Norwegian Excursion (Part 1)

The morning after spending the night at Gronjords, Albert and I headed straight back to Hoffmans on the Metro. After I quickly finished my packing for the upcoming trip, I headed back downtown with Albert to Rådhuspladsen (Copenhagen's town hall square) where we met up with the rest of our class. A quick bus ride then took all of us to the ferry that would transport us to Norway. Although I expected the ferry to be fairly modest, it turned out that the ship was a huge cruise liner - complete with hot tubs, a cafe, several restaurants and bars, and a general store where you could buy everything from shoes to chocolate duty free.  I spent the rest of the day exploring, then eventually grabbed dinner from a massive buffet (the seafood was excellent), chatted with my classmates, and worked on a presentation for the next day with a girl from my class named Ellen before heading to bed in my cabin.

A Deckside View of Our Cruise Ship

The next morning, I woke up early to try to see a few fjords from the deck of the ship; sadly, it was too foggy to see anything much so I headed back to bed. After waking up a second time, I grabbed brunch and quickly packed everything to prepare for our arrival in Oslo. Immediately after arriving, we settled into a hotel room (I roomed with Sam and Albert, who would be my roommates for the rest of the trip) and then grabbed lunch before heading to visit a state-owned Norwegian company called Statkraft that provides renewable energy solutions. They presented to us for a while on what their company does; afterward, I headed to a Viking ship museum with a group of classmates, which wasn't quite as epic as I expected but was still pretty sick nonetheless. Then, we all headed back to Oslo, explored, and grabbed dinner from a local pizza place. Afterward I went out with Sam, Albert, and Kelsey; we found a local bar and we met a Norwegian DJ who told us all about the house music scene in both Scandinavia and the US before heading back to the hotel.

The Main Floor of the Cruise Ship to Oslo

The next day, the class went to visit a company called CICERO - a research center that investigates climate change issues. Afterward, me and a few other people (Sam, Max, and Jason) went to visit the Nobel Peace Prize museum before heading to another lecture by another cleantech company called Mitt Klima. AFterward, we went back to the hotel, grabbing our bags, and hopped on a train bound for Voss (a small mountain resort known for its excellent hiking and skiing). After getting off the train, we all got on a bus that would take us the rest of the way; however, though we thought the ride would be only an hour or so, when we got on the bus driver immediately announced that the trip would be a total of FOUR STRAIGHT HOURS. It was one hell of a ride, but I powered through it by chatting with Ivy for most of the time. The ride was also made tolerable by the awe-inspiring view of several mountain fjords. Once we arrived in Voss, we immediately settled into a new hotel (which was ten times better than the last one) and I went with Sam and Albert to seek out food. Sadly, few places were open so we had to resort to eating at a 7-Eleven (yes, there are 7-Elevens all over Europe). Then, we went back to the room and talked for a while before heading to bed.