This morning, Ryan, Shashank, and Elizabeth got up early to make their flights back to the USA. Allan and Benton left a bit later for their flights to Oslo, followed by Joe (whose flight to the USA wasn’t until later in the day).
Benton and Allan’s flight was super empty. However, we turned around and noticed that one row of 3 people had:
2 huge (like offensive lineman sized guys)
1 larger woman.
One of the larger guys asked if he could move to one of the many completely open rows, but the way he phrased it was quite funny. The quote was “Can I move? This viking guy is too big” (he definitely knew the “viking guy”).
Allan and Benton eventually landed at the Oslo airport. The airport is super far from downtown, but fortunately the train into the city is nice and fast. We then dropped our luggage off at Bunks at Rode, roaming around to get food at Brauð Toastbar (this felt super overpriced, and we ended up getting like $12 beers).
We then biked to The Botanical Garden (the bike share bikes are tiny, but the app is super convenient, and it only cost like $11 for a 3 day pass; this helped a ton with allowing us to get around the city quickly). The botanical garden (which was also more of a park), was cool. It was hot outside, and there were a ton of people sunbathing/barely wearing any clothing in the park which was a bit funny.
*It turned out that we lucked out big time with the weather in Oslo, and this is part of why so many people were outside. For the stretch of days before we arrived, the high was mid 50s. When we arrived, it was sunny and mid-high 70s, and then on the day we left the cooler weather was back.
We then backed to our hotel to check in fully, before biking to Nedre Foss (a waterfall inside of the city; neat but nothing crazy). From there, we biked down to Oslo Opera House, which was a bit of a crazy ride, as we encountered a lot of construction and generally didn’t know where the bikes were supposed to ride/how to yield. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic, and the attitude of “we can kinda figure it out” felt pretty safe.
After walking around the opera house area, Allan tried to buy a physical metro card. Benton didn’t feel like roaming around to do this (since the app he downloaded worked fine), so he ended up walking to Stortingsparken and waiting.
Ultimately, Allan did manage to buy a physical card, but not before accidentally buying a 24 hour (non rechargeable) card as well; he had to try multiple locations before he found one that actually sold the card.
Next, we walked to Lekter’n to get (non-alcoholic) drinks along the water, before then walking back along the water to SALT - Art & Music for dinner/sauna. When we got to SALT, we decided that we could probably do better for dinner somewhere else, so we hopped back on the bike share to Rice Bowl Thai Café. Dinner was good (mainly good because of the large portions), and after dinner we went back to SALT in order to go to the sauna.
*The last time in Oslo, Benton went to SALT with his buddies and had a blast; there are multiple sauna rooms of varying temperatures, and the largest sauna sits above a bar, so you can drink beer in the sauna as well. Also, on weekends, they have a DJ under the seating for the sauna, which was fun. Benton was a bit pressed about going back with Allan.
We bought a beer, and then went into the sauna. At this point, Allan said something to the effect of “This is the hottest place I’ve ever been; I’ve never gone in a sauna before.” Benton was entertained, as this was a crazy first sauna experience to have, and he also knew that the first sauna was a walk in the park compared to the smaller sauna we would go into next.
After finishing our beers, we grabbed some glasses of water and moved into the hot sauna. We went in, Allan was like “wow this is hot,” and shortly after some guy dumped 3 big scoops of water onto the rocks, at which point Allan kinda just started struggling to exist.
We didn’t last super long in the hot sauna, so we got out and Allan got to experience a cold plunge in a barrel (continuously filled will fjord water). He dipped his hand in and said “oh this isn’t that cold,” but it was plenty cold to make dunking his entire body in the water a pretty funny experience to watch. Benton also took a cold plunge for a bit, and then they went back into the hot sauna to heat up (no one else was in there this time, so we didn’t have to deal with water being poured on the rocks).
Finally, we went back into the original sauna until it closed around 10:30pm, at which point we showered, changed, and left, taking a bus back to our hotel. It was cool to see light still out this late, since the day had already been so long. When we got back, we pretty much went straight to sleep.
*Despite it sounding like Allan maybe didn’t have the most enjoyable time at the sauna, he very quickly started saying he would go back, and then he enjoyed how the sauna made him feel. Benton considers this a win overall.
