Finally....

...The Rock has come back to......

No wait....that would be the opening phrase of a Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson promo ca. 2001. Finally, we're back from Oslo would be more suitable.

Going to Oslo rules and stuff, seeing as how we've got both friends and relatives in O-town and the surrounding areas. Also, I'm born and raised a mighty stone's throw southwest from Oslo, so I'm always going to have a special relationship to our Capitol. Not to mention the multitude of awesome stores, restaurants and concert experiences the town has to offer.....

That being said, there's no way I'd want to live and work there. First of all, you'd have to make a whole lot more than in the rest of the country to accomodate the same living standards, being that the housing prices are insane. For the asking price of a crappy 60-80 square meter apartment in Driveby Avenue, Gangland, Eastern Oslo, you can get a house ten minutes drive from downtown Trondheim. Second, Karl Johan, the main street of Oslo and hence the main street of Norway, is screwed up beyond all that's reasonable. From Egertorvet and down to the railway station, it's an unholy mix of drug dealers, beggars and prostitution. From Egertorvet and up to the Castle, it's still beggars, but since they widened the street from Lille Grensen to Universitetet, it's been a haven for every loser with a motorcycle, for some reason. So now, it's a line-up-of-losers sporting black leather jackets, invisible suitcases and camo pants, who stroll around admiring each other's bikes and trying their very best to look hard-ass. Why in the blue hell would anyone think that this is the way to portray our main street?

Third, getting FROM Oslo by airplane is quite an ordeal, being that Oslo airport Gardermoen is possibly the worst airport I've had the misfortune of using on a regular basis. People tell me that the Paris airport(s?) suck, but I haven't been there. I do know that the Heathrow and Gatwick dual disaster is worse than Gardermoen, but there you've got the added misfortune of occasionally arriving at Heathrow and leaving from Gatwick, which ain't no picnic. Zero information, zero service, and zero signs. London airports blow.

But I digress - back to Gardermoen. The two major reasons for Gardermoen's suction are 1) design and 2) security. Unlike almost any other major airport constructed since the sixties, Gardermoen isn't constructed with all the gates organized around a central hub, so as to minimize distance traversed inside the complex, but is an outstretched construction, with international and domestic flights in opposite sides of the building. So; if you've got a connecting flight abroad, get ready to walk for a while. O'Hare airport in Chi-town - the biggest airport in the world (at least as of 2001), requires far less walking than Gardermoen, which should tell you something about the synaptic function and overall qualifications of the douchebags in charge of design and construction of Oslo airport.

And then we have the issue of the Gardermoen airport security, which is WAY blown out of proportion. When you enter the realm of the Overlords of Security, you first have to pass through a maze the dimensions of which I haven't seen outside of Dulles before you get to the Violation Stations. Invariably, only two of the 10-15 metal detectors will be open during rush hour, so as to piss off more people. Before you get to pass the metal detectors, you've got to take off your jacket, belt, shoes etc. and put it in small containers, walk on command and ship your belongings, walk through the metal detector, hope you don't get pulled out of the line for "random inspection", and watch helplessly while all your stuff is being thrown off the conveyor belt and onto the floor of the transfer area, 'cause there's no room to put your shit back on at the other end of the security area. All the while you're being watched by some epic weekend-educated, former convict, high-school-dropout, leopard-patterned sex-shop handcuff-toting, Maglite-wielding Rent-A-Cops. I massively disapprove.