Copenhagen Cruisin'

For how often I look at Groupon, I have actually never bought anything because my conscience kicks in before the credit card does and it goes "You don't need it. You never would have spent money on that". But my Groupon virginity was taken when a deal for a cruise from Oslo to Copenhagen was only $25. Our entire floor plus others in the building bought the deal and we went to Copenhagen for the weekend.

The deal was 2 people for $50 so we booked in pairs thinking that we would have to share a cabin with one other person, but once we got on the boat and looked at our boarding passes we realized that we all had separate rooms...as in our living situation was better on the boat than in our dorm rooms in Oslo. The cruise itself was a lot of fun. We took advantage of empty bars and discotheques, climbing apparatuses on the upper deck, and "free items" on the ship.

Once we got to Copenhagen we realized that no one had a map or any clue of what to do so we just started walking around. Eventually we got a map from a mini mart and made our way to Christiania, which is an autonomous part of Copenhagen. It's grungy and no pictures are allowed inside otherwise your camera will be smashed so here is one picture from the outside.

Lots of psychedelic murals inside

The city itself is beautiful. The canals throughout the city look exactly like they do in pictures. I can imagine how lively it gets in the spring and summer time and can't wait to go again with my parents when they come to visit at the end of June.

After a confusing one hour water taxi up and down Copenhagen, we finally made it to the Little Mermaid, another statue that in my opinion is overrated. Europe really loves their small insignificant statues. It's okay though because Adrien did his own interpretation which was much more entertaining. 

There were some complications coming back into Oslo but we all made it home tired and exhausted from a very eventful weekend.

Andrea's Visit

Sorry for the lack of blog posts these past couple of weeks...I have literally been all over Europe. Bear with me please, there will be posts coming one right after the other.

So Andrea came to Oslo the first weekend in March. My first visitor! It started off a bit rough because the morning of her flight I went to the ski championships where Sally and I met some fine Alaskan men who were generous with their liquid supplies to keep warm - hence I passed out midday and slept through my alarm to get Andrea at the bus station and left her stranded for about an hour. I think everyone I've told this story to has been like "WTF YOU ARE THE WORST FRIEND", and all I have to say is yes, yes I am. But at least out of all my friends Andrea is the one who can handle it the most. Literally woke up to her phone call and ran to the bus station, face still covered in "USA USA" from the championships.

I think mother nature must have known she had to impress when Andrea came to Oslo because the weather was  the best I had ever experienced in Oslo that weekend. The sun was out everyday, it was in positive temperatures, and I even got a little hot in my winter coat. I'm glad I got a visitor because I finally got to see all the tourist attractions in Oslo. You'd think after 2 months here I would have seen some more sights but I had that mindset of  "Oh, I'm here for 6 months. I'll make it there eventually". We spent over an hour and probably 2 miles walking around Vigeland Park trying to find that famous naked baby statue. I was under the impression that it was a huge statue because it's one of the most famous pieces in the park...but after wandering around we had to ask a Norwegian where it is. Turns out its like a 2 foot statue on a rail of a bridge. Lame. I don't understand famous artwork.

Fuck you baby 

Beautiful weather

We only had one full day of sightseeing because the second day we spent being true Norwegians - skiing. In the morning we went cross country skiing. For any of you who know Andrea, I did not expect her to do well. Surprisingly she made it down a huge hill that most people eat it on and only fell once on a tiny tiny hill. Of course that had to be documented since she was stuck for a while and had to be helped by a man skiing by.

Her legs got a bit twisted too

Then we spent the rest of the day at Holmenkollen Ski Jump to watch part of the ski championships. Beautiful weather and world ski championships? Andrea definitely picked the best weekend to come.