Days 48 and 49 (and 50)--DKK, SEK, NOK, AOK: Norway

So on Thursday night Ian, Ryan, and I took the overnight bus to Oslo.  We arrived at 5:15 in the morning on Friday and we got things rolling right away.  We first found breakfast, then checked in at our hotel.  We then walked over to Akershus Castle/Fortress.  We couldn't go inside the castle since it was closed on weekdays, but we got to walk around the grounds and get some nice views of the water and docks.  We then walked over to a nearby bakery for a second breakfast in order to tide us over for lunch.  Afterward, we walked over to the opera house in order to find out if anything was happening this weekend (since tickets were free).  Nothing of interest was happening this weekend, but we still got to walk on the roof of the opera house.  The roof is designed to look almost like a ski slope, which was pretty cool.  The roof also enabled more nice views of the water and docks.  We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant in the center of the city.  Afterward, we took a ferry to the Viking ship museum.  The Viking ship museum was nice, yet pretty small.  The building design indicated that it used to be a church.  After the museum, we walked around the center of the city for a bit, partially because that Ian had lost his hat and we were trying to retrace our steps in order to find it.  We successfully found it at the Chinese restaurant under the table we ate at.  We then went to a sushi place for dinner, quickly visited the Oslo Cathedral, and went to the hotel.  Given the amount of sleep we had gotten on the bus, I had no problem hitting the sack a few minutes before 9.  I didn't wake up until around 8:45 the next morning, which was when we had agreed to get up.  We packed up our stuff and walked over to a bakery in a nearby shopping center for breakfast.  We then took the subway to the Ski Jump museum.  The museum consisted of an actual ski arena (the only steel ski arena ever built, by the way), and an indoor exhibit.  The exhibit itself was small, but I got to see lots of cool skis and poles.  The ski arena consisted of a great viewing area.  There was also a Zipline down the slope, which I would have eagerly done had it not cost extra to do it.  However, we had a great time there.  After leaving the museum, we hit a cheap place for lunch (since we had spent so much on food the day before).  We then went back to Akershus in order to see the interior of the castle.  It was nice, especially since we had a free audio tour to go with our ticket.  We then unsuccessfully tried to hit the history museum before it closed, but then we went to the military museum and found out that it was much bigger than we had originally thought.  Therefore, we had to rush through the exhibits before the museum closed at 5.  After leaving that museum, we walked over to the docks to find somewhere to eat.  We were distracted by someone who was selling GINORMOUS sticks of cotton candy--the cotton candy was twice as big as my head!  Needless to say, I had one, while Ian and Ryan split another.  We then walked over to an Italian restaurant for dinner.  The food was cheap, but really delicious.  After dinner, we had trouble finding things to do, so we ended up walking around for a while.  We found a tourist stop in the Central Station, where I bought a shirt with the Norwegian flag on it.  We then went to the hotel to pick up our stuff (we had stored it for the day), and then we went back to the bus terminal to wait for our bus.  The bus ride was from 11 pm to 7:30 am, and needless to say, I gave up on trying to sleep.  When we got back to the apartment, I quickly went back to sleep.  I am planning to rest for the day, given that we had several marathon days of trying to hit what we wanted to in Norway, which exhausted my back and feet.  Tomorrow starts our last week of IQP, I can make it!