Oslo - Fish Soup Round 5, Cliff Diving and Pizza - Wait, What???

We are in the Air France lounge in Paris CDG Airport waiting for our flight home.  It was quite a trip getting here, but more on that later.

We disembarked Sirena at the far port in Oslo.  GM Marck told us that it would be chaotic there with few taxis and suggested that we book a private taxi, which I did.  Well, that didn't work.  Marck was at the gangway and helped us with our luggage to the taxi waiting area - he really treats us so well.  And there was quite a queue for the taxis.  I booked the taxi for 8:45.  It was a no show!  So, at 9:10 we joined the taxi line which by then was fairly short.  It was a pretty quick ride to the Karl Johan Hotel (where we stayed the last time we were in Oslo) and the good news is that the taxi fare was about $25 cheaper than what I had booked.  Now I'm fighting with them for a refund.

At the hotel, we received good news - our room was ready for us.  We dropped our luggage, got settled a bit, and then headed for a coffee shop.  After coffee, we went back to the hotel where Linda did her exercises and I posted the previous 2 blog entries.  By then, it was time for lunch.  We walked over to a restaurant down the street from the hotel where we had previously eaten.  It was crowded and the greeter was rude, so we quickly left. (BTW, Oslo was very crowded.)  After a bit of wandering and a bit of consulting Google Maps, we made our way to Stortorvets Gjaestgiveri restaurant.  What a great find it was.  We sat out back on their not crowded patio and had one of the best lunches we've had.  The fish soup was second to none and the Skagen sandwich was delicious.

Observant Linda had noticed some signs advertising a cliff diving competition at the Oslo Opera House.  Can you believe it?  The opera house is a fantastic building which we have visited in the past.  The exterior is unique and the interior is decorated with what else but Norwegian wood.  So we walked the 1 km to the opera house (Linda a big day walking, more on that later) and caught some of the action from afar.

                                         

After watching for a while we made our way back to the hotel for a coffee stop and a nap.

After that lunch, we weren't sure that we would want dinner, but guess what?  We did get hungry.  We decided that we had had enough fish soup and seafood so we opted for pizza!  I found an Italian restaurant, Casa Pisano, that looked like it had good pizza and that was a short walk from the hotel.  The restaurant turned out to be a popular and interestingly decorated family business.  And the salad and pizza lived up to their on-line ratings.

As I said, it was a big walking day for Linda - 3.3 miles.  And she felt not too sore and ecstatic that she could do so much!

This morning's flight to Paris was fine.  The arrival in CDG, not so fine.  Linda had requested a wheel chair for what can be a long walk in CDG.  The wheel chair was at the gate for her and then things got weird.  The first wheel chair took us from the gate to Passport Control where we had to wait for about 10 minutes for another wheel chair to take us through.  We thought that that wheel chair would take us to the gate, but no!  He took us down to a van that was supposed to take us to the concourse we were to leave from.  Once on the van, we waited for another person they were taking and then we got quite a tour of the airport as they took her to a farther concourse where we waited some more.  Finally, we were taken to our concourse, and after a bit of confusion, we were brought to the lounge.  It turned out to be a 1 hour ordeal to get here.  At least we have lots of time until our flight to LA.  Hopefully, our flight to LA will be uneventful and the ride I booked to take us home will actually be there.

So that is it for this adventure.  Next up is an Alaska cruise in about 4 weeks.  Stay tuned.

Peace and blessings,

Linda and Larry