Corinne goes to Norway 2007. Page 1

Corinne heads north for some fun in the fjords !

Corinne is accompanied by her girlfriend.

This morning, monday 11 june, I was off on a business trip to Oslo in Norway and my girlfriend Sylvie had decided to come with me. I think she had plans to find a tall blonde viking girl with whom to settle down in the frozen mountains of the arctic circle. We therefore set off for Geneva at 11.30. We flew on Lufthansa to Frankfurt and Oslo. Sylvie was very impressed by the view of Oslo fjord as we descended. So much so that she even stopped groping my thighs.

At Oslo Gardermoen airport I rented a car and we drove the 60 kms. south to Oslo. There was a shipping conference all week and ALL the hotels in a radius of 100 kms. were fully booked so I had managed to find a flat to rent in the western suburb of Ullern. Well, eventually we found our flat which was on the 6th. floor with a view over Oslo Fjord. Not bad really, even if it was horrendously expensive. We were pretty hungry by then so we drove to Aker Brygge which is a very trendy port for yachts, and had a lovely sushi meal. The service was terribly slow so we didn't get to bed until 01.00.

The weather is excellent and it's very hot. Here we are together at Aker Brygge. Sylvie clearly didn't eat up all her vegetables when she was younger and that's probably why she's so much smaller than me. Well, we can't all be perfect.

An expensive Norwegian restaurant.

The next morning it was light by about 03.00 with bright sunshine. I left Sylvie snoring happily in bed and set off for a day of meetings with a number of Norwegian companies. In the late afternoon I picked her up from Viggelands Park in which there are a whole load of old concrete statues, some of which are doing rather naughty things and hence are entirely unsuitable for a young lady like me. Guess they're ok for Sylvie though.

We went to eat a Norwegian meal in Oslo's red light district by the port. It was extremely expensive and not that good. There were a few prostitutes around and, as we exited the restaurant, a car mistook me for one ! Sylvie is not in a good mood today and wasn't impressed by my wisecrack about working 10 minutes to pay for the meal ! Here is Sylvie coming out of the restaurant.

The statue of Olav V.

Sylvie and I drove up Holmenkollen hill where there is a somewhat dilapidated ski jump at the top... and a statue of this character, one Olav V. Well, Mr. V. is clearly a cross country skier who liked to ski with his dog, an oversized poodle. Mr. V., as you can see in the photo, is a pretty big man. I guess he ate even more veg than I did.

Holmenkollen.

Here we are on Holmenkollen. Behind us are the typical grass roofed wooden houses in which all Norwegians live. This way they all have a garden in which they can graze their goats during the short summer weeks. In the background is Oslo Fjord. By this time Sylvie has finally realised that she's not going to find the Viking girl of her fantasies, because she already has the best, the tallest, the sexiest, the blondest and the most shapely girl ever... me !

Another statue.

Now, this bloke may well appear somewhere in a guide book, but, since we didn't have one, we didn't know who he was. I suspect he might have been waiting for the first bus to come up Holmenkollen because he's dressed in pretty old fashioned clothes. He must have frozen to death. Unlike Mr. V., he doesn't seem to have had a dog to guide him.

Bygdoy Island.

That's enough culture for one day. Here I am really having fun with a bucket and spade. This is on Bygdoy Island, just west of the city centre. On the same island can be found boring stuff such as the Viking Ship museum, the Kon-Tiki museum and the polar ship FRAM. Making sandcastles is much more fun eh ? Furthermore, just a few days off the summer solstice, the sun at 60° latitude means you can stay on the beach until very late without getting cold, as you can see.

The view from our flat.

Here is the view of Oslo Fjord from our 6th floor flat, looking south. It's pretty good for a city flat really. In winter one could watch the surface of the fjord turn to ice. Today, once I've finished work, we are leaving for Geiranger Fjord in the mountains a few hundred kilometres north. What fun !

At last, the Norwegian mountains !

We left Oslo and drove up the E6, in the direction of Trondheim. Here I am near Hamar (south of Lillehammer) where we stopped for something to eat. My knitted top, which had lots of holes in it, attracted quite a lot of attention. I suppose it must have been because I didn't have a bra on underneath...