Rick`s got three strikes, but he`s not out yet

It seemed as thought the travel Gods were against us in Oslo. We got up early, dropped our bags at the train station (in the meantime, I delted the awesome pics I`d taken of our hell-hole hostel this morning. guess it wasn`t meant to be...we think I got one yesterday, though) and headed to the sculpture park, and it was cold again. Did I mention it was WARM yesterday? I contemplated wearing my Chacos for shoes today. Good think I didn`t. It started misting as we entered the park and got worse from there. Wouldn`t you know it? The park was nice. There weren`t as many sculptures as I expected. Rating-wise, I`d give it a just OK. I am glad we saw it, but I`m not sure why people rave on and on about it. It would probably be more enjoyable if we had more leisurely time, but we had a lot to see today! And see we did.

We went out to the Ski Jump, and it was literally socked in and getting worse by the minute. We could only see a few feet in front of our faces. But, we`d bought the Oslo Pass and the entrance was included, so we forged ahead up the jump tower. Look up effort in futility in the dictionary, and you`ll find a picture of us today. It was ridiculous! It jost got worse the further up we got. We could see the start of the jump and that`s it. Oh well, at least we saw something. We did get something of an idea of how high and how big it is. I`m not sure how ski jumpers do it!

So, we headed back into town. I was thinking today, you know you`re a backpacker when you carry a day-pack so you can have food with you and not have to pay $15 for hot dogs. That was us. On the subway ride back, we broke out the lunch. Big crackers with cheese and some cookies for dessert. Doesn`t sound like much, but man that cheese is good. And don`t worry, we supplemented.

We saw several elementarry age classes on the trains today. I was thinking how much easier it much be for them to take class trips when they don`t have to hire a bus and driver to get everywhere. They just all hop on the trains. And they were so well behaved! As it was lunch time, several of them cracked out the food. Now, I know open-faced sandwiches are all the rage over here, but it never occured to me that that`s what kids would carry in their lunch. Once little girl pulled out two open faced sandwiches. Made me giggle! Just stick those together and make a sandwich out of them! They`d be much easier to eat!

We went down to the docks and had a few mintues to spare before getting on the ferry to the museums, so we wandered. We`d read that you can buy fresh shrimp by the bag. They weren`t kidding (both Rick and frommer`s)! For about $10, we got .5 kilo (have no idea what that is in English!). Oh my gosh! They were amazing! We ate them on the ferry ride over. Holy yum! Some had a bunch of stuff in them. We weren`t sure if it was eggs or dirt, but they came off with the shell, so we decided it was shrimp caviar and went with it!

The Folk Museum was super interesting. Only a couple of houses were open, but still it was cool. My main gaol in going there was seeing the stave chruch. I knew it was my only chance to see one. They`re wooden churches built hundreds of years ago in a special style and pay homage to the Viking history of the area. WOW!! Totally worth the price of admission. Except for the French tourists who wouldn`t go away. They were everywhere! We were running behind, so we just walked around a bit and headed over to the ships.

We had to skip the Con-Tiki and the Fram, but we went to the Viking Ship Museum, and are we glad we were! Holy awesome. There were several ships, two of them large, and it was just amazing. Their we were plagued by Japanese tourists again, but no matter, we were lost in the beauty and awesomeness of it all!

We actually had to run to get the ferry. There we are in all of our tourist glory, camera in hand, running down the streets of this old, lovely section of town. The workmen doing renovations on all of the houses had to be guffawing at us. I would have! Good thing we ran too. The ferry stopped only long enough for us to hop on. Meanwhile, I decided to take one last picture, and dropped my lens cap. I could only watch as it rolled into the bay. Lovely.

We rushed to the train station, got some groceries for another picnic onboard, grabbed our gear and rushed off to the train. And here we are in Stockholm. And thank goodness. We`re excited to be here. We can`t wait to see what this city has to offer tomorrow. It can only get better!