Oslo, february 2019

When an incoming storm forced us to leave the Lofoten Islands a day early (or risk missing our flights back to Colorado), my friends and I found ourselves with an afternoon to spare in Oslo. Never one to stay in the airport when there’s any other option for a layover, I took us into the capitol.

I don’t know how many times I’ve visited Oslo in my life, but for once I was not here to visit friends, or go to a concert, or apply for visas at the American embassy, and with no set goal for the trip beyond showing my American friends all my favorite parts of the city. We wandered through the streets, stopping for coffee at a converted kulturhus (civic center / art museum / performance space), and street food at a huge food hall, and cocktails at the cutest little bar that invited us in with their botanical theme. Because it’s the one tourist attraction I can never pass up, we walked up to the roof of the Oslo Opera House that overlooks the Oslofjord. And we vowed to come back with more time one day, so we can rent one of the floating saunas.