Oslo was sooooooo expensive. Their standard of living may be exceedingly high but boy do they pay for it. After checking into our hotel on Friday afternoon (The Bristol, old-school luxury, very gentlemens-private-drinking-club type of atmosphere) we bimbled around town and ate dinner at Peppe’s Pizza (an Oslo institution and very nice but very pricey (for pizza)).



We walked dinner off by strolling towards the harbour through Akershus Fort via a little park where we saw the police handing out syringes (pre-loaded too!) to addicts. A lovely tree lined street under the fort serves as the main catwalk for Oslo’s prostitutes and we bid them "good evening" as we sauntered past and entered the fort. As we climbed to the top of the ramparts we were pleasantly shocked to be serenaded by Mark E Smith and his band The Fall belting out their hits from the stage at the Oya music festival nearby (we missed Morrissey by 24 hours). The view from the fort over the harbour and down to Oslo was lovely and the warm evening and prospect of a good nights sleep (up at 4am this morning) granted us good vibrations. We climbed down from the fort as the sun was setting and then sat by the waters edge people-watching before buying ice cream at McDonalds (!) and heading back to the hotel like a couple of OAP's for an early night.