Oslo Cruise and Trip to London

There's been enough memorable events lately that I felt it was time for an update.

Oslo Cruise:

I had the opportunity to join about 120 other students on a cruise to Oslo, Norway for the weekend.  Having never been on a cruise previously, I thought this would be a great new experience.  The ship was pretty spectacular in and of itself.  It was massive and I still can't understand how they make them.

We left Copenhagen Friday night en route to Oslo.  We all met in the Club on board and went over some details about the trip; this mainly included dos and don'ts of being on cruise ship and what to expect when we arrived.  The next few hours were ours to get settled in our room, explore and hang out until dinner. 

Elevators and stairs

Our Spacious Room

The dinner Friday night was formal, so we all changed into our suites before heading up to the dinning area.  Everyone had a blast at dinner and it was nice to eat a dinner in a restaurant for a change.  The meal was delicious.  It was three courses, each having their own different wine to go with the food.  Very fancy.  Something I'm not exactly accustomed to, but could definitely get used to.

After dinner, everyone met up at the club and we had a great night dancing and singing karaoke.  The next morning we woke up and met outside for our tour of the city.  The weather wasn't ideal, but at least the rain held out for the most part.  Scandinavia isn't famous for having great weather I've noticed my semester here.  The tour lasted for what seemed like forever and then we had some more time afterward to do whatever we wanted.  We spend a few more hours checking out the sights and went to art gallery.  Side note: Oslo is very expensive and I was glad I only had to purchase one meal there.  Here are some of the pictures I took during the day.

Tiny electric car, made only in Norway

Pedro with a guard

View of the harbor

Tour buddies

Opera House

Typical college students saving money...too expensive to buy water

Saturday night was a Halloween party.  We went to a costume shop before leaving Copenhagen and this is what we came up with.  Needless to say, they were a hit.

Baby Bee & Baby Clown

London:

Next stop, and most likely the last place I'll travel on this trip was London, England.  With Anant being Hindu, there biggest celebration of the year, Diwali, gave us an opportunity to visit his relatives and join in the festivities.  We had so many advantages as tourists staying with locals.  Not only did we not have to find accommodations, his family was also able to give us rides, show us around, and cook meals for us.  I cannot say enough positive things about his family.  They really treated me as though I was part of the family.  I was constantly offered food and drinks during the trip.  There's a good chance I'd be 300 pounds if I was in his family because of how generous they are.

We arrived late on Wednesday so we went to bed early so we could take in all the sights London had to offer.  Anant has been to London a bunch, so he was able to get us around on the trains (called the Tube) and show me around the city.  We were fortunate enough to have great weather on this day and we took advantage of it, walking around for about 4 hours.  The nice thing about London is most of the sights are in close proximity of each other.  Here's what we say on Day 1:

 

 

Big Ben of course

The London Eye, worlds largest Ferris wheel

Stereotypical British pay phone

Painted on many streets to remind dumb tourists like myself that they drive on the other side of the road here

Buckingham Palace

Favorite picture of the trip.  Cool view of the London Eye with Big Ben in the background

Thankfully they just opened a Chipotle here, I don't think I could have lasted two more month without it

Friday we met up with Anant's cousin Aarti (I hope I'm spelling that correctly).  She showed us around another part of London and then took us out to eat.  Similar to the rest of his family she was amazingly nice and friendly.

Tower of London build in 1078

View of another side

Tower Bridge

View at night

View of the city...The London Bridge is lite up in red across the water

Saturday we went to the Hindu Temple to celebrate Diwali.  We don't have many Temples in Superior so it's safe to say this was my first experience inside of one.  The inside of Neasden Temple, as it is referred to, is made completely of marble and hand carved.  It was shipped in from India in pieces and put together like a puzzle.  Quite an impressive feat of architecture.

Neasden Temple

I felt a bit uncomfortable when in and around the Temple.  It was basically only Indians and I still don't know that much about their religion and culture in general, making me feel even more out of place.  I was worried about just getting through the line without offending anyone there.  There wasn't any hostility or anything like that, but I could just tell people knew I wasn't Hindu and I could see how sacred this time was to them.  I wanted to show I respected their culture and was interested in learning.

Even when we got something to eat inside of the food tent, the two women working as cashiers laughed amongst each other when they gave me my food.  I wasn't exactly sure what I did or didn't do, but Anant said it might have something to do with the affect Indian food has on your stomach.  It'd probably laugh at myself too if I was in their position.

Overall, it was surreal to be such an overwhelming minority.  I'd never experienced something similar before.  It made me much more conscious of how I treat people who come from different cultures.  Kind of the whole don't judge someone until you walk a mile in their shoes. 

On our last day we went to an Icebar.  The entire bar was literally constructed out of ice.  It was really cool.  We were inside for about 40 mins (the maximum legal time you can stay) and then we left to grab so food.  Next we drove past Piccadilly Circus (which I found out isn't really a Circus).  The city was great and I had an awesome time in London. 

Piccadilly Circus