The weekend after Galway, Rosa (from across the hall), Sarah and I traveled to Oslo, Norway. In November. Not exactly the busiest tourist time for Norway. It was cold, and dreary. The sun set even earlier than it does in Ireland; usually around 3:30 in the afternoon. That makes it really hard to get out and be active. It's even harder when most of the touristy things to do are closed during the winter. We still visited them of course, but we didn't get to take the tours of the Royal Palace or Parliament like we wanted to do.
Overall, the city was really nice. I would definitely go back during the summer sometime, and go to some smaller towns and see the fjords and things. We stayed entirely inside the city of Oslo which, in hindsight, was a mistake. There just wasn't enough to do to keep us entirely busy for the whole weekend. The highlight was the Ice Bar, which was one of the coolest things I did during the semester. Sarah had found out about it somehow, so we made reservations. At first, we looked in and saw a few people in suits and fancy dresses, and were worried we would be under-dressed and not fit in, but by the time we finally got in it was a normal, tourist crowd and we had a great time.
One thing I will say is that things are VERY EXPENSIVE in Oslo! At a pub one night I bought a pint for 92 NOK, which equals 15 euros, or about $20-25. I imagine that will be one of the most expensive pints of nondescript beer I'll ever buy. This came to be the theme of the entire trip, and by the end I wasn't even doing the conversions anymore just to save me the shock.
Anyway, my next post will be a description of this last 2 weeks or so in Ireland. I will do it hopefully before I leave on Thursday morning. I don't think I've ever been this upset over leaving a place.
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