parkrun, Oslo-stylee
Clearly one of the best reasons for going to Norway was to run a parkrun. Not the only reason, but clearly it would be rude not to. And anyway, one of the parkruns in Oslo begins with a “E” and is therefore a Brucie Bonus in my quest for a second lap of the parkrun alphabet.
Ekebergsletta is a big grassy area on the top of the Ekeberg Plateau, a couple of miles out of central Oslo. Despite being on top of a decent hill, tghere’s a big flat area. It’s also blessed with a road and a wide cycle path / footpath right across the top. The whole thing is unfenced and there are good car parks as well as a cafe and some toilets (amongst other things). All of that means its an ideal location for a parkrun.
I was, however, lacking in car. That meant finding some other way up there. I hadn’t had the time or energy to investigate public transport. The parkrun website made it look difficult. More difficult than it eventually turned out to be. So I booked an Uber. Obviously with Uber you get to see the price, which meant I could confirm it wasn’t going to cost me an arm and a leg, unlike the previous day’s taxi.
Run, Forest, Run!
I was ready by 7:30 but the Uber took longer than their initial estimate, which caused a bit of a scare, but ultimately it was a 15 minute ride through the tunnels under the fjord. I arrived at around 8:30.
They were ready and waiting for me. Not specifically for me, I guess, but I like to dream.
My chosen attire for this run was to advertise my football team. It’s good to do that outside the UK. Inside the UK you can draw disapproving comments by wearing a club football shirt, but overseas you normally meet fellow supporters (from any club) who appreciate the effort even if it’s a different team. At this parkrun though, the first guy to pass comment was a fellow Forest man. In fact, he lived about 5 miles away from where I went to school. So Come on You Reds! And anyway, I rather like this year’s away shirt, in a dashing shade of dark green with the familiar Adidas tri-stripe in red.
On this day the parkrun team had chosen to run their winter course. The previous day’s rain had softened up the grassy areas, so they decided to stick to the tarmac instead. That meant twice round a course that went out, halfway back, out on a leg and then back to the start. It was flat (which surprised me) and I ran it in a very creditable 32 minutes and 40 seconds.
Ekebergsletta therefore became one of my fastest runs of the year, my first in Norway, and my 77th parkrun venue in total.
Going Postal
After the parkrun I was on a bit of a mission. The previous night I’d been trying to figure out how to get a Wherigo cache and a Letterbox. I had some “dodgy” solutions, but trawling through the letterboxes I actually managed to solve one properly. Turns out that it was placed about 100m from the parkrun start. That was too tempting to ignore. So off I walked. I promised the RD I’d be back for a coffee in a little while.
The cache itself was almost a failure. The details hinted it had high terrain. As it was in an area of trees I assumed it was upwards somewhere, but had no idea how far. It took me maybe 10 minutes to see it at all. And when I did, it was about 6m up. At least it was hanging from a branch though, rather than fastened to it. That gave me a chance, if I could find a suitable “special tool” to reach up with. Not far away, I got lucky and spotted a broken bit of branch that was cunningly about the right length. Being formerly part of a tree, it also had a number of twigs at one end that could be used as a hook / snare. So I got it. Excellent.
Time for Breakfast
By the time I got back to the parkrun start they’d all left. Fair enough. I had got a heads up on where the cafe is, and I could see the trolley of equipment being pushed down the road in the right direction. So I just headed off after them.
The designated parkrun cafe was in the “White House” – a small location serving a mix of sandwiches, sweet pastries and drinks. I chatted to a couple of other Brits while waiting for my coffee, but then went to sit outside, at another table full of Brits. The bun I had was really good.
The couple I was speaking offered to walk down to the nearest tram station with me, and also show me how to buy a ticket. That was very helpful and meant I didn’t need another Uber. Turns out the tram was really easy. There’s an official app that sells the tickets. Oslo public transport has an excellent syste,. There’s a single supplier, and they offer tickets between a one-way journey (to use in the next hour) and an “all-day” one that allows as many journeys as you want inside 24 hours (note 24 hours, not just the remainder of the current day).
The 19 tram ran to within a few hundred yards of my hotel. Result. If I’d planned better, I could have gone out that way too.
North and South
I got back at about 11am, and because I was on a mission, I grabbed a quick shower and headed off for some caching. My direction of choice was to go north from the hotel. My general direction of movement was eastwards and then generally looping back towards the Bus Station and Central Railway Station. The caching was a bit patchy, to be honest. Mainly adventure labs, a couple of which were inaccessible.
At the Railway Station there’s a large shopping mall. It has loads of labs inside but to be honest, I gave up on them. There were too many where I couldn’t see anything to answer the question where my phone said was GZ. Having had enough of that I decided I’d rather go to the seaside. Again I hadn’t planned any of this and hadn’t read about anything beforehand, and I was very pleasantly surprised with what I found.
Fantastic Architecture
Enough of the station. Time to move on up to the waterfront, as it were. I intercepted the Oslo Fjord at Bjorvika. It’s an area that has most definitely changed since the last time I was here. I know that because of all the new buildings. So what’s there? Well, there’s the Deichman Library, there’s the Munch Museum, and there’s the Opera House. I won’t dwell too much on any of those because you can read about them on wikipedia, but my favourite of the three is definitely the Opera House.
Why Kev? You don’t like opera. Well no, I don’t. But I like a good piece of architecture and I like nice rocks, and this has both. It was built to look like an iceberg sitting in the fjord. To achieve that they faced the whole building in a pure white marble. They controversially chose to use Carrara Marble from Italy rather than any home grown one. Controversial because Norway does have quite a lot of marble within its borders. So I dunno, but the effect from a distance is spectacular. To be honest, it’s pretty good from close up too.
The Opera House is constructed to be interactive. The roof slopes and is faced with the marble. It’s designed so you can walk all the way up to the top of the roof, from where you get great views of the city asnd the fjord. FAN-dabby-tastic with a capital FAN!
Forward Planning
I know. Forward planning is not normally in my vocabulary. That’s why this snippet deserves a mention. Later in the day I was due to host a caching event up by the National Theatre. I’ve done a few of those when I’ve been on holiday this year. What I normally do is to buy a really tacky postcard from the location and have people sign that by way of an event logbook. Ultimately I plan to frame or laminate them. ANyway, the forweard planning part here was that I walked into the Munch Museum and bought a job-lot of postcards (it was cheaper to buy 5). So I got a bunch of pieces of Munch art in postcard form. Evidently I got two of The Scream, one for me, and one for the event logbook.
While I was up here I also grabbed an ice-cream, if only because it had been a while since the breakfast pastry. I didn’t get that from the Munch Museum though. There was a place round the corner.
I Better Get Back
By this time it was getting a bit late, and I had an appointment back outside the National Theatre for a caching event. My event, naturally. Another entry in the “MKGees on Tour” series. I’d got promises from a number of people that they’d come. One had suggested we move the event because of the King’s passing and all the people that would be around. Eventually I decided not to move it at short notice though. She did also, though, raise an eyebrow by commenting she’d see me on Saturday night. I was absolutely convinced I’d put it on Sunday evening. Good job she said that, because otherwise I would not have gone.
On the way I had to hide under the porch of a building while it rained. I mean, it rained. A lot. Enough to hide from. Once it slowed up I continued, but it was still heavy enough that I was still getting wet and generally the paving and tram lines in town were getting a good flush. Thankfully it stopped before the event, and then stayed away for the rest of the night.
So, a handful of people came to the event. Two were from Oslo. One was Belgian, one was German, and one was from London. We stood and chatted for well past the half hour schedule, but then the two Norwegians wanted to leave because of some function relating to the new King. Fair enough. So we jacked it in and I made the relatively short walk back to my hotel.
Dinner O’Clock
I hadn’t planned what to do for dinner. There was a pizza-kebab place over the road from the hotel which I thought I might try. When I got there I didn’t fancy it. I did, however, fancy a sign advertising noodles and beer down an alleyway right next to it. I initially wandered down to check there was actually a place there. It was there. And they were happy to do a walk-in. I’d been out all day though, and had got thoroughly wet in a mid-afternoon rainstorm, so first of all I went back to the hotel and put on some clean, dry clothes.
The food was very nice. I had donburi with Katsuobushi – which is a shaved, smoked tuna dish that is composed of zero volume and 100% flavour. It was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten, to be honest. I accompanied it with a dark beer. As I was packing up to leave the waiter sat with me for a while and he suggested a number of other restaurants in Oslo that were worth a trip. I would have gone back to this place, except they weren’t open on Sundays or Mondays, and that was all I had left.
So back over the road I sat in the hotel bar with my laptop and typed up the 60 or so caches I’d found throughout the day. Not a bad haul.
