Day 14 - Oslo - June 12

Hansine (a foreign exchange student) met us at the airport in Oslo when we arrived. We took a taxi from our house at 4:30 a.m. and arrived in Oslo at 11:30 a.m. The airport experience in Madrid was very frustrating. They were slow and incompetent and we barely made it to our gate on time. The first thing we did in Oslo is take a train to the city center and bought Oslo day passes. We then went to our hostel, but we were early so we left our luggage there and walked down the street for lunch. The kids and I ordered 2 large pizzas to share and they were very good. We then checked into our hostel and left to go see the museums. Our first stop was at the Viking ship museum. It is a small place so we only spent 20 minutes there. It was very busy there, but it was neat to see the ships that were over 1500 years old. We then walked down the street to the outdoor folk museum. We spent about an hour there, walking through the old buildings and the Old Stave church. All the museums closed at 6:00 p.m. and when we went to get back on the bus it was too crowded and there was no room to get on. We waited there for 45 minutes and had to skip 2 buses because there was still no room for us. We decided to walk to a different bus stop and we were able to get on that bus and go back to the city center. From there we walked to the Opera House in the harbor and were able to walk along the roof for awhile and said goodbye to Hansine. Then we went back to the area of the palace to find a good place for dinner. The restaurant we chose was delicious but expensive! The Espinoza’s and I ordered ribs and chicken and loved it. I couldn’t finish them all though because I had 4 racks of them plus chicken. I gave about 1/3 of my ribs to Josh to finish. They were the best ribs I have ever had. Josh ordered a steak and the kids ordered burgers. We then went back to our hostel and to bed.