Solo in Oslo

Every once in a while, I like to spin the roulette wheel of airfare pricing and pick a more-or-less random destination purely because I can get there on the cheap.

Oslo was a pretty easy choice.

I've been to Sweden twice in the last two years, and I've really loved its quirky socialism-meets-Muppets-meets-old-Volvos-meets-cutting-edge-design aesthetic.  

(Um, just in case you missed it?  That was your cue to act surprised.) 

I was fairly confident that Norway would feel equally quirky, plus even more remote and even more socialist.    

I will admit that I was somewhat slow in comprehending the relationship between the price of plane tickets to Norway and the hours of daylight one can experience there in November.  

In planning my weekend on the cheap, I also failed to account for Oslo's status as one of the most expensive cities in Europe.  

As it turns out, Oslo is one of the most expensive cities in Europe!  

But aside from shelling out a breathtaking 440 Kroner for a one-way streetcar ticket — the equivalent of $7.50 or €6.50 — TWICE, I managed to be a pretty cheap date...  

...for myself.  

I was on my own for the weekend, as John is currently participating in his semi-annual Malbecapalooza — er, I mean important physics-experiment-building trip! — on the pampas of Argentina.  

I'm sure that long-term solo travel would get lonely, but I think it's fun to kick around a city by myself every once in a while.  

When I'm alone, I feel like I'm of the right age and clad in sufficiently androgynous clothing to go more or less unnoticed.  

I'm not young enough or old enough, or rich-looking enough or poor-looking enough, to attract attention for any of those qualities.  

(Also, this may cross the line into abject vanity, but I like to think that I don't fit the profile of clueless tourist.  I don't wear jewelry; I don't consult maps in public unless absolutely, desperately necessary; I am vehemently anti-rolly bag; and, I don't believe in cameras that aren't small enough to stuff in one's pocket.  Don't even get me started on fanny packs.)

If you are my female friends who wish that I would at least make an effort — or my Dutch coworkers, who say things like, "Autumn, you're a whole different woman!" when I wear a skirt to work — you might find all of this to be sort of depressing. 

But the reality is: I really like being able to wander freely and somewhat invisibly through the streets.  

I'm happy to report that my weekend in Oslo was a glorious, free-range, schedule-free, one-pair-of-jeans, one-pair-of-hiking-boots kind of an affair.  

My first love of Oslo was the main harbor, where the city opens up to the edge of the fjord.


Especially in the dusky November light, the fjord has a still, moody quality that made it hard to leave the water's edge.


Having an occasional Volvo 240 in the mix didn't hurt, either.

My second love was the Oslo Opera House, a stunning construction of white marble and granite that looks like an iceberg emerging from the water.

My third love was the funky neighborhood of Grünerløkka, which had lots of interesting little shops and second-hand markets.

I am now the proud owner of a 1960s-era metal pencil case from the Oslo Pencil Factory,  the inside of which — rather self-servingly, I feel — advises consumers to keep pencils protected from "moisture and uneven temperatures."  

(Which frankly begs the question: what kind of pansy-assed pencils were they making in Norway in the 1960s?!) 

Grünerløkka is also home to The Nighthawk Diner, which is by far the most beautiful American-style diner I have ever visited.  

I kept telling myself that I should try a Norwegian restaurant while I was in Oslo, and yet my boots just kept on walking, right on into the Nighthawk.

It was simply stunning, with gleaming formica tables and vinyl booths and restored Wurlitzers and and intricate tile work and shiny metalwork and a whole array of glass cabinets to display white-lettered menus on their lined black background.  

It was a little bit like walking into a dream, where waitresses with 1950s-style green dresses (you know the kind: with short sleeves and scalloped while collars) also wore crazy, Norwegian-style flowered leggings.  

I'm not sure which I liked more: luxuriating in so much old-school diner porn, or the fact that I could smother my scrambled eggs in ketchup that was already on the table.  

It was only after I got back to the Netherlands that I realized the alarming and unintended turn that my Oslo trip had taken.  

After lunch, I reluctantly said goodbye to the lunch counter and made my way back to the train station to take the extraordinarily luxurious and bracingly expensive express service to the airport. 

I had a little bit of Norwegian kroner left over, and I was pleased — delighted, actually — to find that the bookstore in the train station had both a 3-for-2 sale and a large, if eclectic, selection of English-language books.  

I stretched out my book shopping as long as I possibly could, but in the end, came home to the Netherlands with three novels: 

- A new printing of The Catcher in the Rye, which I had not read since high school and had been thinking about recently when trying to explain to my language buddy what a coming-of-age novel is.  

- Let The Great World Spin, by Colum McCann, which won the (U.S.) National Book Award in 2009 and is a gorgeous, heartbreaking story of intersecting lives in New York. (It also happens to be one of the best books I've read in the last decade!)

- Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, a story about (surprise!) a dysfunctional American family, set first in suburban Minneapolis and later New York. 

Which I inhaled, in that order, during my first 48 hours upon returning from Norway. 

The thing is, I never feel like I'm homesick.  

When people ask me if I miss the U.S., I usually shrug and think briefly about proper, functioning plastic wrap, and then say, no, not really.  

And yet: there I was in Norway, eating at a diner that had clearly been collected in parts in the U.S., then shipped across the ocean and lovingly reconstructed into something even more beautiful than the original.  

Followed by a shopping spree resulting in what might be the three most American novels one can find in any given bookstore at any given point in time.  

Not the three best American novels, but the three most American American novels.  

I mean, come on: The Catcher in the Rye?!

(For the record:

I did not attend the "Scandinavian Eagles Tribute" concert on the Saturday night I was in Oslo, but it's only because, in the words of my favorite slacker, I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man.) 

Somehow, without me even knowing it, my Oslo trip morphed into a strange, back-door, late-night pilgrimage to American culture.  

I feel a little bit like I should apologize: 

I'm really sorry I used you, Norway.

I didn't realize I was doing it at the time!