14th Nov (Sun) - ただいま、I'm home!

I almost couldn't come back. Seriously.

My flight from Oslo to Paris on 13th Nov was originally scheduled for 3.15pm. But since I had to check out of my hostel by 10.30am and had no where else to go, I decided to head over to the airport real early. By the time I checked in at the automated kiosk and went over to the baggage check-in counter, it was around 12noon. After the staff checked my ticket, she informed me that I need to head over to another counter to pay for excess baggage and come back here again to check in. So I did just that and probably spent about 15 mins there and went back to the baggage check-in again.

But to my surprise, I was told by the staff that the gate for baggage check-in has already closed. I was dumbfounded. So I rationalized with her that my flight was at 3.15pm and there's no way it's closed this early. Then, another of her male colleague came over and explained to me that there's no flight to Paris at 3.15pm. It was then that I came to realise that my boarding pass had reflected 12-something as well. After much confusion, it turned out that the flight had been brought forward by 3 hrs! Meaning, my flight was about to leave in 15 mins and yet there I was still trying to check-in my baggage. And I wasn't informed. No email. No sms alert.

So after reasoning that I did not receive any notification about the change in schedule, the guy politely said "I'm sorry ma'am. You'd have to question whichever agent helped you booked your tickets."

That's when I showed him my e-ticket. It was issued directly from Air France.

He was surprised and said "well, that's us." He was dumbfounded himself.

And the next thing I knew was they made a few calls, got the gate re-opened again, re-issued me a ticket and I was off rushing to clear the customs. Thankfully, I made it in time - partly because the plane's arrival was delayed as well. Phew!

So, after 65 days of lone "adventure" across 28 cities, I'm finally home again. Spent another month or so (this post is backdated btw) to filter through the 5000++ images and updated my previous entries. And there you go, have a look :)



STOP 1: Madrid, Spain

STOP 2: Santiago de Compostela, Spain

STOP 3: Barcelona, Spain

STOP 4: Bordeaux, France

STOP 5 & 6: Nice & Monaco, France

STOP 7: Rome, Italy

STOP 8, 9 & 10: Pompei, Amalfi & Naples - Italy

STOP 11 & 12: Florence & Pisa, Italy

STOP 13: Venice, Italy

STOP 14: Verona, Italy

STOP 15: Vienna, Austria

STOP 16: Prague, Czech Republic

STOP 17: Munich, Germany

STOP 18: Switzerland

STOP 19: Paris, France

STOP 20: Brussels, Belgium

STOP 21: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

STOP 22: Berlin, Germany

STOP 23 & 24: Copenhagen (Denmark) & Reykjavík (Iceland)

STOP 25: Stockholm, Sweden

STOP 26: Rovaniemi, Lapland

STOP 27: Tromso, Norway

FINAL - STOP 28: Oslo, Norway

12th Nov (Fri) - Oslo

Since I only got a day here in Oslo, I went and got myself a 24-hr Oslo Pass from the Tourist Info counter. It's so much cheaper to get it than to spend a la carte. Of course, this is on the basis that I'm cramming all my attraction visits (most museum attractions and transport were covered under the pass and no need for additional fee) in a single day and need to keep changing transports so a la carte would have been super costly.

Places which I'd visited include:

1) Norsk Folkemuseum



2) Vikingkipshuset



3) Norsk Sjøfortmuseum
*P.S.: Nothing much to see here unless you are a maritime fan.

4) Kon-tiki museet



5) Frammuseet

6) Icebar Oslo
Apparently, the interior design of the bar changes every few months. And it's good fun only when you go with a bunch of friends 'coz it's not a free-to-walk-in-anytime kind of bar. What happens is that visitors are let in in batches every 20 mins or so. By then, the previous group had already cleared out. And the bar is actually very small. More like a room than a full-blown bar. So, although it's nice to check it out, don't get your expectations too high.

The entry fee is not covered under the Oslo Pass but you do get a discount off it. Comes with a drink.









Other than the above (which pretty much took up my day already), I went window shopping around the main station as well. Nice stuff. But too ex. So I ended up keeping my hand in my pocket most of the time to restrain myself from buying. Hahahaha.



It'll be nice to visit Oslo again and visit all the other museums (including the weird ones). But I really do need to save up to enjoy myself there. Well, for a rough gauge, I spent like SGD 80++ just for a starter soup, a fish main course and a medium glass of coke. But the food's damn nice. Still, it's expensive. In Singapore, I could get the same dishes for about the same (tasty) standard at about SGD 40 or lower. Jeez... Oh well, at least the food was good :) and I didn't have to stuff myself with another round of pizza tonight just to save $$$ since it's the last night of my entire 2-mth adventure.

11th Nov (Thurs) - Tromso

There goes my arctic adventures just when I finally made up my mind a few days ago to screw the budget and just indulge while I'm still in Tromso. Unfortunately for me, the reindeers were still in the forests and would only be herded into the farms this weekend - which meant no reindeer sledding for me since I would be on my way back to SG by then.

Had thought of switching to Ice fishing or snowshoeing or perhaps even arctic fishing but the ice wasn't thick enough so I could do none of the above. What a downer. Sigh.

So the next best choice I had was to go chasing the Northern Lights again. This time round, I visited a husky farm (but didn't take on the husky sledding since I'd already done it in Rovaniemi), sat in a lavvu (Sami Herdsmen’s tent) and waited for the Northern Lights. But I wasn't that lucky. It got all cloudy so I pretty much stayed inside the tent most of the time, drinking tea and having mini slices of a cake. Kinda boring. Perhaps I wasn't with the right company - i.e.: like with friends to take turns to tell ghost stories or head out to create some snowman or snow angels. Sigh...





But Tromso itself was beautiful. Very tranquil and the mountain view unhindered. A small town with loads of nice and friendly people. :) They even made a long traffic tunnel in a cave. Pretty amazing.







I also visited the rather interesting Polaria...





...and got out of town to get to the Mt. Storsteinen cable car.





The only grouse I had (apart from the lack of activities that I could participate in due to my wrong timing), was that things were freaking expensive! Okay, it's Norway. But it was like having to pay 11 Euros or thereabouts for a Burger King meal, without up-size. FAINT. Seriously.

Oh man... I'm not sure if I would ever head back to Tromso again. The cost of living in Norway really made me think twice. But on the other hand, it's still rather attractive when I start thinking of all the things I could do if I had gone over in Jan/ Feb instead. Oh man... I can't decide.

8th Nov (Mon) - Rovaniemi, Lapland

I finally got a slot for the husky sled today :) At first, the agency wouldn't let me sign on 'coz i was the only one on their waiting list. But just soon after I got off the phone with them, they called back saying that another person had just signed on as well. Yippee!!!

But before I headed over to the huskies, the agency brought me and the others over to a Reindeer farm as well, where I got up close and personal with the reindeers.





The farm owner mentioned that majority of the reindeers were still in the forests and had not been herded back to the farm just yet. Thus, we only saw about 10 reindeers in the farm itself. And she did add on that most farmers would not tell you how many reindeers they own in total as that would be the same as you telling someone how much money you have in your account.



After a brief conversation on why one of the reindeers seemed to have injured its horns (see pix above - which turned out that the reindeers had to break off their horns now and then to facilitate the growth and it would be rather painless for them), I decided to brave the following questions:

Q1) Were the reindeers here bred for meat or mainly for sledding?
The answer was mainly for meat and some for sledding. And the slaughtering would take place only once a year, during autumn (more or less 6 months after the reindeers gave birth to little calves). But there's a quota set by the association/ authorities on how many they could slaughter each season, so that there was proper population control.

So if you happen to consume reindeer meat in say spring or summer, those have been frozen for quite some time since the slaughter in Autumn.

Q2) Were old reindeers the ones which got slaughtered?
Answer: On the contrary, about 70% of the reindeers slaughtered were the 6-month old calves.

When I heard this, I felt damn guilty about my previous reindeer meal... I would have felt better if she had said it was mainly the old reindeers...

Anywayz, after a brief stay in the cottage to warm up, we headed over to the husky place. The huskies got all excited and started barking and howling non-stop. We took some time to go around the cages to greet and pet some of the dogs (there were more than 150 of them and we couldn't possibly greet all), while the staff hurried along to prepare the summer sled.



I was quite surprised to find that these sledding huskies were a lot smaller than the domestic husky and there was a wide variety as well. They didn't necessarily take on the grey-white fur. Wow~ The staff explained that these huskies in particular were bred mainly for speed and performance (they were sledding dogs after all), and not for looks.







Once the sled was ready, the dogs latched to the sled were super hyper - as if they were trying to say "Let's get going NOW!". Hahahaha.



The summer sled alone weighed about 150 kg. If we add on 2 passengers plus one driver, the average total weight would usually come up to at least 250kg. And all it took was 10 huskies to get it moving. Wow~



When we first took off, I could really feel the excitement and acceleration from the dogs. But soon, they would switch to a constant gear and the average travelling speed (whilst carrying us in the summer sled) would be about 60 -70km/ hour. WOW~ Yah. I'm a country pumpkin. I couldn't help being fascinated by how these small dogs could pull off such a thing. I'm amazed.



After the short ride, we went inside to a fireplace to warm up before heading out to greet the husky puppies! They were super shy and kept running away to their mommy or the trainer when I (and the other fellow tourists) tried to approach them. So cute~ Hahahha.



Soon after, it was time for me to head back to the guesthouse and finish up my packing - 'coz I had to leave for Helsinki (and then take a plane to Oslo) in the evening.

Having visited the reindeer farm and getting the answers that got me feeling all guilty, I kept deliberating on whether I should still have the traditional Sauteed Reindeer for dinner. In the end, I decided to go for it but at the same time, telling myself that it would be the final time I would consume reindeer meat.



My verdict? I personally felt that it was an acquired taste. Not that it wasn't nice. It was just that it tasted rather different. Somehow the texture reminded me of a very well done slice of beef, but yet retained a distinct strong taste. If you were one that found lamb has a distinct strong taste, that's probably it. Not that reindeer meat and lamb tasted the same, just that each has such a distinct strong taste that some people might find it hard to accept.

After a hearty dinner, I boarded the VR overnight train for a 12 hour journey to Helsinki. I was kinda surprised when I opened the door to my bunk. There was a personal toilet in there! In addition, there was a shower facility within that same toilet as well, complete with nice, clean towels. And this was just 2nd class cabin! Hmmmm... EUROSTAR should really take cues from VR and start revamping their facilities.



And to end off my adventures in Rovaniemi, here are some additional random pix taken during my stay:

7th Nov (Sun) - Rovaniemi, Lapland

PRELUDE

Friday - I should've checked the map of Finland/ Lapland before I went on board the plane. Coz I'd thought that Tampere was part of Rovaniemi when it was in fact a different city altogether. So when the plane made a pitstop at Tampere airport to pick up more passengers, I alighted the plane and happily (plus unknowingly) went out of the customs and stopped for a toilet break. It was in the toilet that I heard my name being mentioned over the airport PA system and was asked to proceed to security control asap. Thank god I was still in the airport and ran over asap. The airport staff were pretty amused, especially the air stewardess who was at the door, greeting me for the 2nd time when I boarded the plane again. Phew! What a close shave.

************************************
The average day time temperature was about -7 to -10.5 degrees. Night time ranged from -11 to -15. Still bearable for now except my face felt frozen. Well, kind of. Just exaggerating it a little.

It happened to be a holiday yesterday, so almost all shops were closed. So I decided to visit the Artikum and to understand more about the Sami culture and the arctic circle. That was how I got to know that the word "Arctic" actually derived from a Greek word. And it meant the "land of the great bear" as the constellation of the great bear could always been seen in the north.



As for today, I took the Santa Express bus 8 from the train station (see pix below - which happened to be less than 200m from the guesthouse I'm staying in) and went straight for the so-called "official" Santa Claus Village, situated right in the Arctic Circle.



Well for starters, I could have gotten the Arctic Circle stamp on my passport and/or have the official certificate to show that I was at the Arctic Circle. But since there was a bunch of Japanese tourists queuing for it, I decided to come back later instead (which I didn't in the end).





The Santa Claus Post Office was kinda cool. The staff were dressed like adult elves and there were displays of letters to Santa from kids all over the world, including one super long one which the staff had to roll up into a scroll and put it on display as well. Most of the letters from kids were like "I've been good this year...blah blah blah". But there were some that asked really sensible and cute questions like "how many helpers do you have", "don't you ever go for a holiday", "were your helpers really elves" and etc.





Though I didn't send a letter to Santa nor did I purchase a request for Santa's letter (which cost about 7 euros), I did get my hands on some postcards from the post office, get them stamped and posted them back to my address in SG. I would love to get more postcards but they were rather expensive - like 2 SGD per card. So I got limited choice but to settle for only a handful. Lesson learned. Next time, bring your own postcards and just buy the stamps and get them posted from the post office.



Next stop, the Santa Claus' office - which turned out to be just a small studio which you could take a picture with Mr. Santa Claus. There were several options for you to choose what output you want, either it was a postcard set of 5, or photo saved in a Sony thumbdrive or a large print out. Since the large printout was the "cheapest" of them all, I opted for that. And yet, it still cost me 25 Euros. No kidding. This would be the one and final time I would ever take a photo with any Santa Claus.





After wandering around Santa Claus Village for some time, I decided to head back to the guesthouse and retire for the night.

5th Nov (Fri) - Stockholm

PRELUDE
Reached Stockholm bus terminal at 6.20am on Wednesday. It was still pitch black then. I was deliberating on whether I should get on a taxi or not as (1) I wasn't sure how to get to the hostel and (2) I didn't have any Swedish Krone with me at all. Just euros and Danish Krones. After explaining to the taxi driver, he agreed to let me pay by card. Phew! The 10 min taxi ride cost me 150 SEK (approx. 17 euros) though.

Upon reaching the hostel, I rang the door bell, only to realise that the receptionist would only be in at 9am. Luckily for me, one guy happened to be leaving the hostel and he let me in. So I took a sit in front of the computer and tried to sleep by resting on my arms. My throat was feeling better but my cough was getting much worse. I felt sick and needed to have a wink or two.

Finally at 9am, the receptionist appeared and I got checked-in immediately. Slept for approx 3 hours before heading out to look for food. The medication made me hungry. And this pattern kinda repeated for the past 2 days as well. Medication. Sleep. Food. Walk. Food. Medication. Sleep.

************************************************************

I was kinda suprised that Stockholm was warmer than Copenhagen. The last I'd checked, Stockholm was faring at about 8°C. Night temperature averaged about 2 to 4°C. Though the temperature was milder, I still felt the chills. Probably coz I'm still feeling sick.

Anywayz, I went walking around Old Town (Galma-Stan area) and kinda like the place and the whole atmosphere. Not to mention the simple yet super nice lifestyle items and interior deco stuff that could be found almost everywhere. How I wished I could bring them all home. But I couldn't. There were so many times within a day itself, that I would pick up an interesting object only to put it down seconds later after looking at the price. For instance, a A5-size wooden tray (chic design kind) would cost about 40 SGD. And a 2-pc cloak hook would cost around 36 SGD. *FAINT* Sigh...



Price aside, if you were to start from around Skeppsbron 8 and gradually make your way through the numerous back lanes towards Stora Nygatan (which is the more touristy Old Town street), you would be able to find quite a handful of interesting and/ or chic local design or handicraft shops. Very nice ~ :)

And since I was staying near to the river bank, I took a stroll there as well. I was kinda surprised to find yachts and cruise ships in the middle of the city.



And there was the main shopping area on the otherside of town too - i.e: Kulturhuset and Stadsteatern, where all souveneir shops, H&M and other major brands could be found. The area's nice but I kinda preferred the Old Town charm.







Meals in restaurants and cafes tend to be rather expensive (for a budget traveller) too. I originally wanted to opt for those roadside grill stalls where you buy-and-go, like a grilled burger + fries + coke that would cost me about 7 euros. But considering my battle with the evil cough, I had to gave it a miss. But I did get my hands on trying reindeer meat and crayfish in one of the local pubs though.

Unfortunately, the reindeer meat was sliced so thin like a piece of pinic ham and topped with so much onion and sauce that I could hardly make out the taste.

As for the crayfish, it had too much mayo and it tasted way too salty. Argh! Hope this wasn't the usual way the locals would cook crayfish, otherwise, they should really learn the teowchew way - just steam it with garlic. Yum yum!



OK. Time for me to log off and flag a taxi to Arlanda airport. Or rather, ask my hostel for help in the booking. Amongst the different taxi operators, apparently there's this company called "Transfer" (black and yellow taxi) that offered the lowest, fixed rate @ 450 SEK. The others were about 520 SEK.

I would have opted for the bus or train if it wasn't for the cough and the heavy luggage. That would have saved me anything from 60 to 150 SEK. Oh well...