Blowing the Mortgage

Spain is not a new country for us. We spent a week in one of the Costas many moons ago (Brava or Blanca, I can’t recall), and weren’t terribly impressed. The place was set up for – and heaving with - Brits, so we didn’t really get much of a feel for the country at all. The highlight of that holiday was a day spent driving through the Pyrenees Mountains, so we knew there were authentic Spanish experiences to be had – the Costa Whatever-It-Was just didn’t provide it, is all.

This time we decided we would do a two-centre stop, trying to limit our time in the popular British tourist spots. First we stayed in Barcelona for a little over a week, and then we headed south towards Seville, where we’d booked an apartment for a month.

One of the problems we have had travelling on a whim has been finding affordable last-minute accommodation. As you may recall from my last post, we’d only decided to come to Spain a couple of days before, so had left it horribly late to find a hotel. Add in the fact that it’s high season, and you can find yourself making a huge hole in your budget. Pete’s mum and dad had generously given him with a Hostelling International card for his birthday, but our experience has been that these places are usually booked solid, so you have to make your reservations well in advance.

This left us with a dilemma: a) pay extortionate prices in the city centre, or b) head for the outskirts and put up with the extra travelling to and from the main tourist spots. We chose option b), as this had worked out wonderfully for us in the past.

We ended up in an area called Sabadell, in northeast of the city. It meant that we had to take a train to get to the centre, which took a little under half an hour, but as we noted at the time, it’s not like we’re in any hurry! The trains in Spain are cheap, fast, frequent and air-conditioned, so the journey was quite pleasurable (especially with a good book or a fully-charged MP3 player!) Also, to make up for the (minor) inconvenience of longer travel times, we ended up in a very affordable 3-star hotel. The rooms were gorgeous, the Wi-Fi was free, they had a bar downstairs, mini-bars in the rooms, and would deliver pizza to you any time of the day or night, even on a Sunday when everything else was closed. What more could we ask for?

The hotel was also conveniently located for bars and cafes (at least one on every corner, it seemed!), there was a supermarket next door, and if you wanted a more serious shopping experience you could walk into Sabadell centre in about 25 minutes.

One other downside to our location was that we were outside of the tourist areas, so the merchants weren’t really used to dealing with English-speaking patrons. We got a few funny looks as we sat and ate our I-dunno-what-I’m-ordering-but-I-hope-it’s-edible lunches outside the cafes ‘cos we so obviously didn’t belong there, but we had few problems making ourselves understood. (Pete is very good at combining sign language with a few words of the local lingo and getting results!)

Our first proper excursion into Barcelona proper confirmed that we had made the right choice. The centre is crowded, noisy and expensive, and we would have ended up paying upscale rates for a downscale room had we chosen to stay there. Our long-distance solution isn’t for everyone - we found that many people criticised our hotel’s location in the online reviews - but it works well for people like us who value peace and quiet over convenience. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes ‘nice’ hotels but can’t afford city centre prices.

So, on to Seville!

Here we decided to do something a bit different and stay put for a month. It was a good move, as the cost of renting an apartment is way cheaper than booking a room in a hotel. (Pete actually worked out that it'd be cheaper to live here permanenntly than go back to New Zealand. Interesting idea, hmmm?)

The apartment itself is lovely (combined bedroom/living area, separate kitchen and bathroom, plus outside terrace area), and in a quiet area of town. I’m going to be lazy and let someone else provide the photos today. Have a look at this website for pictures of the apartment and more information about booking, etc.

The owners (also lovely) live in the apartment downstairs, although they are actually away on holiday themselves at the moment, so we are having noisy parties every night and terrorising the neighbours. (No, we’re not. We’re being good... ish.)

We are situated next door to a monastery, so we do hear bells throughout the day (though thankfully they don’t start at 4 o’clock in the morning or anything silly like that!) For the first couple of weeks the bells were barely audible, but I reckon Quasimodo has moved in recently ‘cos the ringing has become increasingly enthusiastic. I shall have to see if I can see anyone swinging from the ropes and shouting, “The bells! The bells!” (Or “Les cloches! Les cloches!” Well, we are in Spain, after all.)

I shall do a more typical 'out and about' type of entry very soon, complete with pictures.

Until then,

Ding dong from Julie & Pete

Well, my computer’s finally fixed (thank you, Pete. Please don’t break it again!), and, after much procrastinating, I have decided it’s high time I caught up with my blog entries.

After Amsterdam we decided to spend a bit of time trudging through the Siberian Wastelands. Actually, that’s a lie: we decided to go to Brussels, which comes a close second to Siberia in terms of temperature. We had howling winds, rainstorms... I’m amazed it didn’t snow!

We went to Belgium on a bizarre whim: Pete and I both really liked the comedy series The New Statesman, the final series of which was set in Brussels. (I wish we could say we had deep and meaningful reasons for travelling to these places, really I do! Maybe I can think of some for my next entry.)

Actually, we were a bit disappointed with the place at first. We expected that the centre of the European Community would have a certain vibrancy about it; in reality the city was dingy and run down, graffiti was everywhere, and many of the buildings needed a good clean. Not what we were expecting, at all!

Of course, one of the wonderful things about new places is their ability to surprise you, just when you least expect it. We were on our way to nowhere in particular, when we turned into the Grote Markt, the central market square in the city. After a morning spent walking down boring, shabby streets, this place was a feast for the eyes! All four sides of the square were surrounded by beautiful medieval buildings. I wish these photos could show just how impressive it all was:

Pretty-looking buildings on a pretty cloudy day!

It is commonly described as one of the most beautiful town squares in Europe, if not the world (although Pete overheard another tourist remark to his companion, “This is my second favourite square in Europe.” I’d love to know what his first favourite one is!)

As I’ve mentioned previously, having seen many typical tourist attractions in the last five months or so, we are now on the lookout for places to visit that are can be considered unusual in some way. Brussels had a few of these, enough to keep us busy for the two days we were there.

The Comic Strip Museum

I have to confess that a large part of the appeal of this place was that it was indoors. It was blooming cold outside that day, and I think we would have happily gone into The Museum of Watching Paint Dry to escape the weather. As for comic books, the only Belgian cartoon character either of us knew was Tintin. (Incidentally neither of us liked Tintin when we were kids. After comparing notes, we discovered that, in both our households, when Tintin came on, the TV went off!) Happily there was a lot more to it than that. The first part of the display covered the A-Z of comic-book production, which was interesting, and we got to spend a happy half hour watching really old Smurfs cartoons in black and white.

Pete and a troll. Pete's the one on the left, by the way.

The Atomium

I have only one thing to say about the Atomium: balls. Big metal ones. This weird-looking monument was built for the 1958 Brussels World Fair:

The Atomium was designed to look like the cell of an iron crystal, magnified 165 billion times.

Once the expo was over, the Belgians decided they liked it and decided to keep it, and now it is one of those tourist attractions like the Eifel Tower, where you get to queue for a silly amount of time so you can get a lift to the top and get a bird’s-eye view of the city. (Though, to be fair, the queue at the Atomium was nowhere near as bad as the one for the Eifel Tower. In Paris we waited for 3½ hours; here it was a little over 30 minutes!)

Miniature Europe

Next door to the Atomium, they’ve built a model village containing replicas of some of the major monuments and landmarks in the EU. Given the lousy weather, we didn’t know if we’d get to see this or not, but, on the day we were due to leave, the weather decided to clear up for about ten minutes; shocked and amazed, the entire city went outside to gawp at the strange round yellow thing in the sky. Having been to Asia and places where sunlight is not a novelty, we passed on the sun worshipping and went to look at some diddy buildings instead:

Miniatures of the Town Hall in Leuven, and Big Ben in London.

The models are actually very detailed (and some of them cost a fortune to make. The Brussels’ Grand Palace model cost 350,000 Euros!) Pete walks around for a while then says, “Well, that’s saved me the bother of going to any of those places, then.”

Honestly, I can't take him anywhere!

We only had a few days in Brussels, and I think that was more than enough to see the main attractions and get a feel for the place. We aren’t especially keen to return, but we both agree that the Grote Markt will be one of the memorable highlights of our trip.

Leaving Belgium, however, presented another problem. We had only 2.5 days in which to decide on our next destination and book transport and hotels. Quite frankly, this process is more of a pain in the backside than I’d anticipated. Pete and I generally agree on where we want to go next, but sometimes arranging to go there is an effort. (I see now why some people pre-plan their trips and buy round-the-world tickets!)

We needed to head south through Europe towards Spain, and decide that the best way to do this would be via France. Okay, then. I get on the Internet, and after two hours of Google-ing, fail to find information on a single flight or train to Paris, or any other major destination in the country. Pete says, “You’re doing it wrong!” and takes over. He also gets zip (at which point I gleefully tell him he must be doing it wrong, too. Immature? Me? Yup, ‘fraid so.) We come up with a Plan B, and brave the gale-force winds to get to the train station, where the nice man behind the counter also draws a blank. (Note: I resisted the urge to tell him he was doing it wrong as well!) Finally his colleague solves the mystery: France is on strike! Airlines, baggage handlers, air traffic controllers, train drivers and taxi drivers are all striking; the only way we could get there would be to hire a car and drive ourselves.

We decided to bypass the entire country and booked direct flights to Spain, glad that we hadn’t already pre-booked flights to France. (Could you imagine how annoying it would be to have tickets that you couldn’t use?)

The moral of this story: Spur-of-the-moment travel, although tedious, sometimes has its advantages!

Sorry about the delay; I'll try and post again very soon.

From

Julie & Pete

Note: This is going to be a somewhat reduced entry compared to the one I had planned (what d'you mean, "Hooray!"?) 'cos Peter has managed to total my computer. His is off in the UK having its screen fixed, so he commandeered mine... and as of yesterday, it no longer works! He's on his way into town to find someone who can fix it. So now I am sitting in an Internet cafe, seeing this blog on a full-sized screen for the first time in ages, and making lots of typos 'cos the keyboard layout is different. Anyhoo, if it seems like we've dropped off the planet recently, this is why. Computer sharing is bad enough; computer-less-ness is intolerable! I am hoping that Pete can get my machine sorted soon. (He is so banned from ever using it again, by the way!)

Never mind. On with the waffling...

Can I just say that after dashing through Oslo and Copenhagen I am now officially worn out, and am refusing to go anywhere else for the next seven days. If anyone so much as mentions aeroplanes, passports or internal cavity searches I am going to lock myself in my hotel room and board up the door! I really hope this won’t be necessary, however, ‘cos I’ve wanted to visit Amsterdam for many years and it would be a shame if I had to spend my entire time here sulking in the hotel.

Actually, this is a 12-year belated birthday present for me. Back in the Good Old Days, on my 25th birthday, Pete bought me my first backpack in preparation for a trip to Italy. Inside one of the pockets he put a note which said:

‘IOU one trip to Amsterdam’.

Bizarrely, despite living in the UK within easy flying distance of the Netherlands, we never made it. We tended to opt for laze-on-the-beach holidays rather than busy city breaks, so my IOU remained unclaimed until now.

Tell you what, though, it was well worth the wait. Amsterdam is a fascinating city! Here are a few bits and pieces that have grabbed my attention while we were out and about:

Beer bikes

Imagine, if you will, a huge platform with pedals, comprising a table, seats for up to twenty people, and a bar. That is a beer bike, and I can honestly say I’d never seen anything like it in my life before. I didn’t think to take a picture, unfortunately, but happily Google will provide: for a photo and short commentary click here.

The one we saw was weaving around the city centre, operated by a bunch of drunken lads who did well not to fall into the path of an oncoming tram. I later discovered that they do a karaoke version as well; I’m sure I’m not the only one who was grateful that these boys preferred drinking to singing!

Hemp lollipops

A lollipop with herbal additives? It'll never catch on... will it?

I am not a drug-taker beyond the occasional aspirin (*), but these lollipops with hemp extract made me laugh. They must be good: I haven’t even eaten mine yet and I’ve already got the giggles! (For the record, you can also buy hemp-enhanced biscuits, cocoa, tea, chocolate, jelly sweets and rock.)

(*) Okay, okay, I confess that I have experimented with Beecham’s Powders, but I did not inhale… Or was that Bill Clinton?

Update: Hemp lollipops taste bloomin' 'orrible at first. It's like eating basil-flavoured candy, or something. You soon get used to it, though, and I quite enjoyed mine on the train to Belguim. I didn't see any singing mice in windmills or anything like that, though, so I suspect that hemp lollies are not the way to go if you are after a real high!

The Red Light District

This place is so notorious, I couldn't resist taking a stroll through the neighbourhood. (It mainly consists of lots of ladies standing around in windows in their underwear!) Of course, the tour operators have managed to find ways to make a buck or two out of it. If you are so inclined, you can go on a Red Light District Walking Tour; alternatively, if you are a girlie, you can have yourself a Lady of the Night experience:

(Clicky to see a bigger picture.)

Iron Maiden and other instruments of torture

And no, I’m not talking about the heavy metal band, thank you very much. I happen to like noisy head bangers and have fond memories of Maiden playing at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre back in my misspent youth. I’m not gonna dwell on this, however, ‘cos it’s making me feel old! No, I am referring to this Maiden, as seen at Amsterdam’s Medieval Torture Museum:

To quote Bill and Ted: "Iron Maiden? Excellent!" *Plays air guitar*

We’ve seen a lot of museums on our travels so far, and are now at the point where we are looking for something a bit different. This place fitted the bill perfectly, being a macabre collection of grizzly torture devices - a testament to medieval human cruelty (*).

The museum had a bonus purpose, too, providing research for the book I’m writing. (Seriously, I’ve been working on this thing for over ten years now; I might even finish it one day!) The other tourists were walking around saying, “Eww!”, “Gross!”, “Ow!” and words to that effect; I was taking notes and saying, “This is brilliant!” They probably thought I was a trainee psychopath or something.

(*) We still have torture today, of course, but these days it’s more subtle: Boy bands and reality TV immediately spring to mind.

Windmills

We really didn’t think we could go to the Netherlands and not see a windmill. 150 years ago there used to be 10,000 windmills all over the country, but now there are less than a thousand. These remaining mills are popular tourist spots, and there are many tour operators who will drive you out for a trip to a windmill farm. Unfortunately these same tours inevitably take way too long and include way too many ‘shopping opportunities’ – usually at cheese factories and clog manufacturers – so Pete and I did our usual trick of avoiding these organised tours like the plague and heading out to a windmill on our own. This is the one we found:

Molen van Sloten, a 19th century mill used primarily for draining water.

We were given a walk-through by an extremely knowledgeable guide, with the added advantage of having only six of us in the group. Well worth doing, if only because you don't see many working windmills these days.

Pancakes

When I was a stoodint in London, a long, long time ago, I was introduced to the delights of enormous pancakes at My Old Dutch in High Holborn. However, twit that I am, I confess to being extremely surprised when I saw pancake houses in Amsterdam. (You'd think think that the name of the London restaurant would have given me a clue, eh? D'oh!) Anyway, stupidity aside, these things are to die for. Here's the one I had:

What do you mean that's not a proper dinner? It's got cherries on it - that counts as one of my five-a-day fruit and veg, right?

So there you go: you can buy Dutch pancakes in Amsterdam. Amazing, huh?

Rock Planet

Oh boy, have you guys been saved a rant and a half due to the unfortunate demise of my netbook! As it is, I'll give you the condensed version:

Pete and I like a) drinking and b) heavy metal music, so on our travels we have been looking for establishments that will provide both of these things. Unfortunately such establishments seem to be thin on the ground (mainly Hard Rock Cafes that don't play much hard rock!), so imagine our delight when we discovered Rock Planet on our final night in the city.

The place certainly looks the part: lots of posters of bands and rock memorabilia adorn the walls. And from outside we can hear music... loud music. We just had to go inside. Unfortunately, while the beer was good, the music wasn't quite what we'd being hoping for. The video screen is showing a performance by some awful soft rock band we'd never heard of. Pete goes up to the bar and says, "I'd like two pints of lager and some better music, please." The barmaid is able to produce the beer, but regretfully informs us that she is unable to change the music - even though she agrees that it's rubbish - 'cos her manager won't let her. Mr. Manager, as it turns out, is a terrible DJ. He likes old 70's bands way too much, and pretty much ignores the more modern stuff. Pete harrassed the guy constantly, and we occasionally got him to play songs we actually wanted to listen to, but it all went downhill when Mr. Manager decided to put on the Jonas Brothers. The Jonas Brothers! Silly boy band pop music! In a rock bar! It shouldn't be allowed, I tell ya!

Anyway, to give you an idea of Pete's frame of mind, check out the two pictures below (**):

On the left is Pete when listening to Metallica, Guns and Roses or AC/DC; on the right is Pete when forced to endure the Jonas Brothers. He actually said to me, "If I sit here and look really, really sad, maybe the barmaid will feel sorry for me and make him turn this rubbish off!" (His plan didn't work, unfortunately, but it was worth a shot.)

My plea to the owners of Rock Planet is this:

People, scrap the Manager-as-DJ system and invest in a video jukebox. Pete and I would have spent as much money on music as we did on beer that night, and surely the point of a business is to keep the punters happy? We were the only ones sitting inside, so that manager dude didn't even have the excuse that he was catering to the other customers' tastes. He was indulging himself, plain and simple!

That being said, a fun, noisy and drunken night was had by all, and the pub is well worth visiting if you don't mind listening to old rock music (and the occasional boy band!)

(**) I know these pictures are too dark; I'll fix 'em when - if - Pete gets my computer up and running again.

More soon, hopefully before too long

from

Julie & Pete

I have to confess that for the past several days I have being feeling somewhat confused. I had no idea that Oslo and Copenhagen could have so many similarities. For example: their money has the same name (kroner); the languages overlap to a large degree; both cities are clean, modern and attractive; the weather is on the damp and chilly side; and, yeah, everything’s still expensive. Half the time I have no idea which country I’m in! I mean, I am the first to admit that I have no sense of direction and that only takes a corner or two before I am hopelessly lost, but I am usually able to point to my current location on a world map without having to stop and think about it. It might be better if we’d spent longer in each place, but, like Norway, we’re only making a brief pit stop in Denmark.

The reason I wanted to visit Copenhagen in the first place was because I saw the Hans Christian Andersen movie with Danny Kaye when I was a kid, and I really like his fairy stories, so I wanted to see Hans C.’s house and the Little Mermaid statue. Smart people would have done their homework, however, and discovered that Mr. A. was not actually born in Copenhagen but Odense, two hours outside the city. Smart people would also have factored in enough time to take a day trip to Odense in order to see said house and museum. I, sadly, was not a smart person, so the nearest I got to anything Hans-related was looking at a plaque on a wall next to a house he stayed in when he visited Copenhagen.

Bugger.

I did see the Little Mermaid, though, when I went on a canal boat ride. It was almost impossible to get a decent photo, though, ‘cos of all the people taking pictures on the shore. (Blooming tourists – they spoil everything!) Never mind, that’s why graphics editing programs were invented, right?

The Little Mermaid after some serious crop-and-delete treatment!

I think the most unusual evening we spent in Copenhagen was at the famous Tivioli Gardens theme park. I’m not a huge fan of these places, as a rule – got no stomach for the gut-churning rides – but as our hotel was just round the corner we decided to give it a shot. We also chose to go at night so we could see all the pretty lights.

Tivoli is the second oldest theme park in the world and is said to have been Walt Disney’s inspiration for Disney World/Disney Land.

As I say, I don’t like fast rides much, and I’m not good with heights, so what possessed me to go on this thing I cannot say:

This is the Star Flyer, the world’s tallest carousel. High, innit? Pete says I crushed his hand the entire time we were up there. I was pretty brave, though; I didn’t scream my head off, and I even opened my eyes at one point!

Pete, the big showoff, likes all those fast, head-spinning rides, and doesn’t even have the decency to feel ill afterwards like normal people. Here he is looking smug:

Pete went on the Golden Tower (right) and was dropped 63 meters. Me, I stayed on terra firma, watched and felt nauseous on his behalf.

Tivoli is more than an amusement park, though. It has extensive sculptured gardens, a variety of restaurants, and a concerts and theatrical performances throughout the day.

Me in the gardens, before I went on that scary Star Flyer ride, so I’m still looking calm and relaxed. (You should see the picture Pete took of me when I got off that ride. Talk about manic!)

We had a great time, and I would recommend it for both kids and adults. One thing I would say, though, is invest in the prepaid armbands that allow you to go on the rides as many times as you like. They may seem expensive, but it’s better value for money than buying tokens individually.

Before I go, I have some info for anyone who is considering visiting Denmark:

When it comes to eating out here, veggie options are thin on the ground! I’m not a vegetarian, but I don’t like to eat meat every day of the week, and I’ve had a heck of a job trying to satisfy my non-carnivorous cravings. If you are lucky enough to find a menu that has a vegetarian section, it usually only has a few items, and one of those will be pizza. However, we accidentally stumbled upon a solution. We’d dropped into a pub called The Southern Cross (being honorary Kiwis, we had to with a name like that!) and got talking to the landlord. He recommended a nearby buffet restaurant which operated on an all-you-can-eat-in-an-hour policy. For a bit extra, you can add an all-you-can-drink option from the bar. This place was excellent! It had a humungous salad bar, a few hot meat-based options, plus pasta, so Pete and I were both able to (over)indulge.

So if you’re in Copenhagen, you might want to check ‘em out:

Ad Libitum at Rådhuspladsen 75, Copenhagen
The Southern Cross at Løngangstræde 37 Copenhagen (good if you like watching sport on TV!)

Norway: Land of Vikings, fir trees, fjords… and pickled herrings? Are they Norwegian? To be honest, I knew very little about the country before we landed; I just had this strange urge to go there. (I rarely ignore my urges - it might be dangerous or something.) The one thing I did know for sure is that Norway is a costly country to visit. CNBC lists Oslo as the fourteenth most expensive place to live in the world, so I was expecting our budget to take a bit of a bashing.

Turns out that ‘a bit’ was the understatement of the century.

Expense, I discovered, is relative. Britain is expensive; Norway, by comparison, is extortionate! The first day when we were wandering around looking for a place to eat lunch, I nearly died when I saw the prices on the menus. 90 kroner for a bowl of vegetable soup… that’s 9 UK pounds… 22 NZ dollars! For that money I’d expect my soup to arrive in a gold-plated tureen, sprinkled with truffle shavings and served with Roquefort and Almond sourdough bread or something.

This was a dilemma, of sorts: we obviously had to eat - Pete wouldn’t agree to crash diet for a few days - but it was really depressing when we realised how much even the most basic items were going to cost us. I mean, we’re not skinflints and we’re not expecting this trip to last forever, but every transaction lead to an “Ouch!” moment when we considered the dent it was making in our savings. (Such is the disadvantage of going travelling using a currency with weak international buying power.)

In the end we came to two conclusions:

1) We had to stop converting everything into NZ dollars, ‘cos the constant wincing was starting to spoil the mood.
2) We obviously couldn’t afford to spend much time in Norway!

We decided to see the highlights, pay whatever we had to without worrying about it, and go somewhere else very soon. This plan worked, and we managed to relax and have a good time, after all.

So, Oslo:

It’s a lovely, modern city, situated by an impressive fjord, with some stunning architecture. We liked it immediately.

The weather was exceedingly changeable, which why the colours look a bit washed out. For the first two days there was a heat wave. “Brilliant!” we said, donning shorts and t-shirts. “Oslo’s great, we could live here.” For the remainder of our stay we had rain and storms. “Ooh, we could never live here,” we grumbled, bundling ourselves up in jeans and sweaters. “It’s much too cold!” This, and the horribly high cost of living, effectively put paid to our idea of seeing more of the country. We simply couldn’t afford it, and we objected to freezing to death anyway.

As well as pretty buildings, Oslo has plenty of statuary. This is one example we encountered when strolling by a shopping mall. I had to include it here due to its hideousness.

This is a statue of model Kate Moss in a yoga pose. Apparently it’s famous. Sculptor Marc Quinn is supposedly a huge fan of Ms. Moss; I'd hate to see what he'd do to her if he didn't like her!

Isn’t this one of the ugliest things you’ve ever seen? Before Pete took the photo he asked me, “Which do you think is its best side?” My reply: “It doesn’t have one!” I don’t know much about art, but I know I don’t like this!

Fortunately Oslo has several galleries full of decent art to make up for Mr. Quinn’s monstrosity. I pestered Pete to take me to the Munch Museum, ‘cos there were several works I wanted to see. “Pity his first name wasn’t Monster,” says Pete. (For those of you who have no idea what he’s on about click here. Wasn't worth it, was it? Sorry.)

Most of you are probably familiar with Munch’s most famous work, The Scream:

Arrrrrrrrgh!

According to the people who know these things, this piece is a representation of man’s existential angst. I have an alternative explanation: I reckon this was painted after Munch had taken a short break in Oslo and just seen his hotel bill. (Yes, I am still harping on about how expensive everything is here. I've gotta get it out of my system somehow, and blogging is cheaper than therapy!)

After all that screaming, something a little more sedate was called for. Oslo has about a million museums to choose from, and we decided that the Nobel Peace Centre should provide the requisite level of relaxation.

The Nobel Peace Prize is the only one not awarded in Sweden. Mr. Nobel thought Norway was a nice peaceful country, and requested that the Peace Prize be handled here. Good job there aren't any Vikings around, eh?

This was worth seeing for the technology they’d used in their exhibits, if nothing else. They had an interactive ‘book’ which could be controlled using your hand in place of a computer mouse; a Wall Papers exhibit which displayed information about the Peace Prize winners in the form of a digital newspaper; and a fascinating fiber-optic garden that altered images on a series of computer screens as you walked past. It’s worth a visit if you like cool technology!

The fiber-optic garden.

And so passed a couple of days in Oslo. We liked the city very much, but sadly I don't think we'll be coming back any time soon - not unless the New Zealand dollar suddenly inflates or we win the lottery or something. Neither of these options being likely, we have decided to head south in search of sunnier climes.

More from the road soon!