday, May 31, 2014

Oslo local feel



Feel the water in her body, water's never going out x8

And she's going on a journey
Always walking down the road
And the water is always calling
My little child, please come home

Aurora Aksnes: Awakening 


Aurora Aksnes, Norwegian singer and songwriter

First impressions and my favorite cafe in Olso

Straight to the point: I enjoyed my stay in Oslo a lot, and I would like to visit again in the future if there is a chance. Although when I arrived my first impressions were a bit mixed, because the weather was warmer than I expected (Scandinavian problems..). And I could hardly hear anyone talking Norwegian in Oslo from the point I arrived at the railway station until I got to my hostel. This level of social separation took me by total surprise because I have never experienced anything like this before at this level. It was atypical of my earlier notion of Nordic societies and their inclusiveness. 
Later I saw that the city is actually quite diverse and that luckily there are a lot of layers to it. So I could put this first impression in a line of stories where I understood the context.

The hostel itself was really nice, it had a large,nicely furnished common room. A kitchen where you could cook all day whenever you wanted, there was free wifi and good buffet breakfast every morning with all sorts of food and drinks.

I spent the first whole day of my stay with visiting the Viking Ship Museum and the Fram. And since I like museums I visited also on the second day three of them from which one is definitely worth mentioning: the Nobel Peace Center. It had a really cool interactive exhibition about social media and its impact on democracy. Plus they made a room where you could see the photos of each Nobel Peace Prize winner, and when you stepped in front of a photo a short description appeared on the screen showing why that person won the prize.

I think it is good to leave space also for the "random-factor" when you visit a new city.This is how I found Kaffebrenneriet (Universitatsgata 18). I was coming from Subway and saw the yellow building and sympathetic-looking people sitting inside, so I decided to give it a try- which turned out to be a good decision.


Kaffebrenneriet Universitatsgata, Photo by Monika Csapo


I have been always a big fan of cafe-culture and during uni-times  in Budapest we always had our favorite places with my friends where we could sit for hours and chat while drinking a good latte, or hot chocolate. I kept this habit of mine, and also during my trips I collected many good memories from nice cafes.

What I liked about Kaffebrenneriet Universitatsgata was that the place has an elevated minimalist and elegant interior design but the cookies and coffee still had a reasonable price. One piece of cake was around 4,5 euros which is standard Finnish price, and one latte was approximately 4,14 euros which is a bit more expensive than in Finland, but if I understood well they used fair trade coffee which might explain the price difference. Besides the design and food an important element to mention: the staff was friendly, and there was a good atmosphere.


Kaffebrenneriet Universitatsgata, Photo by Monika Csapo


An extra point goes to Kafebrenneriet for the benches in front of the shop. Since the weather was warm people were sitting and drinking their coffee also there outside. The benches are not separate but run as a straight line (the same you can see also in Copenhagen a lot) which provides a good opportunity for socializing.


Kaffebrenneriet Universitatsgata, Photo by Monika Csapo



Photo source: http://kaffebrenneriet.no/images/uploads/butikkene/KB12_Fasade.jpg


While I was sitting there I could finally do some Oslo-crowd watching in peace and saw a lot of good looking men and women having a great style, being in a very good shape. Might be also because the university was nearby.

After the cafe I went back to the hostel, and we started to get ready for the evening with my friend who I met there.

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The law of attraction: meeting Lars, Lars, Anita and Cecile

We met Lars, Lars, Anita and Cecile by a graveyard. Haha, this sentence sounds so stupid that I had to leave it here. So the story is that we went to a place first which turned out not to be what we were looking for, therefore we decided to head to Ingensteds. At Vår Freslsers gravlund we stopped to check our map since I was suggesting to cross the graveyard to shorten the trip because I was already tired of walking.

At this moment someone asked us where we are heading at- it was Lars- and our adventurous local evening started. It was funny, because I just told Aline two minutes before how cool it would be to meet some local people by accident..

After we met with Lars, his wife, and his brother in law and his wife, we continued together through the graveyard towards the district where Ingensteds was located in. I saw the grave of Ibsen from distance, and an other really nice grave with a Norse cross on it. Who would have guessed when I had to read The Wild Duck from Henrik Ibsen at high school that once I will be walking through a graveyard with four Norwegians and a Brazilian friend listening stories about Norway. Right in the graveyard where he was buried at. Vår Freslser gravlund is by the way a quite nice looking, historical honorary graveyard. Not that it would matter too much where one is buried after he passed away..

For people who know me the problem might be familiar: I had to charge my phone, but I had of course no charger with me. So our new friends were so kind that they let me to charge my phone at their place and invited us to a before party warmup at the same time.

I will not misuse our hosts`hospitality and tell too many personal details but I can tell some general stuff we talked about. For example we found three similarities already at the beginning: both Finns and Norwegians like to grill in summer, drinking, and people change with sunlight in Norway too just like in every Nordic country. I do not know how Norwegians are in winter, but I liked the summer version of them!

As we got to know each other more, and the amount of Baileys-coffee and wine was getting more and more the evening was turning to a surrealistic dream. Even though many people have a lot of stereotypes about Nordic people being cold (not true!) it surely goes away 1. in summer and 2. when some alcohol is involved.
Soon we were all talking like friends who have known each other for long, listened to music, laughed and had fun. It was nice to look at the map on the wall where the places our hosts visited were marked with red dots. And see that we also share our interest in wanting to see the world and getting to know other cultures.
They were originally not from Oslo but from a small town in the distant mountains in Northern-Norway and told us also about local culture, how people are different at different parts of the country and that Norway has two official written languages.

(One small remark: just when I was writing this post Aline wrote me on Whatsapp to ask how I am doing. She is my Brazilian friend who I was talking about earlier in this post.)

An other fun-detail was that our hosts had a maine coon cat called Sofia who actually let me play with her and even pet her which is very atypical for these Norwegian forest cats!

PS to Lars and the others: If you are reading this post, thanks a lot for everything once more! I hope we will meet some time in the future again somehow!




Walking on Damstredet, Photo by Monika Csapo


Houses in Fredriksborg, Photo by Monika Csapo






Fun evening, Photo by Monika Csapo



PS2: I should have taken more photos, but the atmosphere was so good, that I was rather being present than just documenting it:).


 a video about the cool inner yard and our heading off to Ingensteds after the warmup :D :



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Party,party,party: Ingensteds

I liked Ingensteds a lot, that night was one of the best parties where I have been for a really long time. The place had a great interior design, but it had still that certain human touch, the people were stylish, but not snobbish, there was good music and the drinks were not so much more expensive than in Finland.

There was also a terrace what you can see on the photos, and I took also one of the videos here.

Might be the relaxed atmosphere (see the last dancing video), the drinks we had, the kindness of people in summer- or all of this elements mixed together, but  we had a really great time with my friend here. For example I set a mission for myself at Ingendsteds that I have to take photos of locals to show people on the blog how people from Oslo are. And me who is too shy to take pictures of people in general was having no problem at all asking people if we could take a picture of them. Too bad I did not pay much attention, and did not caught the best angles, so I rather do not publish those photos here. But it was fun!

I took also videos as a memory, and you can see that people realized it ("tourist-alarm"), but they were very laid-back, and did not make a problem of it.

One of our favorite part of the evening with Aline was THE dance. I could not resits not to record it (on the last video). It was a fun night, we got to know great people, and if I could, I would go back to party there every weekend this summer, because I felt awesome at Ingensteds.








Photo by David Gallefoss/ N&D




Photo from Ingensteds Facebook-page


Photo from Ingensteds Facebook-page



Here you find more Oslo-insider trips from the locals:
http://www.spottedbylocals.com/oslo/page/2
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What this trip made me aware of

I don`t necessarily seek for conclusion everywhere and in everything, but this trip reminded me of certain things so strongly that it would be hard not to realize them. 

One was that travelling is a mentality and a lifestyle, not just a hobby. Now that I stayed at a hostel, not at a hotel, I could meet people like myself, and it was a great experience to see that other people share the same passion I do, although each of us travels in his or her own personal way. But the drive of being interested in the world, and wanting to see more is common in each of us.

The other conclusion was connected to being open and following one`s intuition. I discovered it also other times that when I am more relaxed, and open for good things, I usually find the places I want to be at, and meet that sort of people I would like to be with. Thanks to all the people I met during my stay, and also to the Visit Oslo page, it was great to feel welcomed in Oslo!

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