Around the world: Oslo

I am in Oslo to meet friends, so I didn’t really do any of the tourist stuff.

The price are still exorbitant, but people looks more diversified. It feels less like Norway with the Norwegian look, and more like any other International city where every race intermingled.

There are a lot of misconception between races. Norwegians seems cold to Americans and Australians, similarly, their over friendliness seem fake and disengenius to Norwegians. From my point of view, these are all cultural traits born out of a fear to be alone.

Speaking of which, I remember having a great sense of deja vu while meeting Sindre. I remembered this scene vividly in my dream and I remember back then thinking:” There’s no way that’s my life. I cannot have pulled off what I pulled off.

For the world most beautiful woman (according to themselves) the Scandinavian woman do seem to require a lot of assurances that they are beautiful. I am sorry, but I cannot give you that. You and I both know that my sense of beauty is messed up due to the constant changing of beauty standards when crossing borders. I will tell you that you are hot if you had asked directly instead of beating around the bush.

I stayed in an actual hostel for once and there were a group of Australians being Australians. Making comments about the people at the couch on their iPhone and tablets (including me). I get what they are trying to say, but only newbies care about these crap… Newbies who just paid 200 NOK for a pub crawl. They have an expectation of how travelers are supposed to behave like those newbies who care about what a real Hostel is like.

I’ve been thinking about the best Hostel experiences lately. A type of hostel that facilitates people interacting with each other. Cause through my journeys, I’ve seen quite a few that does that.

For room size, I think 8 beds against 4 walls with the center clear for interaction is the best. A den type gathering place is a must and wifi should only work in the den to forces people to go to the gathering place.

Another facet of my travel is that it is a grand social experiment. I am confirming some stereotypes while discovering others. For example which race or people are most compatible with me. The Dutch from Netherland comes first as we just have so much fun together.

Then the Norwegians. I usually come of as not serious with anything I say. Just joking around usually by saying the most outrageous truth. But because it is conveyed in an unbelievable outrageous manner people tend to dismiss it as impossible. Yet the Norwegian can see through that crap and see the message. They tell me that they hate the pretense of Americans with their chit chat. So why is my chit chat different? Were they able to see through the mask? I remember asking Mila once on whether or not James is a different person when alone with her. She told me no. I had always thought that everyone has a different personality like me when not in public.

Norwegians see through and believe in my crap.

I’ve been on the road long enough now that I can instantly create the most awesome Hostel atmosphere if I wanted to like I did so many times before. But what is the point in a Hostel full of guys. I am guessing that they all came because of the rumor that Norwegian girls are easy lays once they get drunk. I would put he guy to girl ratio at 50:1 here.

Once I get to Oslo, I felt a lot more comfortable. It is a city that I understand, just like any other international city in the world. Bergen felt like the old world Norge with blond hair blue eyes. I thought Oslo was going to be like Bergen but bigger. But no, in any big cities, you get the same divide and these different groups, I understand.

 

There are not a lot of tourists here, so the main industry is not tourism.