2011.09.05 - Cars

Street party and old cars

Cars ... yes, we have been wanting to see Cars 2 for a while now, but I do not refer to this animation movie in the title. Instead I refer to a little surprise event (well - for us anyway) which we came across on our city walk on Saturday. On our way towards Grüneløkke we saw a lot of commotion on Rådhuspladsen very close to our apartment. It turned out to be the starting point of a veteran car race, so we of course slowed our pace and had a good look around. There were many nice cars. Lots of very old Fords, an International, MG, Mercedes and my favorite - a Simca. The most politically correct of the bunch, I suspect - it was tiny in any case.

From Rådhuspladsen we walked on; past the street musicians, the homeless and the tourists and eventually made it to Jysk where Paula had found a small thing she needed. What a dump ! But it is cheap, so popular (cheapish ... nothing is cheap in Norway!). I am a cheapie myself but sometimes I think that the discount rage goes a little too far. Is it really that much more expensive to clean up once in a while ?

Anyway, on our way back to downtown we came across a part of town called Rodeløkke. We came across it by chance when we saw a loppemarked (garage sale) sign, and it turned out to be quite a cosy little area with many old and charming houses. After a pitstop in the cafe for a cup of tea and one of the amazing homemade Norwegian cakes, we were ready to continue our rainy city walk. We didn't get far though, as we ran across a party in Sofielundsparken with music and Chilean Choripanes (hotdogs). Even at 50NOK I had to have one while listening to the live music. I was somewhat disappointed byt the size of my hotdog. It did not appear to be related to the high price in any way ! The sausage was tiny!!! And little was the relief when we noticed that just behind the Chilean food stand they were handing out sausages and mash potatoes for free! It slowly dawned on us that the party was arranged by the food producer Mills for their 60th year birthday and that was the reason for the free handout. Kinda made sense to us now why there had been so few people at the Chilean stand ....

Onwards towards Grüneløkke where we ran across another party. This one was a street party/marked. Free (and surprisingly good) live music at Olaf Ryes square, some street stands, a tea purchase and another loppemarked later we were finally entering downtown and from there returned to our neighborhood - 6 hours after setting out. For a rainy day we had done quite well.

Sunday we got on a train and headed down to our friends in Drammen. We are quite accostumed to rail trouble and delayed trains in Denmark/Sweden, but we had hoped to escape it here in Norway. But apparently we are the stupid ones, thinking that trains can run on time in Scandinavia! We got on the train alright but were kicked out soon afterwards and herded on to a bus instead. So poor Jarek, who was picking us up in Drammen, had to wait for us for an extra 30-40 minutes in the pouring rain. It's not much of a delay in some parts of Africa but I really don't understand why it is so difficult up here where we have I-don't-know-how-many-years of experience with railed transportation .... it's as if somebody thinks they are doing us a great service by providing us with fancy pansy trains when in fact the train operators should be grateful to have ANY customers at all with this poor service. Lack of options I guess.

Oh well - we made it there and back eventually and while in Drammen we had a good time with our friends. Magda and Jarek returned from Korea about the same time as us but as they are staying here in Oslo for much longer time than we are (indefinite), they have bought a very nice house bordering the forest above Drammen. It's a very cosy (but large) log house and exactly what a Danish person would call "very typical" for Norway! Svein Olav and Sarah were there with their kids also and although it wouldn't stop raining completely, we still made it down to the lake that Magda and Jarek have in their back garden (well - on the other side of the forest). It really is a nice place for them and the kids.