Oslo

the train, i feel way have gone a little too well. except for the customs people setting there hound on me, but if i were them i would've too, (my hair is really long and i haven't shaved in about a month, i look a little bit like 'The Dude' from the movie 'The Big Lebowski'.) i read about half of the book! which i was hoping would take me longer. but its such a good book, it was hard to put it down. oh well, hopefully there is a good book swap up ahead. i was thinking maybe i should read all the classics while i'm away, i've been meaning to read 'The Animal Farm' for years. by the way i think i'm falling in love with the Swedish scenery. its absolutley stunning! plenty of trees and every so often you see a beautiful lake. oh, and in Norway i saw plenty of Norwegian Wood (see what i did there).

Oslo is a really nice place. the town is quite tradional, you know the deal, tree lined streets, beautiful old buildings etc. probably 15% of it is new building the rest are pretty old. the only really cool new one is the Opera house it was only openned this year. and they seem quite proud of it, theres photos on just about every tourist pamphlet you pick up. and i don't think the town is that big really, you can walk it easily.

Famous artist Edvard Munch is from here, there quite fond of him too. so much so he has his own Museum, i didn't bother going because i'm not a huge fan and i saw a lot of his works when they came to Australia a couple of years back. his most famous painting is 'The Scream' and i think i know what happened to make him paint it. he must have gone into a shop and seen the price tag of something because EVERYTHING here is so expensive. i've been cooking for myself so thats been saving me quite a bit of money. thank god i can cook pasta! funny thing happened while i was at the supermarket. i was looking for some canned tuna and was walking down the aisle when i saw a can in the corner of my eye. i went over to inspect it and found that there was a picture of a little girl on the can and not much else. i turned to the person next to me and showed them the can and said 'surely theyre not canning little children, are they?' turns out it was like a chicken paste that you put on bread. i brought some to try it. it was rubbish, maybe it was a little girl.

its funny i was having a wander around the Royal Palace gardens, just minding my business when the guards started making a bit of fuss. i thought they were changing guards or something, but then i realised it was too early for that so i went up to inspect a little, when some guy in a limo rolls out of the palace and gives me a wave. i waved back and i turned to a girl who was standing not far from me taking a photo of the limo and i asked her 'who was that?' and see replied 'The King of Norway'. i dunno if it was, because really, she could've told me anything, i had no idea what the hell the King of Norway looks like. but i'm gonna run with it.

i also checked out sculpture park which was quite pretty. there are over 200 statues of naked people doing all different sorts of things and in the middle is a pillar thats made out of people climbing and laying on top of each other. quite amazing really.
a part i really liked was checking out the Akershus Fortress and Castle which is built right on the water. i found it so interesting because it must be centuries old and to build something like that back then, just to collect all the rocks and stack them correctly to make it would've taken so long! i was equally amazed when i went to the Viking ship Museum. the Viking were clever guys, there boats were designed to be really shallow so they could come right up close to the land so they could attack with a suprise. also i couldn't get over how a lot of the things they used back then, is essentially the same design as today or are made in a similar way. i never realised that the Vikings were quite similar to the Egyptians when it comes to the after life. when Vikings died they were buried in there boat. and it would be filled with food and drink as well as jewels (in one case they found a peacock!) to prepare you for the next life. i learnt so much at that museum i can't wait to do a little bit of raping and pillaging when i get back home (i know, bad joke)

i went into a clothing store in the city and had a chat with the guy behind the counter for what felt like a good hour. he was a really cool guy, the shop was his (if you were wondering, it was called 'Vegas') and he was telling me about his trip to Australia and about sharks, boy this kid knew about sharks! Sounds like Norweigans as tight buggers too, he was saying that Norway is one of the richest places on earth but still a lot of the Norwegians go over to Sweden to do there shopping because prices here are too high. by the way there are some great little shops around too. i was just a little bit outside of the city when i found a couple of streets that had all these cool cafes, bars and vintage clothing stores. brilliant! and i think i found the best music store EVER, some really great vinyl as well as CD's. you name it they had it! there are some really cool furniture shops here too. i dunno where this love of furniture has come from but ever since i started traveling, i love going into furniture shops. strange!

i had a minor freak out the other day. i know what caused it too. its because i haven't been creative for a while. its something i've had for years but i've only in recent years figured out what it is and how to fix it. its like a strange energy i get and i can only let it out creatively and as you can imagine its a bit hard to do that at the moment. i get really restless and can't sleep properly its kinda strange. its a good thing when i can create but i'm finding it really frustrating at the moment.

Off to Stockholm next, which i think will be pretty cool. can't wait!