Stockholm

Italy is gonna take a while to complete, but before that I wanna write about the most fun trip I've ever been on.

And after going on this trip, I have finally come to believe , that it's 'who' and not 'where' that matters.

I have been to Stockholm earlier, but for various reasons, I could not really enjoy that trip. I was looking forward to going there again, when Sneha told me that she, along with a few colleagues was planning to go. I jumped in and me n Sneha went to book the cabins in the cruise and the accommodation... We were five to start off with , but soon three more joined in and we had the magic number.

Twenty fourth, September, Eight of us started early from office and set off for the port. We were to travel by the Silja line cruise 'serenade'. Like on a flight, we had to check in before boarding the cruise.

We were welcomed on board by a photographer, who took our pictures as we entered. These pics are later displayed for sale on the ship. At the entrance of the ship were a 'moomin' and 'little my' welcoming all on deck. The silja line cruise is a lot bigger, elegant and lavish when compared to the first cruise we went on. There's a lot more entertainment on board.

After quickly checking out our cabins and dumping our luggage, we all went up to the sun deck, where we spent the first few hours of the journey. The view was serene and beautiful from up there. On one side, we could see the skyline of Helsinki, with the Lutheran cathedral and the red church looming high, and on the other side was water, as far as we could see. The sea was dotted with islands, some with little red cottages. Honestly, this view is a little too accessible to me. I live almost by the sea, so I see this quite often, but there was something nice about looking at it from high up. As we sailed along, we went past the suomenlinna island, some day , I'll write about this place too. There was a spot on the sea where the sun shone exclusively and just that part of the sea lit up in golden light. Stunning!!

Enough about the sea, we went downstairs after a photo session and after the guys ogled enough at the girls on deck.. We set out to explore the ship. Lots of restaurants, a couple of pubs, a street full of shops, now this was fun. There was this whole Italian theme going on. The food n decor was Italian, so was the entertainment (mind blowing) . I must mention here, the trapeze and the fashion show.

We settled down in one of the pubs, where the guys tried really hard to make Sneha n me believe that our drink had vodka in it. Then after a little dinner, we sat at this pub where there was a live band and a dance floor. Some of us danced our blues away, while the others made new (really entertaining) friends.

We decided to take some time off and hit the sack as we had a lot of walking to do the next day. We thought of playing one game of UNO before we go to sleep. The guys trooped into the next cabin to freshen up. I and Sneha sat talking for a while, when I realized that I would turn a year older in a few minutes. Somehow I felt strangely depressed. Maybe coz it was the first time my parents wouldn't wish me at 12 (IST). I just sat there thinking of home, and what do you know?? In walked six guys with a cake, candles, balloons et al. Was I surprised or what!! Thanks Shaikp for planning it , and thanks guys for making it special.

And then it was UNO time. We played the game like crazy for about 1.5 hours. Half the people retired, but me , Vivek, Sneha and Parvez continued playing it and we also ended up playing bluff until 2 in the night.

The next morning the cruise docked at 9:30 and we took off from there. Surprisingly, none of us knew how to get to the hotel nor did we bother to get any currency exchanged. Once we got off, we got some info and we walked to the Tramsbana (metro station) where we bought the Stockholm card, which gave us free entry to 80 museums and attractions and also free transport for 48 hours.

From here we took a bus and reached our hotel. The bus driver was really helpful in showing us the way. We were slightly lost once we got down, but we reached there nevertheless. Though I must say Kapil worked harder than the rest of us to get there.

The hotel was swell, but check in time was at 3. The receptionist (So feminine, I had goosebumps whenever he spoke) told us we could leave our luggage in the locker. He also helped us identify the places which we might enjoy seeing. Then we walked on to this beautiful square where half the guys had this yummy (according to them) lunch, while the rest of us hit MCD's.

From here we took a metro to Gamlastan(the old town) and took in all the places from a distance. We walked over to the shore and spent some time waiting for the hop on / hop off boat to arrive. There was this curious statue over there and Vivek came up with an ingenious story about the origin of the statue. From here we took the boat to the Vasa museum. Though the Vasa is a beautiful ship and all that, what amuses me is how they took their biggest disaster and turned it into a money generator.. We walked around the place for a while and then we decided to leave. Once we came out, we found out that Suman and Vivek were missing. Parvez and Kapil somehow wiggled in a second time and looked for them. Vivek came out a while later, but Suman was still missing. We decided he's a big boy and can take care of himself and moved on to the next museum across the road.

The Nordic museum,a magnificent building housed a lot of interesting articles and information about Nordic history. There was also this Swedish apple show going on, where they showcased what looked to be more than a hundred varieties of apples. Suman meanwhile caught up with us. It was amusing how he was the first one to take a complete round of the museum. I wonder if he sprinted across.

Across the road from the Nordic museum is a park, which had an amazing view, it was by a lake and had some beautiful flowers. While the others were busy taking pictures (must say we got some pretty ones from parvez's camera) , I managed to sneak a walk around the park. Some things seem prettier when enjoyed alone. Once we had enough of the park , we took a bus to Gamlastan and were planning to walk around. Unfortunately due to some miscalculations, we got lost. We got down at some random stop and walked into this beautiful campus. We later found out that it was the campus for KTH- royal institute of technology. Man, I wish I had studied in such a beautiful place.

Since we had wasted enough time, we again took a bus and reached Skansen, an open air museum, which officially stays open till eight in the night. But we realized half the places inside were closed and only got to see very few animals, thanks to our guide Kapil, who walked us through the maze.

Once we got out we realized there was no bus to go back as it was too late. So we walked to the nearest metro. On the way, we plastered our noses against the glass windows of an auto showroom and ogled at the Ferraris inside. My favorite, however was the black Maserati.

We reached the hotel, hungry and tired and sat down for dinner without even checking in. After dinner, we checked into our rooms(which were huge), and again sat down for a few games of UNO and bluff. It was fun watching Anil get excited every time he was close to winning. And even more fun helping Suman add more cards to his pack :D

After a sumptuous breakfast the next morning, we checked out of our rooms, kept our luggage in the locker again, ánd set out to our official visit to gamlastan. We first went to the city hall, where we spent a lot of time. This is where the Nobel prizes are awarded every year. We booked a tour to the top of the tower and then a tour of the hall itself. Almost all the guys bought themselves some cute n fuzzy reindeer (what exactly they'll do with them? don't ask me)

The tour of the city hall was fun an informative. We got to know some interesting trivia about the hall and it's architecture. From here we took a bus to see the royal change of guard. Which was fun, but not as grand as I had expected. Or maybe fall 1 had knocked me out of my senses.

After the change of guard and lunch , we walked back to the city hall for the climb up the tower. Half the guys rushed to the tower.Me, Parvez and Sneha, walked down to the tower when fall2 happened. And well , we happily limped our way to the tower. Since we were quite late thanks to me , the other guys took the stairs on time. When we reached, we took the elevator and caught up with them mid way. We climbed up to the bell tower, from where the view of the city was breathtaking.

Then we returned to the hotel as we had to catch the cruise at 5. We reached the port at 4:30 and rushed to check in. We were so tired that we did not bother to get up on to the deck. After a while, we all gathered in one cabin and talked almost through the night. Kapil kept us in splits for a long time, punctuated with an occasional wise crack from Manju. The return was equally fun.

The next morning when we waited to get off the ship, I don't know about the others, but I had a heavy heart. (I still can't figure out why, maybe coz I remembered it was Monday) . We returned to office planning our next trip.

All in all, this was a special trip, where we started with strangers, and made some real good friends.

Italy Day 1

Midsummer again! and this time, it's Italy!! that's one country I always wanted to visit. Ever since I was a kid, I used to dream of going to Venice. I was curious about how people lived in a place where there was water everywhere! And finally the dream came true.

We started off from Helsinki , took a flight via frankfurt and landed at Rome's fiumicino airport. It's also called the Leonardo da vinci airport. I got a jolt when I got out of the plane and it read Leonardo da vinci airport. There are many ways to get to the main city of Rome. But the train is the fastest. The Leonardo express starts at the airport railway station and goes to the Roma-termini railway station, which is the central railway station of Rome. The train takes 40 minutes to reach Termini, but our train took almost an hour to reach. On the whole give yourself at least two hours to reach the city after landing. Tickets to reach Rome cost 14 euros each on the Leonardo express. These tickets can be bought at vending machines or at the tabachi, which are tobacco stores, but also sell bus tickets. They can be recognized by a board with 'T' outside the stores.

Once at the Termini we had to take a metro to the hostel. There are two metro lines in Rome line A and line B. These lines cross at the termini. Reaching the line A metro station from the railway station seemed to take forever. We took a 3 day tourist ticket caled the BTI. This ensured unlimited bus and metro rides for three days. This ticket costs 11 euros. (One bus/train ride for 90 minutes costs 1.10 euros.)

The hostel we stayed in was a couple of stops away from the central terminal by metro. The owner was very helpful, he gave us maps and a list of places we could see and buses we could take to get there. Once we were fresh we all trooped out to see the city.

First stop :Piazza Barberini. Piazza Barberini was named for the aristocratic Renaissance-era family that made their home in the palatial estate located here, Palazzo Barberini. At the center of the Piazza is the Triton fountain, which was built in 1643. About half a kilometre away is the famous Trevi fountan. It is by far the best fountain I have ever seen. It is said that if you turn your back to the fountain and drop a coin into it, you will return to Rome. There were a lot of tourists at the fountain even as late as 10 PM . It was simply breathtaking and I just wanted to sit there and watch the fountain for hours together. The center of the Trevi fountain is a magestic statue of Neptune riding two sea horses. The lighting from under water made the place look fabulous.

The map showed us that the Spanish steps were only a few steps away from us, so we decided to walk there before returning home by the last metro which was at 11:30. We all picked up a chicken panini (delicious) and a gelato(icecream) each to munch on the way. I took a limone(lemon) favoured gelato which was like eating 7up :). On the way to the spanish steps we got lost and got to see the Piazza colonna and the fontana di piazza colonna which were not on our list at all. Nice to see though.

The Spanish Steps are said to be the widest stairway in all Europe. It has the Trinia dei monti as a backdrop. Honestly I felt it was not all worth the hype. it was really dark, so we wanted to give it a second look the next day and headed back to the hostel.

Norway - Day 4, Oslo

Early in the morning we checked out of the hotel and started off to the railway station. We got into the train and made sure we did not miss anything this time. And need I say it again, It was breathtakingly beautiful. We sat around talking about everything. The topics among the groups ranged from gandhi to womens liberation (this was between maithra and me). The Gandhi conversation took the form of a heated debate and a norwegian couple intervened to ask us if we could speak in english so they could join in the conversation :) (nice way of saying stop arguing actually).

Again we spoke to them about India, they told us about farming and then it was time for them to get off the train. After an hour we got down at Oslo. And our trip to bergen had ended leaving behind wonderful memories and hundreds of beautiful photographs.

Once we got down in Oslo we had lunch in the Indian restaurant I spoke about earlier. The food was delicious and after spending three days dreaming of chana masala, Mohan decided to have chicken.

After lunch we decided to go to the vigeland park which was supposed to be the main attraction of oslo. It was filled with statues of men women and kids. And I must say the statues were neither aesthetic nor sensual. They were plain and simple vulgar (my opinion folks) . Though I must say the arrangment of the monolithic statues was really good. Not a place I would want to visit again.

From here we went back to the railway station and took a bus to the airport from there. Boarded the flight and reached home in an hour and a half. I felt like I returned back to Hyderabad. And was deliriously happy when someone said kiitos (thank you in finnish). I must say helsinki has become my second home. Never before did i feel so happy on coming to helsinki. This was one journey which left a mark in my mind.

To all my Indian friends who are reading this, ours is a nation not only rich in cultural heritage but also in natural beauty. If small nations like this can take good care of what little land they have, why can't we? We have vast land and a lot more people. Keep the country beautiful. It is not upto the government or somebody, It is upto us. Little things like not littering or not cutting down trees, not turning forests into concrete jungles will go a long way in preserving the beauty of our country. Think about it.

Norway- Day 3, the Fjords

What a day it was!!

We woke up early in the morning had muesli (yuck) and leftover pizza for breakfast and started off to the port. The boat had arrived and we got in.
And we embarked on the most beautiful journey ever. We were on the way to a beautiful place called Fläm through the sognefjord.

Let me say a little about fjords here. This is what wikipedia has to say about fjords. Geologically, a fjord or fiord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides, created in a valley carved by glacial activity. Fjords are formed when a glacier cuts a U-shaped valley by abrasion of the surrounding bedrock. Many such valleys were formed during the recent ice age. Glacial melting is accompanied by rebound of Earth's crust as the ice load and eroded sediment is removed.

I don't care for the definition but it was a wonderful experience. The sea runs through the mountains on either sides. There were pretty little houses on the mountains here and there. And they all had electricity even though there were as less as 2 houses per mountain. The Sognefjord is the largest fjord in norway and the second longest in the world and stretches 205 km.

The fjords are said to be really deep and if the water is to be removed the mountains around us would stand double their height. They were already pretty high :). The day was warm and bright when we started. But as we went on , it got colder. At one point it was raining on one side and was bright and sunny on the other.

As Fläm got nearer, We got to see beautiful snowcapped mountains. Ratna was mentioning in one of her pics that she missed her family there. Truly, that was the only thing on my mind at that point. I wished my parents could see what I was seeing. It was beyond words. A humbling experience. Me, maithra and ratna were saying wow at every juncture in oslo. When we begun the fjord cruise we were saying wow quite often. But after a while we simply stopped speaking. Wow was too small a word to describe what we were seeing. I also felt a little sad that we were spoiling and polluting such a beautiful world that god had created for us. No other planet that we know has an abundance of natural baeuty like earth. And we go about ruining everything.

We reached Fläm in the afternoon. After a light lunch we went on a trek to a nearby waterfall. The little town reminded me of switzerland in yash chopra movies. Picture perfect with little farms, sheep and yak and horses, huge mountains in the background. Water melting from the mountain tops and running into little streams. In fact I saw a stream which was running two ways. It was really strange. After walking a while we realised we did not have enough time to reach the waterfall. So, we walked back to the railway station. On the way, there was this little stream we got into. The water was ice cold and it was difficult to stay in for more than a few seconds. We tried drinking the water , it was realy pure and fresh.

After playing there for a while we went to the railway station to catch our train. The Flämsbäana is part of the bergen railway line and is a beautiful route. The single track line is 20.2 km long. The top station Myrdal is 865 metres above sea level, while Flåm is by the fjord at sea level. In order to manage the climb up the mountainside, the line twists and turns and has twenty tunnels to gain altitude; even so, the steepest incline of the railway is 1:18, the third steepest adhesion railway in the World. The line has one horseshoe curve (a full 180 degree turn) in Vatnahalsen tunnel as well as one horseshoe curve in open air at Reinunga to gain altitude. There is a crossing (passing) loop at Berekvam station to allow trains going up and down at the same time.
There were a lot of waterfalls and snowcapped mountains on the way. at a point we could see three different levels of tracks on the mountain. The route was breathtakingy beautiful. Then the train halted at a waterfall. Everybody got down to see the waterfall as it was really close to the train. Then suddenly music started playing and a lady came out of the hills at the top and started singing. It was eerie and beautiful at the same time.
We reached our destination myrdal in about an hour. But we were disappointed that the journey ended so soon. There was a train waiting to get us to Voss from where we could catch another train to bergen. The route was beautiful. If your tired of reading that line then I really can't help it. :)

In the train to Voss we met a scottish couple Robert and margaret anderson. We spoke to them about India , they told us about scotland and britain and then we spoke about our work. They were surprised that we were all working as they thought we were kids and were actually looking out for our parents. :P. It was wonderful meeting them.

We all got down at Voss , while they went ahead on their journey, we stayed on in voss as our train was in an hour. We walked around the place and settled down in a lawn by the sea. It was really relaxing and lovely. I had never imagined I would ever be in a place like this.

We had a really silly discussion about flushing systems here and voted the system in korea the best :) . What can I say , technology everywhere!!

Once we boarded the train to Bergen, we just flopped and fell asleep. We got down in bergen and went back to the hostel. Had our food and fell asleep again. Early next morning, we had a train to catch to oslo. And we had no intention of sleeping this time around.

Norway- Day2, Bergen

Bergen is also known as the city of rain. And yes, it was raining when we reached the city. Maithra was the only one carrying an umbrella. The rest of us were wearing hooded jackets so we ran to the hostel where we were supposed to be put up.
We finally found the hostel and pressed on the intercom to talk to someone on the inside. They said they do not take new ppl in until 2 in the afternoon. It was almost 7 in the morning. There was a restaurant adjacent to the hotel. We decided to try our luck in there and went inside to see if anybody was there. Once inside the alarms in the restaurant started off. We had no choice but to leave the building and get back to the hostel. We again called the person through the intercom and he gave us a code to enter the hostel. We entered and sat on the floor in the reception area. This was when we remembered that we had not given our weekly statistics at work. So we submitted it from there. Meanwhile Maithra went out for a walk and realised that there were policemen at the restaurant. She told them what had happened and straightened things out.

At eight o clock the restaurant opened and we were told we could not check in until 2 in the afternoon. So we put our luggage in the restautant and changed in their washrooms and then went out to see the city. We first went to the railway station to have some breakfast. Later we started our trek up mt Floyen.

Before I start talking about Mt. Floyen, I must explain that Bergen is surrounded by seven mountains. We spent a lot of time counting seven. But later I realised that which seven mountains is a matter of definition.

Mount floyen is the most visited of the seven mountains in bergen. It is almost 1050 ft high and the view from top is breathtaking. We took almost 2 hours to reach the summit of the mountain, thanks to me. What with my height and weight I slowed down the others majorly. There is also a train that goes from the foot to the summit but trekking was definitely more fun. Take it from me , I was the one for whom climbing the mountain was most difficult and yet , the view from the top is worth all the difficulty.

It was surprising to see that people actually live on the mountain. they must be summer houses for all I know. But they were really pretty houses. Tiled and pretty when we saw from the top.We could see the sea and the mountains as fas as we could. The city itself was very lovely. We sat at the top and were trying to locate where our hostel was. Must say it's a small city.

The trek downwards was a lot faster and we were at the foot in an hour. There were little streams and tiny waterfalls on the way down and it was a pretty sight. We were really hungry by the time we got down. I wanted to try some fish. But the sights and smells in the fish market put me off and I decided to have something at mcd's. The fish market in bergen is world famous for I dunno what. But it had fish and other foo in abundance. Eating by the waterfront should be fun I'd say.

While I was waiting for my food to arrive a drunk guy walked up to me and a group of other girls and was aking us where we 'stupid animals' came from. I decided to let him figure it out on his own and walked away.

Once we were done with lunch we went back to the hostel. We could check in then. We walked into our dorm which was a 10 bed dorm. and it was the first time I ever slept on a bunk bed. It was fun. People were still discussing about who was snoring the loudest. We decided we'd cook dinner for that day and ventured ut shopping when we woke up at 6 in the evening. We bought some noodles for the next day and soup and pizza for that night. We also stopped by the port to check out at what time our boat left the next day.
Then we went to a park near the national museum. It was a real holiday,no hurry to reach any place no worries in the mind.

We met the two giggly girls from the train in our hostel. They were from switzerland and were travelling coz they got real cheap tickets. There were a lot of student concessions available.

At night we all had pizza and soup and saw some russel crowe movie. It was like having dinner with family. My bed was in the corner of the room and it was really comfy to sleep in.
I suddenly woke up at night and maithra was calling me and asking me who was snoring so loudly. :)

Norway - Day 1, Oslo

The central station in Oslo is a very huge place. The railway station is a combination of two buildings. One, the old railway station which today, is a mall. It has high cielings and cieling fans (we got excited when we saw them). Two, the new railway station which is a high tunnel like structure. If you look at it from outside the building as a modernistic feel compared to the rest of the buildings around it. In the square outside the railway station is a huge bronze tiger, looking ferociously at the passers by.

We started walking the streets of Oslo and I must say it is a beautiful city. We walked past some lovely buildings. We walked past a horde of fountains with many statues around , A little further we saw the storting, which is the norwegian parliament. It is a magnificient building with a lot of parks around it. Lovely rose bushes(??) surrounded the building. The storting is a magnificient structure and we ended up spending quite some time posing for photographs around the place.
The we walked around town checking out the map arguing over which way to go and which place to see. We got the oslo university and the royal palace mixed up. But then we've seen both and now we know which is which. :)

The garden(?) surrounding the royal palace is very beautiful. and the best picture taken there was ratna jumping high in the air. It took three cameras to capture the moment but then the photograph is lovely. Speaking of photographs all three girls wore really bright colors that day, I was in red, Ratna in orange and Maithra in blue, the effect was wonderful. We have some lovely pictures.

It started drizzling after a while and we still had to see the aker castle. I don't know if it was because of the number of tourists around or if oslo is more like Hyderabad, but people really dont care about traffic signals there. They just WALK. Coming from Helsinki, we were a little too concsious of the traffic signals :). There are a lot of people who look like Indians in oslo. Dunno which country they come from.

Next we went to the aker castle, It was a sprawling place and reminded us of soumenlinna island in Finland. We sat down in the grass for sometime and it was really rejuvenating. Ratna wanted to jump off a high wall but Mohan did not allow her to :P

We decided to skip visiting the city hall , but since it was an important place(This is where the nobel peace prize is given), we walked past it and took a couple of snaps. By that time we were totally tired and hungry and set about looking for a place where we could find veggie food. I must mention about Ratna's stamina here. She was on a fast (no food no water) for more than 24 hours and you should really see her energy to believe. So we ate something at burger king, me parvez and maithra (KFC fans) tried a crisp chicken burger but it was nowhere close to the zinger (why doesn't somebody open KFC in the nordic countries ?) . Maithra also posed for some photographs with some stone chickens (she loves chicken :P)
There were statues of short little ugly guys dunno what they are called(trolls). but they reminded me of myself. so I posed for a pic with one :)
We returned back to the railway station to collect tickets for the fjord trip and then we realised there was an indian restaurant in the station whose menu fit perfectly in our budget. We decided to have our lunch here when we return to oslo. And that was where Mohans obsession with chana masala started.

While outside the station a funny incident happened. Ratna was taking a picture of all of us when a really drunk/stoned guy snatched the camera from her hand and said I'll take the snap you go stand in the group. She coolly gave him the cam and joined us. All of us were worried that he would runaway with the cam. We were telling her in hindi to take the cam immediately after he takes the snap. He took another snap and then another equally dazed friend of his came over and started taking a look at the pic. They were really drunk and were asking us where we came from. When we said India they became even more happy and started going on and on about how India is a lovely country and how the food is good and the capital is 'mumbai' (Maithra corrected them but they were too drunk to notice) . They were poor harmless guys but we were all so worried about the cam that we could not really enjoy the conversation. (except for ratna who's cam it was. She was pretty cool about the whole thing)

We then boarded the train to Bergen. The coaches were beautiful. there were two seats on either side of the aisle. Every one was provided with a blanket, eye patch, ear plugs and a pillow. The journey was supposed to be beautiful so we had no plans of sleeping. We just talked around for a while. And then we simply nodded off.
I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night and the train was passing through some beautiful mountains , I stared at it for sometime and then nodded off again. And that was how I (in fact, all of us) spent the rest of the journey. We would nod off, wake up to find something really beautiful, try to stay awake and fall asleep again. The train passed through snow capped mountains and wide expanses of snow. It was a wonderful sight and left me wondering if I was dreaming at times. Ratna captured a lovely snap at about three in the morning. It was almost mid summer which meant there was no sunset. So we were able to enjoy most of the views without worrying about the dark.
There were two girls sitting beside us who were giggling non stop. And all of us were wondering why? And one of us was snoring. And there was a 4 day debate on who it was.
And after six hours , we had reached our destination. BERGEN, the city of rain.

Norway - Day 1, Beginning the journey

No better way to start the blog than my trip to 'The land of the midnight sun'. Norway is known for the fjords and the first one I saw left me speechless. Officially the Kingdom of Norway, it is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty.

Friday, 19th June 2009 was declared a holiday for midsummer's eve. For us that meant a loooong weekend. So we (Me, Ratna, Maithra, Parvez, Amit and Mohan) decided to take off on a trip to Norway.

We Started from Helsinki on Thursday 18th June. By metro from Ruohalahti to Hakaniemi and Airport shuttle from there. That journey itself should have been an indication of how tired we would get in the whole trip. The bus was jam packed and we had to stand all the way to the airport. There are very pretty houses in vantaa and pretty landscapes too. On the way we suddenly realised that the flight was at 4:10 and not 4:30 and we were already late. Thankfully we reached the airport on time and managed to check in. During the security check a corkscrew was unearthed from my bag (I dint know it was there) I gave it to the security guy as a token of love :P .

The journey from Helsinki to Oslo was a little more than an hour and the time difference was also an hour. We already started discussing our next trip(Italy) during the flight.We were served cheeseburgers as a snack which ratna could not eat as she was fasting(more on this later). We landed in Oslo at 4:10 pm :)and took off to the city centre in a bus (140 NOKs :O ). We got to see some beautiful sights on the way. It was drizzling slightly and the grass around looked lush green. We got down at the Oslo city bus stop to collect our tickets to bergen and the round trip to flam from bergen.