CopenHELEN: Oslo

This weekend I took the “booze cruise” to Oslo. So lovingly named as there isn’t any tax on international waters so they have a very well stocked duty free store. Unfortunately everything else on the boat costs an arm and a leg but my friend’s Ben, Kris, and I planned ahead and went to the grocery store and lived off peanut butter and jelly for the weekend and got to see Norway the cheap way.

While in Oslo we saw the Opera House, Cathedral, National Theater, National Gallery, Palace, City Hall, and the Nobel Peace Prize Center. The National Gallery was quite cool with a lot of retro art from the 60s-70s and also some really interesting sculptures. Probably my favorite was the Nobel Peace Prize center as right when we arrived it just so happened that the head of the Prize Committee was giving a press conference on the most recent Nobel recipient--the European Union. We got to sneak in the back and watch--it was pretty cool!! There were also some really cool exhibits of recent recipients including three women: two from Liberia (including the current president), one from Yemen who jointly received the prize for their efforts to end conflict in their respective countries.

We left Friday night had an overnight boat ride, spent the day Saturday in Oslo, and returned to Copenhagen on another overnight ride Sunday morning. It was a great way to see a city quick and fairly cheap. Not to mention the disco club on the boat had stellar people watching!