home-making 104: oslo, norway
Posted by torytolles | Filed under Uncategorized
Thankfully, finding an apartment here is significantly easier (and cheaper!) than in Geneva. After sending hundreds of emails, Chris and I actually got to visit fifteen apartments. Imagine that. The deliberations followed; we have firmly established that Chris’s priority is a central location and I only care about finding a cozy place within a block or two of a park. Within a week we found a place that satisfied all of the aforementioned requirements and six hours after viewing it, Chris and I settled in to our new home, Holsts Gate 1.
We share the apartment with two Norwegians, one Swede, and one Russian. They are wonderfully respectful and quiet people, excepting the 11:30 pm laundry load last night - our room is right next to our free(!) washer and dryer.
The only downfall to sharing an apartment with so many people is that we cannot fit all of our groceries on our shelf after I go to the grocery store. (Our shelf is second from the top).
Most of my time is spent doing errands. Learning to navigate the new city and new language means everything takes about three times longer than it did in Geneva. However I still have plenty of time for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. About four times a week I pick one of six different forests around the city, layer just about every piece of clothing I have here, and board a bus with either the skis or the ’shoes. It takes only twenty minutes to truly escape Oslo and be surrounded only by snow and conifers - and just a handful of other people skiing.
Did I mention that I love snowshoeing? I had to include a picture of my new toys - and the pile of clothing I wear for my outdoor excursions. I included the Nalgene for scale. All of the Norwegians think I am crazy to snowshoe.
“Truger? But WHY? Skiing is so much faster!” they say.
“And SCARIER!” I reply.
Maybe someday I will be able to handle going down hills some other way than on my rear end, but for now I prefer to snowshoe if I have the choice.
Oslo is not nearly as dark and cold and depressing as I thought. Okay, maybe it is just as dark and cold as I thought, but I actually really enjoy being able to be outside in the sparkly wonderland. Or maybe I just like snowshoeing. Either way, it is going to be a wonderful few months.
