The answer to the question "What's the best country in the world for [insert something here]?" is always "Norway". It's true! But not being trusting people, we decided to go and find out for ourselves.
Things didn't start brilliantly, with a three-hour delay for our flight. Brussels Airport basically shuts at 9pm, so it was strange huddling together with our fellow Oslo-bound passengers in one small corner of a giant empty atrium.
The reason for the wait soon became apparent: SNOW! This was Pete's reason for wanting to head north in the first place, but de-icing planes evidently slows things, and by the time we'd touched down in deep-and-crisp-and-even Scandinavia the last airport train had departed.
When we finally got to the front of the taxi queue, I decided it was best to close my eyes. The driver explained how all Norwegians have to complete courses on winter driving to get a license, and about snow tires, but that didn't help. Coming from a country where a heavy frost causes road chaos and carnage, I was not prepared to be driven at 120kph in white-out conditions. "I feel the road through my feet and hands," said the driver chattily. I'm sure you do, but I was too busy asking the Virgin Mary for protection to respond.
After the small matter of finding our rented apartment at 2am in a blizzard (unlike Scott of the Antarctic, we didn't resort to eating anyone to survive) I was beginning to wonder if Norway was all it was cracked up to be.
But my fears were unfounded! The next morning we donned every warm and waterproof thing we'd packed and set out. The city of Oslo is unbelievably walkable, even under a metre of snow, and busses, trams, and people didn't seem to care about snowmageddon. It's almost like...this is normal here! We wandered around the frozen harbour with it's floating saunas (just no) and had lunch at a restaurant with a dedicated warm room to shed your many layers in.
The day after was clear and bright, and we took a boat trip around the fjord on a fancy electric catamaran. For a pre-Christmas destination, Oslo seemed very quiet, so as Pete was the only child onboard he got invited to drive. I guess there are no maritime laws in Norway. The captain hovered attentively, and amazingly this did not all end in disaster.
Talking of boats, we also got to walk around on the ships that took famed Norwegian Roald Amundsen through the Northwest Passage and to the South Pole! They're just sitting there in an Oslo museum!! He was racing the aforementioned Scott, and it seems like the Norwegians actually planned their Antarctic foray in minute detail, whereas the Brits just trusted in our famed pluck and courage to get us through. And we know how that turned out.
Our flight back to Brussels was only slightly delayed by de-icing, where runny brown stuff slid down the plane windows before take off and filled me with no confidence whatsoever. By now I should have been assured that the Norwegians know what they're doing in these temperatures, but I think our next trip might be to the Costa del Sol.
OK, that's enough snow now.
