lets see....
i woke up sick the day we left and felt terrible all weekend. sore throat, super congested, head ache, body aches, exhaustion.
it took 4 long and crowded bus rides in addition to the flight to get there.
we arrived in oslo city centre around 500pm (having left edinburgh at 700am) and it was sleeting, borderline hailing.
we got lost trying to find our hostel, bus dropped us off in the middle of a highway. after much wandering we found a taxi, thank goodness.
the hostel was out in the middle of nowhere, but it was super nice. like a 5-star hotel compared to our flat in edinburgh. that was good at least.
i went to bed around 8pm and felt even worse when i woke up.
BUT free (and tastey) breakfast at the hostel. that was also nice.
then we caught a tram to the city centre and it resembled a ghost town.
NO ONE was out, i thought maybe there had been a nuclear war I had missed or something. very strange.
nothing really opened until noon so we went to the sculpture park. that was pretty cool, except that it was raining. all day. and everything was dead. plants and flowers and trees. felt like i was back in ice storm 2007!
so then we went to the free museum in the park about the history of oslo. waited for about half an hour unti it opened only to discover that EVERYTHING was in Norwegian. we just walked around looking at pictures wondering what it all meant.
then we wandered around the city in the rain for awhile trying to decide what to do. navigating in norwegian is not easy and deciding on places to visit without making anyone upset was also a job.
so we had a day pass for all city transportation so we went out and rode a fairy around in a circle. would have been much more enjoyable if it wasnt so foggy and my body didnt feel like it was going to spontaneously combust :(
then we ate lunch at a weird little basement diner. i had a shot of whiskey to sooth my throat :) worked for awhile, then wore off. then i later calculated that i paid about 9 bucks for it. oslo is NOT cheap.
then we went to the edvard munch museum which i had been looking forward to all day cause i was so excited to see the scream.
went through the whole museum. no scream. not currently on display they told me at the end. of course. so i bought a postcard of it, close as i got :(
but what was up was still pretty cool.
by this point is was 4pm. already pitch black outside and the entire city had closed down except a mall in the center of town.
it was obvious nothing else was open because im pretty sure ALL of norway was crammed into this one building. very crowded.
and ya know that feeling when you have a ton of air in your stomach and if you could just burp for like 10 minutes straight you'd feel 10 times better?
well thats how I felt at this point and it made me want to throw up all over the mall. i needed some comfort food for dinner, so i had burger king.
at this point i thought my brain was going to explode so i told my traveling companion, "sorry i have to go home and sleep or im going to fall over dead."
so we went home around 6pm and i went straight to bed. then woke up at about 2am after having some super funky "sick dreams."
went to the tv room downstairs and watched a movie on tv with some other "couldnt sleep" people. ate the rest of my french fries. took some medicine.
went back to bed and slept much better. except woke up in the morning dripping in sweat. i now have a fever :)
so we left at 10am to catch a bus to the city centre. then a bus to the airport (figured out why the ryanair tickets are so cheap--the airports arent actually IN the cities).
then waited for 3 hours at the airport for our flight. the flight was only an hour and a half but i went to the bathroom 3 times because my nose would not stop running!
the stewardess thought i was doing drugs probably.
then catch a bus from the airport "in" glasgow to the real glasgow. a few minutes into the bus ride some drunk glasgow teenagers get on and sit right in front of us.
now, glasgow accents are way different than edinburgh accents. they are about 10 times harder to understand; literally a different language.
so a
drunk glasgow accent is gibberish. needless to say, they were disgusting. brought on a pack of budweiser (classy) and spilled them everywhere to the point that the bus driver stopped the bus and threatened to kick them off. they were spitting on the floor and screaming lines from Borat the whole hour and half ride.
then we get on the bus in the real glasgow to take us to edinburgh. please, someone take me home to edinburgh!!
that bus ride was also full of drunken teenagers playing music on their cell phones with NO headphones.
that plus my headache plus my throat plus my fountain of a nose and my one soaking wet wad of toilet paper i had left as a kleenex, i literally almost had a nervous breakdown. got off the bus in edinburgh, went to the bathroom (which note: you have to PAY to use a bathroom in a bus terminal. thats right, pay to PEE). i said a few choice words as i searched for 20p to go pee. had a good long cry in the stall. then finished the 30 minute walk back to our flat.
so what did i learn on this trip?
1. always bring kleenex EVERYWHERE
2. oslo must be beautiful in the SUMMER
3. i LOVE edinburgh so much more now
pictures can be viewed here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2023250&l=46bd5&id=177501993
My family this year. 
