The overnight train back to Oslo and 2 very tired travellers

After spending a fabulous day on the Fjords, we had a 3 hour trip back to Bergen on the Flaggruten. We killed part of this time playing Scrabble on my iPhone. Erika beat me but I did my best with hands that looked something like this. [A, A, A, R, I, A]. Once we docked in Bergen, we had a couple hours to eat dinner before it was time to head on back to Bergen Central train station to catch our overnight train back to Oslo. One catch. It had started to rain when we got back to Bergen. Hard. We were hungry, tired, and really were looking forward to getting some sleep on the train so we looked at a few restaurants and picked a fusion Asian restaurant because it looked like it might be quick and and hoped the rain would subside while we were eating. I had a bowl of steamed mussels and some sort of sweet and sour beef dish and Erika had Thai soup. It was a perfect meal although the rain only got worse and it was POURING by the time we were done. We finished up our meal then put on our rain gear and got ready to hump the 3/4 mile to the trainstation in the pouring rain. I actually let the rain fall on my face and head. It felt refreshing to wash off some of the day's sweat and sea spray that was caked on me. It was pretty nice. When it REALLY started to come down, I did the chivalrous thing and let Erika walk point, ducking behind her and letting her take the brunt of it. I live for being a gentleman.

We got to the train station, got our luggage from the lockers, boarded the train, and got our keys to the sleeper car that we booked. Our cabin was probably 5 feet wide by 8 feet long with the beds taking up 3 feet. It was super small. But we had our own sink to brush our teeth and wash our faces and just enough storage space for our bags. We changed quickly and I hit the sack while Erika read a book for a little while. The sleeper car is surprisingly comfy. They give you 2 beds with sheets, pillows, and a nice warm comforter. They also give you 2 towels, 2 bottles of water, and 2 sets of earplugs. Each bed has it's own light as well as an overhead light in the cabin. I was pretty impressed though I would have fallen asleep on broken glass I was so tired. The train ride was 7 hours and 28 minutes long and scheduled to arrive in Oslo at 6:28am. I swear it felt like I closed my eyes and the next thing I knew, the announcement from the conductor came on saying we were pulling into Oslo Central. I guess I crashed. We got dressed, packed up, and got off the train to discover it was pouring rain in Oslo too. Thankfully, Erika had booked us a room at the Radisson SAS hotel right next to the train station so we really only were outside for a total of about 2 minutes. But we also knew that the official check in wasn't until 2pm. It was 6:30am. So we went in and told the hotel clerk, Christian, that we were checking in and we were REALLY hoping he had something for us that early. Christian was great and he got us a room right away. Christian became my new favorite person on this trip. We got to the room, dropped off our things, and went downstairs for breakfast. The Radisson serves a "super breakfast" which was pretty impressive. Probably 30 different items to choose from. They had the normal eggs, bacon, and ham with toast but they also had smoked salmon, pickled herring (FINALLY!), cereal, fruit, tons of bread, etc. We ate a hearty breakfast and with our stomachs full, waddled our way back up to our room to take long, hot showers and relax for the day. We both took showers which completely energized us. We felt even more energized once we saw that the rain had stopped so instead of taking it easy, we decided to head out and see the Vigeland sculpture park on the other side of town.

Big mistake.


We've since agreed that while the park was nice, it really wasn't something either of us wanted to see. We just went to see it since the weather had cleared up and we felt we should take advantage of it. It was a park filled with 200+ statues that quite frankly, I thought were ugly. They definitely were not my style. You can read about it here: http://www.vigeland.museum.no/en/vigeland-park. The park is quite beautiful though with many fountains throughout. It was also probably 2 miles from the hotel so 2 miles out, 2 miles back. By the time we got back, we were definitely done for the night. I took about a 40 minute nap and Erika took a 3 HOUR nap. She didn't wake up until 8pm and by then we were both fried so we ordered room service in and watched reruns of "So You Think You Can Dance". We went to bed knowing Erika would be leaving in the morning. At least so we thought...