Day 8: Oslo

Akershus Castle
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Today, we were off to see some sights.  We walked towards Akershus Fortress.  This castle and fortress is situated right along the water.  Across the bay you can see Aker Brygge.  It's beautiful.  The fortress grounds are incredibly pretty.  Now it's been converted into a park of sorts.  The castle inside the fortress cost us 35 Kroner(student prices) to enter but it was well worth it.  The castle is absolutely gorgeous.  Not huge by any means, but gorgeous.  We explored ALL over that fortress!

On Akershus Fortress looking out towards Aker Brygge
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Next, we headed off to the Aker Brygge area again since it was so close by to have some lunch.  We went to Deli de Luca, a fancy shmancy (but extremely affordable) deli of sorts.  TJ got some sort of Chinese beef noodles.  Melissa got some tortellini.  We bought some sodas and sat down by the pier to enjoy our cheap lunch.  Not only was it cheap, but it was yummy!  We then got, yes, you guessed it... another ice cream (we've been ice-creamed out in Oslo since it's so hot!) and sat down by the pier to people-watch.  We learned that Norway is an incredibly successful country with the typical Norwegian person only spending an average of 6 hours on paid labor, while the other 18 hours of the day are spent either sleeping or doing some other leisure activity.  We believe it!  It was a Tuesday afternoon and people were still out and about lounging around!

Enjoying some Deli de Luca by Aker Brygge
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After a nice amount of time people-watching at Aker Brygge, we headed on over to Nasjonalmuseet (the National Art Museum).  This is a free gallery with quite impressive collections of Cezanne, Gauguin, Manet, Picasso, and of course.. everyone's favorite Norwegian - Edvard Munch.  Yes, we saw Skrik, or The Scream.  It was quite awesome.  We then headed on down towards the main thoroughfare of Oslo, Karl Johans Gate.   We walked around for a while and people-watched again (since it's not like we can afford any real restaurant establishments).  TJ had been craving some serious chocolate and we headed on again to Deli de Luca (this time, the one on Karl Johans Gate) where earlier in the day, TJ had seen an Oreo Dream Bar.  TJ bought his dream bar and we sat down to enjoy the warm day.

As much as we were enjoying ourselves, we headed back early to Melissa's uncle and aunt's house as our bus to the airport is scheduled to leave at 6:30 p.m. tonight.  Tomorrow morning (5:30 a.m.), we shall be traveling in the Chunnel from London to Paris and will be in Paris tomorrow.  Can't wait!