The Past Six Weeks

I take the train to work every Thursday and save all of my tickets so I can be reimbursed at the end of each term. It felt like I’d been back from Dusseldorf for about three days and was utterly dumbfounded when I added the last two tickets to the paper clipped stack of six weeks’ worth of teaching. I have no idea where the last term went. It’s been a whirlwind of throwing together lesson plans, reading a shedload of books and consuming a gallon or so of Loire region wine. I went to an Ed Sheeran concert in Nantes, finally got round to reading Le Petit Prince and booked all manner of exciting trips to carry me through until the end of the academic year.

When I got back to France in January I decided I needed to speak a hell of a lot more French and so we decided to start going to Café des Langues, a fortnightly gathering of internationals who want to practise their foreign languages or offer up their native tongue to other language learners. Over a few drinks we made friends with some lovely Brazilians who are studying at the university in Le Mans and have since been welcomed into their huge friend group of dozens of international students. Being a language assistant is great, but making new friends when most of the people you interact with are younger than ten can be a bit tricky. Our weekends now consist of dinner soirées, beer pong tournaments, museum trips, cinema jaunts and Cuba Libres in our beloved Mulligan’s pub with a myriad of people from all over the world, where our main mutual language is French. I’m finally making some real French progress and the headaches from entire French days are slowly becoming less debilitating. RESULT.

Anyway, the end of a term means yet another half term break (I swear I work sometimes), this time taking form in a trip to the Berlin International Film Festival with my friend Jennifer from uni and a Megabus extravaganza through Brussels, Bruges and Amsterdam with my house mate Alicia.

BERLIN

I caught a train to Paris on February 6^th, stayed in Jennifer’s minuscule yet adorable Parisian flat and the following morning dragged ourselves onto the RER at an ungodly hour for our early morning flight to Berlin TXL. We spent the first day wondering around the various ticket outlets trying to get into Charlotte Rampling’s new film with Tom Courtenay, 45 Years, and eventually managed to score tickets for a 10pm showing (cue happy dance). In betwixt queuing in the rain, film programme in hand, we managed to get sehr, sehr lost on the metro, check out the Berlin Film Museum – absolutely brilliant – wander round Potsdamer Platz and see the Holocaust Memorial and Brandenburg Gate just as it was getting dark. With three hours to kill before the film screening we decided to find a bar near the cinema, a seemingly simple task, we were in Berlin for Pete’s sake. Apparently not. After about an hour of shuffling our slowly dying feet through identical, barless streets, mistaking luminous, rope light teeth as bar signs (I kid you not, German dentists could be mistaken for a night club), we finally spotted a Mexican restaurant – rum AND nachos; life was brilliant. 45 Years, when we finally got there, was a wonderful film and I’m über excited to check it out again when it’s properly released. The next day we wandered through Alexanderplatz, went to the Dom cathedral to get a gorgeous view of Berlin’s skyline and went and queued some more to try and get tickets for Christian Bale’s new film Knight of Cups.  Two hours of waiting in the cold & yet again more cries of ‘ausgebucht’. Sold out again.

But all wasn’t in vain, we’d been stood next to the Berlinale Palast and managed to spot Ian McKellen on the red carpet before the premiere of his new Sherlock Holmes film. Happy dancing all round. We also decided to get tickets on a whim for a Spanish film to make our hours of standing in the cold somewhat worthwhile. Turns out it was a documentary film about Chilean rivers or something. I have no idea. Ashamed to say I fell asleep within the first twenty minutes.

Determined to see Knight of Cups, one of the big films of the festival, we got up early on our last full day to try and get tickets for a re-screening. Naturally it was sold out again, but we were told they might find some more tickets if we were willing to wait two hours until an hour before it began. We still have no idea where exactly they were procuring seats in a sold out venue, but whatever, three hours later we were sat, ticket in hand, through a terribly disappointing 119 minutes of Christian Bale slowly spiralling out of control. Wunderbar. Next up was Ian McKellen’s Mr Holmes, which we’d thankfully managed to get tickets for online. It was utterly fantastic and I’m very glad we ended the festival on a decent film that actually had some plot (& obvs Ian McKellen – all hail).

All in all, we queued a lot, saw a lot of films and somehow managed to go to Berlin and without once properly stepping foot on Unter den Linden, but w/e. Berlin became one of my favourite cities and we missed out enough of the main sights to warrant a repeat trip. I’m already peeing with excitement.

BELGIUM

After a quick pit stop in Le Mans to quickly repack and pick up Alicia, we were soon in Porte Maillot coach park waiting for our Megabus from Paris to Brussels. We arrived at 15:00 and had a few hours to kill before we could meet our AirBNB host to dump our rucksacks in our temporary flat. After navigating ourselves with a trusty bus stop map we made our way to the Grand Place to gawp at the gorgeous buildings in the city’s main square, found the underwhelming yet hilarious Manneken Pis, walked around the cathedral and realised we’d ticked off half of our itinerary in the first 45 minutes. Excellent. Time for waffles. Also excellent. Eventually we made it to our BNB, gave our aching shoulders some light relief and struggled with wifi that only worked in the doorway to the apartment block. Perfect when all the inhabitants were coming home from work and we had a tonne of directions to research. All the apologies.

Next on the agenda was a train ride to Bruges where we befriended a crazy German (?) man who repeatedly asked the same question about the towel situation in hostels about 8 times. Too early for your nonsense, leave us alone crazy man. Kthxbye. The weather was pretty decent so we were able to enjoy a long day wandering around the city, ogling at pretty buildings and canals and lusting after waffle stands. Willing to go to ridiculous lengths for a city view, we I thought it’d be a good idea to climb the Belfry in the main square, so 366 steps we dizzily dragged ourselves onto the observation level of the tower and ogled some more at Bruges’s pretty rooftops and tried our best to not be in the back of some French lady’s utterly pointless video while we slowly keeled over, panting to death. Note to self, stop being a wimp. Later, we visited the chocolate museum, because Belgium, and were thoroughly amused by the excessive use of Playmobil and terrifying wax works (I have no idea either). It was a bit naff – understatement - but it was warm and had welcoming trays of free samples (yay for poorness).

On Saturday, we tracked down all the places we’d missed in Brussels, including the Atonium, Royal Palace, the BELvue museum of Belgium, Coudenberg and the museum of musical instruments, before settling down in a bar for some well-earned Belgian beers. Not too shabby.

Brussels

Bruges

Bruges

Brussels

AMSTERDAM

Sunday morning found us back on the Megabus on our way to Amsterdam, a beautiful city with far too many human beings and seemingly even more bikes. I’m still not entirely sure what I thought of Amsterdam. It’s a stunning city with a fascinating history, excellent food – everyone needs bitterballen and poffertjes in their life – some world class museums and obviously all the taboo tourist traps that have become synonymous with the Dutch capital for all who wish to partake. It’s a wonderful place but something just felt a bit off.  

After dumping our bags in our hostel, we didn’t really have a plan so decided to walk through the Museumplein and up the Prinsengracht canal to find the Anne Frank House. On our way, we found the Fault in our Stars bench (because book nerds), I added to the hundreds of messages by carving my name (because Nerdfighter) and shamelessly corrected someone’s French grammar (because lame nerd). We strolled along the canal and checked out a few hipsterry antique and clothes shops before eventually finding Prinsengracht 263, AKA the Anne Frank House. The queue was absolutely enormous so we decided to return early the next morning and went and found somewhere to eat. We made it back at 8:30am the following day and already found a sizeable queue snaking along the side of the building. Ridiculous. But we joined the end and shivered for about two hours until we finally made it through the doors and into the museum. The house’s history certainly resonates through the building with short excerpts from the diary printed on the walls and at Otto Frank’s request, is now devoid of any furniture to represent the emptiness left after the Holocaust. It’s a haunting place but an absolute must-visit.

After filling up on bitterballen we headed out on a free walking tour which took us around the city centre, old town, Jordaan neighbourhood and the Red Light District. It was still relatively early in the evening so this hedonistic playground was still quite tame with only a small number of occupied windows, one of which by a woman playing Candy Crush on her iPad. Whatever floats your boat. One of the coffee shops in the area – famous for selling all manner of substances definitely stronger than coffee – was blaring out Roxanne by The Police. The irony.

Tuesday was our last day in Amsterdam and the last day of our February travels. We started early with a 9am slot at the Van Gogh museum, celebrated Pancake Day with Dutch bacon pancakes and wandered through Vondel Park. In the late afternoon we headed over to Body Worlds, a human preservation/plastination museum and the strangest and most surreal place I’ve ever visited. The building is full of over 200 ‘anatomical specimens’ of preserved human bodies. Absolutely mental. It could be an unsettling place but once I stopped thinking ZOMG THS WAS A REAL PERSON WITH A HOUSE AND A JOB AND PROBABLY A PET CAT it became quite interesting. Body Worlds is a fascinating museum and if anything, it made me want to run everywhere and only eat lettuce and kale for the rest of my life. I’m definitely glad we went, even if I do see a spine every time I go to sleep. Grim.

At 21:30 we picked up our bags from the hostel and made our way to the Megabus pick up spot in a coach park just outside the city. We were due to leave at 23:00, arriving in Paris at 6:00 the following morning, where we’d catch the train back to Le Mans at 7:00. Unfortunately, Megabus had other ideas and decided to turn up just before 1am. How kind. There’s nothing like shivering in a car park for two hours while an operator in Glasgow informs you she’s not quite sure when the bus is due to arrive while sporadically making you listen to diabolical hold music to make you absolutely love life. But we made it home eventually, albeit five hours later than expected. Damn you Megabus. I hope at some point in my life I’ll be able to visit other countries without using terrible coaches and staying in nasty hostels with a back pack filled with packets of ramen noodles and bags of sawdust masquerading as cereal bars. But whatever, it’ll certainly do for now.

Miles out. X

Better Late Than Never...

In typical, lazy, student fashion I’ve been meaning to get back into this for weeks, but a lot’s happened since I got back from my Scandinavia trip! Two days after getting back from Oslo, my housemate Alicia and I endured a 16 hour Megabus trip to Barcelona to see Placebo, it was a painstakingly long trip but definitely worth the agony to be about a metre away from Brian Molko and spend a few days aimlessly walking round the Catalonian capital. Still exhausted after Scandinavia, we skipped making any real plan and opted to just wander around, visiting the extortionately priced but weirdly pretty Sagrada Familia, and enjoying some pretty decent sangria and tapas.

Once we’d made it back to Le Mans it was time to properly start work and so I stayed put for a few weeks to work out how on earth I was supposed to not be grossed out by tiny children and somehow make them learn some English words. Turns out most of them are somewhat adorable and love shouting ‘HELLO SOPHIE’ at me literally every three seconds. It’s like being a C-list celebrity, incapable of going anywhere in the schools without a small entourage, all of which are fighting to hold my hand and ask dozens of nonsensical questions. (My favourite deciding that I’m definitely a superhero for having a scaffold bar ear piercing, I’ll take that). Teaching’s going pretty well, they all seem pretty excited about learning more English, especially when I bring out episodes of Peppa Pig and glittery ‘well done’ stickers and I’ve only made them cry twice. I’ll take that as a win.

When I’m not teaching, which let’s be honest is most of the time, I like to spend my time battling with my French bank who love to throw all manner of infuriating crises my way. Turns out all roads don’t lead to Rome; they lead to Crédit Agricole Place de la République. They like to capture my bank card and then hold it captive for their three day weekend (obviously working Mondays is just too tough), then when I could finally collect it told me that they’d send me a new PIN number in 1-3 weeks seemingly by carrier pigeon and then require me getting three card replacements in four weeks because a working debit card chip is obviously just too much to ask for. I absolutely love being at the front of the checkout queue in Carrefour and then having to hang my head in shame as I walk away sans shopping after countless failed card attempts. I genuinely think a trial by combat against Gregor Clegane would be easier than dealing with the Crédit Agricole numbskulls.

After a month of discovering all that Le Mans has to offer – including our new favourite Irish pub Mulligan’s <3 – I started to get a bit restless and took a trip to Rennes for the day with my housemate Alicia. Having been cooped up in Le Mans it was excellent to wander round a new city’s Christmas market, old town and cathedral as well as paying a visit to the Musée de Bretagne and discovering an adorable three storey book shop which pained us to leave. Speaking of bookshops, the following week I took an impulsive trip to Paris to see my friend Jennifer and hang out with the ghosts of Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald in Shakespeare & Co, a rickety, Anglophone bookshop in the Latin Quarter. Equipped with a new, beautiful copy of the Hobbit and Sherlock Holmes’ Case Book we went onwards to Café les Deux Magots, the Musée D’Orsay and eventually the top of the Arc de Triomphe to take in the Parisian skyline at night. Hallelujah for free 16-25 entry!

Next up on December 12^th was my much anticipated trip back to Manchester to see Natalia Tena’s (Game of Thrones/Harry Potter) band Molotov Jukebox. It was really nice to catch up with my uni friends and be reacquainted with British cider and appropriately priced painkillers (I’m never paying €4 for ibuprofen again) and thanks very much to Natalie & Emily who let me sleep on their sofas! It was a brilliant two days in Manchester but it all passed two quickly and I was soon on the train to London where I’d eventually catch the Megabus back to Paris. I met up with my friend George in Euston station and enjoyed six hours wandering round the British Museum, the biggest Forbidden Planet (nerd heaven) I’ve ever been in and eventually the Sherlock Holmes museum where we both far too tall for the low hanging light fittings.

The following week I was up bright and early to catch the train to Charles de Gaulle to fly home for Christmas! After three months it was wonderful to be reunited with my family, friends and pets back home and Christmas was absolutely lovely, even if it did pass far too quickly. Hats off to my Mum’s ingenious idea to wrap stuffing in bacon btw. It was sad to say bye to everyone again, especially Columbus - the greatest dog ever - but it was soon time to head off to Düsseldorf to bring in the new year with my housemates. After a horrifically early flight I met them in the airport’s train station and then spent about two hours working out how to actually leave the airport. Great start. Whilst in Düsseldorf, we visited the Altstadt, walked along Königsallee, enjoyed some pretty great German food, went up the Rhine Tower (which really needs to work on its entrance and exit dealio) and spent hours trying to follow the Google Maps app to find the Wildpark before realising that we had the address for a street called Wildpark which we’d been walking up and down while despairing at the map. Awkward. When New Year’s Eve came around we headed to the Altstadt again to see what I’d been promised were some pretty decent fireworks, unaware that it was effectively a ‘bring your own fireworks’ party with hundreds of people lighting rockets out of their bare hands and any bottles they could find. Absolute nutters. But it was an experience and to be fair they were pretty good fireworks!

Now I’m back in Le Mans and am already trying to work out where I’m going to go in the next half term break in February! I’m pretty keen to speak more French this year and definitely want to travel around more of France. Since starting my year abroad I’ve been to ten new cities, so here’s hoping for many more in the New Year!

Now I’m going to watch the end of Miranda and enjoy some quality 35c noodles. Living the Sunday high life.

Bonne année! X

Sangria

Sagrada Familia

Rennes

Sherlock Holmes Museum

Königsallee

Christmas Day!

Scandinavia

Bonjour! 

So after only working for a week, we were treated with a two week break for half term. I was determined to make the most of all free time in France we decided to plan a ten day trip, travelling around Scandinavia. I love Scandinavia. The people are lovely,  it’s filled with those quintessential European cobbled streets that I love so much and it’s not such a tourist hub that it’s impossible to get anywhere without a battering ram (cough Paris).

COPENHAGEN

My trip started in Denmark where I met my friend Emily in Copenhagen airport and we immediately headed into the city centre to find our hostel. The original plan was to go to a Deaf Havana gig, but naturally the tour was cancelled after I’d booked flights and accommodation. Mildly infuriating, but Copenhagen’s a beautiful city regardless. We’d made a detailed pan of where we were going to ensure we made it to the ‘must see’ parts, since we were in the city for just under 24 hours. We started by heading to the Rundetårn & after climbing to the top had a beautiful panoramic view of the city. I’m a sucker for city views and would definitely recommend walking up the steep ramp inside the tower to get to the top – it’s a novel alternative to 42m worth of steps. Ingenious. Next we wondered down to the Rosenborg castle and were honestly a bit surprised by how tiny it was. Nice to look at, but a bit anticlimactic after wandering through the relatively impressive grounds, but whatever.

On our way to Amalienborg (the Royal family’s main residence) we stopped by Frederiks Kirke, a vast, white church with a domed roof and eventually found ourselves in the courtyard of the royal palace.  Considering it’s the Danish equivalent of Buckingham Palace, complete with a changing of the guard, I marvelled at the fact that there was probably only about six people there. None of the twenty deep crowds you’d find standing outside the gates of Queen Lizzy’s house trying to catch a glimpse of a Bearskin hat.  Despite being Denmark’s capital city, Copenhagen felt small and quaint, with none of the urgency I’ve found in other capitals like London or Paris, and it was lovely to look around popular spots without awkwardly being in the back of countless other people’s photos.

By this point it was getting quite cold as we walked along the water to get to the Little Mermaid, probably the most famous (and smallest) tourist spot in Copenhagen. We wandered through Kastellet and eventually saw her tiny figure in the distance. She’s a tough cookie, having often had limbs/heads removed for various political/social protests so it was nice to see her in one piece, even if she does look fairly miserable.

We’d finished our itinerary by about 18:30 and so decided to turn back on ourselves and walk back up the waterside to get to Nyhavn (that harbour with the colourful houses that’s on literally every postcard, ever). Obviously, there had to be at least one clumsy disaster, this time taking form in me nearly falling backwards into a really deep fountain; much to the delight/fear of a small group of American tourists. Well played Miles. Anyway, we eventually reached Nyhavn and fully understood why it’s the most popularly used image of the city. It’s gorgeous – an abundance of fairy lights and Balamory-esque buildings reflected in the water, in between the multitude of boats lined up in the harbour. We decided to eat in one of the many adorable restaurants and thoroughly enjoyed sitting down after a long day of walking around.

Unfortunately our second day was a bit less successful. We woke up to absolutely horrible weather – a torrential downpour that could rival Manchester in winter, and naturally I’d forgotten to bring an umbrella. But we still headed out with hopes of visiting the Church of our Saviour and climbing the spire but unluckily it was closed due to the downpour. Already absolutely soaked at 10am, we then walked over to Christiana, a lawless, hippy free town where anything goes due to technically being an autonomous area within the city. It’s a weird and wonderful place, definitely a bit unsettling since it’s unclear if the locals want visitors wandering around or not, but the colourful, man-made houses and murals are truly beautiful. There’s signs all around the main and busiest street refusing photographs, no doubt so people cannot be accounted for whatever goes on there, but due to the terrible weather and early hour there was hardly anyone there, which if anything made it even more unnerving.

Desperate to get out of the rain, we decided to go to a nearby museum. Nearby as in about two centimetres away on our map, which unfortunately resulted in ninety minutes of hitting dead ends/road works/the literal end of the road into the water and eventually gave up. Thoroughly drenched we went back to the metro stop in search of a café we’d been recommended – cue more aimless wandering in the rain and eventually giving up again. With half a lake oozing out of my shoes, we made it back to the airport at about 15:00 and went our separate ways to board our separate planes, Emily's back to Manchester, mine back to Paris CDG. Such a busy but such a good 24 hours!

STOCKHOLM

After a one day pit stop back in Le Mans to pack and pick up my housemate Alicia, I was reunited with Paris CDG for our flight to Stockholm, Sweden. We arrived in the afternoon and after dumping our bags in a hostel seemingly home to all of Stockholm's nutters headed straight out into the nippy Swedish air. The best view of the city is supposedly from the top of the city hall, which is annoyingly closed in the colder months. But never fear, I'd found a path online which all the locals raved about for the view and was conveniently only about twenty minutes away from our hostel. The locals were right. The view was impeccable and we only saw a handful of people as we soaked it up. Then we walked down the steepest hill I've ever seen and eventually made it to Gamla Stan, Stockholm's old town, which to be honest isn't that old. But it's lovely to walk through and we determinedly tracked down an affordable looking restaurant for the obligatory Swedish meatballs. A meal that's definitely in the top five that I've ever consumed. 

While in Scandinavia, we were really lucky that our days in each country often coincided with the days where museums had free entry - a big bonus when we were absolutely skint in some of the most expensive countries in Europe. Our first free museum was the Nobel Prize centre in the heart of Gamla Stan and we rushed in out of the cold completely by chance on Mr Nobel's birthday. As a result it was quite busy but to be honest a bit naff, interesting-ish but I'd have been pretty peeved had I paid the usual 70 SEK admission (about £7). We then found a pub and sat with cider for a while before heading back to hostel.

The next day we headed straight to the Vasa Museum, supposedly one of the best museums in the world and home to a fully intact warship from 1628 who had her first and last voyage all in the same day. It sounds like a niche thing to visit but it was truly remarkable. The guided tour was interesting, as well as the other exhibitions in the building and it was surreal to stand next to a 172ft high, ornate battle ship. I'd definitely recommend it and the entrance fee's not too bad either (if you've got a student card!). Our next port of call was Skansen, a huge open air 'museum' and zoo with native Scandinavian animals and a plethora of old Swedish buildings. A bit like Beamish but colder and with brown bears and seals. The seals were the absolute highlight of my trip with their adorable faces and strops at feeding time when they weren't being thrown fish fast enough. So cute and so exciting to see one of my favourite animals so close. I'm generally opposed to keeping wild animals in captivity but here the enclosures were absolutely huge and they were all obviously well looked after. Ten points to Sweden.

After Skansen, we went on a magical mystery tour trying to find the city hall but eventually had to turn back to make it to the Swedish History Museum in time for the free entrance fee. It was relatively interesting and it gave us a chance to get out of the cold, enjoy decent tea and later on decent free wi-fi (priorities). We were reluctant to leave Stockholm, it felt so homely and yet so new and so I caught the bus back to the airport thinking of where I want to visit if I get the chance to go back.

HELSINKI

Next stop was Helsinki, Finland. I'd wanted to go for years, honestly since Lordi won Eurovision in 2006, and so was really excited as we walked through the airport and found the bus stop. Sadly everything went down hill from there. To begin with it was really cold. As in snow on the ground and icicles hanging from buildings cold. That wouldn't have bothered us had we been able to get straight onto the bus into the city centre. Instead we stood and shivered in our layers, scarves, wooly hats, thick coats and boots for about half an hour until a bus finally arrived with enough space for us to squeeze on. After checking in to the hostel, bizarrely right in the middle of Helsinki's Olympic stadium we headed out to enjoy what little daylight we had left, with a vague plan of where we wanted to visit on our first day. Firstly, Helsinki just feels weird. Like you're constantly on the set of some independent Scandinavian film with bland colours and desolate streets. I don't know if we just never found the right parts of the city but there was a very strong industrial feeling and it definitely felt like a place to live rather than visit. But I'm glad I went. We began by trying to find the Sibelius monument, a truly bizarre metal sculpture for the composer of the same name, which was on the list of top ten things to visit in Helsinki. Bit weird, but it certainly got us into the spirit of what to expect in this bizarre country.

Next on the list was the Temppeliaukio Church, a church that basically looks like a UFO has crashed into a giant slab of rock and is supposedly something you absolutely shouldn't miss. I don't really understand why. It was closed when we got there (naturally), but when we returned the next day we were even more confused as to why it's such a big deal. The interior has been excavated and built straight out of the bedrock and inside it just feels a bit odd. Modern with purple mood lighting and yet filled with generic churchiness. Bizarre. After our failed first visit we thought we'd try and see the Cathedral while it was still relatively light. In my research I knew we had to get a tram/metro/bus to it which is where our day got really, really bad. Although I'm sure the public transport in Helsinki is perfectly adequate, I've never experienced a system more confusing. What we thought was an underground metro system turned out to be an overground tram line which we just couldn't understand. Having spent about an hour struggling with the map it was now pitch black and so we decided to abandon the Cathedral and go to a pub we'd be recommended and asked a policeman how to get there. Again, there was lots of aimless wandering and getting very lost. Did I mention it was cold? Now it was absolutely freezing. We passed by dozens of pleasant looking pubs but kept on trying to find a library-esque place I'd been told was the best place to go. When we finally tracked down it turned out to be exactly the same as the countless other places we'd passed with a few books on the wall. But the food was alright and they served the Swedish cider we'd tried to find in Stockholm to no avail, so it wasn't all bad. Of course we had no idea how to get back to the hostel and ended up spending far too long standing in a tram stop we hoped would take us in the right direction whilst also trying not to die of frost bite.

The next day was much better. We made it to the Cathedral (beautiful), the Uspenski Cathedral (also beautiful), went up the Olympic tower for the view of the city (big fan), guzzled down hot chocolate (much appreciated) and walked round the National Museum of Finland. Annoyingly we'd spent all day thinking it was Thursday rather than Friday and so missed the National History museum's free entry and late opening hours (did I mention everything in Scandinavia closes at 16:00?) and so we went back to the hostel ridiculously early to plan out our stay in Oslo.

Our flight to Oslo was at 7:15am and so we left the hostel at 4:30am to find the airport bus. Absolutely exhausted and irritated by the fools staying in our hostel room (if you've never made a bed before please don't let your first time be in a room with 10 other people at one in the morning ugh). The useless receptionist gave us the worst directions I've ever received and so we ended up lost in Helsinki in the middle of the night, well aware that the first bus at 5am was the only chance we'd have of making our flight on time. Eventually we gave in and taxi-ed it to the bus stop which would have definitely been at least a 60 minute+ walk, none of the 'ten minute's round the corner' spiel we'd been given. But thankfully we made the flight and were on our way to Oslo.

Rock Church

OSLO

We were only in Oslo for a day, so it was lucky we landed at 7:45am, giving us the entirety to wander round Norway's capitol city. Whilst we'd run out of things to do in Helsinki there was almost too much to do in Oslo. We went to a Viking museum, a Norwegian Folk museum and a Polar Expedition museum (all of which were v. good) and then after 16:00 when everything closed down we wandered around the city and saw all of the famous monuments/buildings from the outside. We wandered around the grounds of the Royal Palace and admired the building itself (it's weird how all the royal palaces I've seen are virtually identical), walked down to the city hall and stumbled upon some strange street festival where everyone was singing Pharrell songs, found the National Theatre and the building where they present the Nobel Peace Prize, found some Norwegian trolls and walked along the harbour until we got to the Akershus Fortress. The fortress gave us an incredible view of the city and we sat there for a while to rest our slowly dying feet before walking over to the Opera house. The Opera house is a strange building to say the least, shaped like a wave to appear like it's rising out of the water and due to it's weird shape you can walk up it and stand on the roof. By this point it was getting dark and we decided to climb to the top as the sun set over Oslo. It was beautiful watching the city gradually get darker and definitely the best way to end the trip.

THE BIGGEST PIG I HAVE EVER SEEN.

Miles out. X