Trip to Copenhagen

I've just gotten back from my school trip to Copenhagen, Denmark. We left on Wednesday afternoon on a DFDS ferry and took the return ferry back Friday evening.

The biggest "attraction" I got to see on the trip turned out to be in Oslo itself instead of in Denmark. I got to see the newly built "Freedom of the Seas" which is the largest passenger ship in the world. It stopped over in Oslo on its way to the U.S. I understand that its going to be operating in the Carribbean. It made the ferry we were on look really tiny.
The DFDS ferry was just like the cruises I've been on back home:- the buffets, the singing magician, tiny cabins with fold away beds etc...

Since it was a school trip after all, there were a copuple of "official visits" we had to make and one of them was of course with the University of Copenhagen, which I was told is the 2nd oldest university in Scandinavia having been founded in 1479. As the story goes, both Sweden and Denmark wanted to start a university so they both sent out their emmisaries to go to Rome to get the papal consent at about the same time. The Danish emmisary enjoyed himself wining and dining in Italy and only got back to Copenhagen two years after the Swedish emmisary returned. For the record, the oldest university in Scandinavia was founded in 1477 in Uppsala, Sweden.

Part of the visit inluded a short tour of the university. Apparently most of the original building from the 1400s had been destroyed but we did however get to visit some of the original basements which included a prison for students as well as professors. We were told that in the old days, separate laws applied to members of the university.

The best way to tour Copenhagen is on a bicycle. The bicycles are free and you can pick them up anywhere, anytime. You just need a 20 DKK coin to unlock the bike like a shopping cart. You can use it as long as you want and to get your coin back you just have to return your bike to a bike stand anywhere in the city.

Its very easy cycling in Copenhagen because the city is incredibly flat and there are dedicated bicycle paths on most of the roads. Its also better to cycle than to walk because its quite easy to get hit or at least yelled at by a speeding Danish cyclist if you accidentally stray onto the cycling track.

The city was much bigger and far more bustling than Oslo. It has a pretty large shopping area and various attractions including the famed Little Mermaid.

Surviving Ryan Air

Flight sheduled was again delayed for 30 minutes resulting in our arrival in London past midnight. RyanAir lost the luggage so we waited for 30 minutes again. By then the trains had stopped running. We had to forfeit our tickets. Take a coach take a cab. Reached the B&B at 2 am. For 3 women this was not a good experience. So my tale of woe ends. Trying to forget my return flight is with Ryan Air. Sigh.

Air passenger's rights in the European Union

After being informed by Bjorg about the dismal service of Ryanair, I did a search on yahoo for "Ryanair sucks" and discovered that there were a whole host of webpages written by various people regarding their various horrible experiences with Ryanair. We should have done this search before Bjorg booked her flight.

One of the articles that I found was written by Kevin Myers, a reputable Irish journalist. Here's the link.

Anyway the next thing I did was to look up the Ryanair terms & conditions. Ryanair's terms of carriage is subject to EU REgulation 261/2004 which deals with the passenger's rights in the event of cancellation or delay. If you're interested, you can look up the regulation on europa.eu.int.

In short, under the Regulation, in the event there has been a flight cancellation without warning, the airline has to do the following:-

a) provide you with a notice on the rules for compensation and assistance;
b) pay for your meals and refreshments during the period of delay;
c) allow you two free phone calls/faxes/emails;
d) provide you with free hotel/transfers if the delay is overnight; and
e) provide compensation in accordance with article 7 of the Regulations.

The airline will not have to provide compensation under item (e) above only if it can show that the cancellation is caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. Items (a), (b) (c) and (d) must be done by the airline regardless of whether they are at fault or not. As Bjorg has not been given any real explanation as to the reason for the cancellation, I reckon that she is entitled to compensation.

So if you ever have problems with Ryanair (or any other airline) in the EU, remember your rights.

I guess it is true that "Ryanair sucks". There's even been a call for a boycott of Ryanair (which I didn't know about) for preventing blind passengers from flying on their planes.

We'll stick with Norwegian and Germanwings.

Ryan Air-Never again

Perceptive readers will have noticed from the title of the blog that I am presently not a happy camper. The trauma began this morning when I had to wake up at 5 am to catch my 6.25 am bus to Torp Airport for my 9.50am flight to London.

When I went to check in, I was dumbfounded to be told that my flight had been cancelled and that I was going to be booked on the next flight out at 2.10pm.

NO explanation was offered.

I was then told that I could not be checked in yet and to address my questions to the service centre who were the agents for Ryan Air. Ok, stop here. The moment you hear the word 'agent' and knowing that the staff here are Norwegian-- let us just say that 'proactive' is not a word used to describe Norwegians much, you know you are in trouble. My gut instinct was proven correct.

We (I was travelling with 2 other classmates) were told, 'flight is cancelled, go and check in for the later flight.' When my classmate protested that we had been sent in from the check in line, she merely ignored us and repeated what she said.

Again, NO explaination, so we shall not even comment on the lack of sympathy or kind words.

We thus meekly made our way to the check in line again, at which point I suddenly woke up from my sleepy fog and thought, 'hey wait a minute, they cancel our flight, subject us to a 4 hour delay and we don't get an explanation?'

So I marched back and asked (politely) what was going on. The lady who was attending to me was very nice and said she had to ask her colleague who I presume was the contact person as she was wearing a serious looking headpiece thinggy. That everso nice and everso blond person (henceforth ENEB) said 'oh bad weather' and the proceeded to emphasise that 'No Ryan Air is not going to give you compensation of food or drink.' I was like, 'ok, that was not my question' and asked the lady serving me, 'why weren't we told this the first time we came around. ENEB again chipped in, 'But there were 2 announcements made' as if that was the end of things. I said 'look, you are not even serving me and I have every right to be upset that my flight was cancelled and no explanation was forthcoming. Plus I did not hear the announcements' ( after this conversation, Bjorg listened to the announcment carefully and the English version did not offer an explanation. Bjorg is unable to comment on the Norwegian version which was much longer.

But then again as ENEB would have said, it was probably Bjorg's fault that she could not understand Norwegian in an international airport).

The exchange concluded with me stating that I found her very rude to which she exclaimed 'oooh.. but I am not rude..' Ok, isn't the first thing you learn in front line service school that you never never agitate an already unhappy customer especially if she is rightly agitated? But I guess ENEB went to a different school.

So, you think, that would be all, right? No, after waiting from 8,10 am to 1.45pm, announcement was made that the flight had been delayed to 4 pm.

Again, no explanation.

A couple of minutes later, long Norwegian announcement (oh the suspense!) and English announcement saying that Ryan Air was cancelling the flight, British passport holders please report to customs, everybody else get your luggage and oh! remember to return your duty free alcohol.

That was it, no help, no instructions on what to do, when the next flight was... Again, part III of the announcement comes on saying to report to customer service (hahah service) to reschedule your flight again.

End of long story, we are booked on the 10.10 flight, again helpful service people tell us they don't know if the flight will take off or not.

So this is the situation, if the plane does not fly tonight Bjorg will lose one night accomodation, Stansted express tickets, many hours of her life, a meeting with a good friend and on top of that delicious sundae of delights, experienced the crowning cherry of the worst service she has ever experienced in her life.

Bjorg will have to drag her sad self to Torp again on a 2 hour bus ride tomorrow morning, spend another 200 kroners to go through this circus again.

Bjorg thinks NOT. So what next? We can only wait with bated breath. Bjorg would also like to thank Jose K who had to listen to her mad rantings the whole day. You da best!

Afternoon Delights

One of the advantages of living in an European country- cheap strawberries!

Yummy...

Jose K and I are off to our respective study trips this week. He'll be in Copenhagen and I'll be in London so there won't be any updates this week.

We'll be back soon, honest.

Beautiful Bergen

Jose K has been nagging at me to write up an entry about our Bergen trip. He of course is standing on the moral high ground of having contributed 2 successive entries in a row.

So despite the looming exams (in 2 weeks time) and the pile of unread required reading sitting heavily on my desk, here I am sitting in front of the laptop on a sunny Saturday morning.

Our first sight of Bergen was the Bergen train station. After a whole day of travelling, we left Oslo at 8 am in the morning and reached Bergen at 8pm, it was a welcome sight.


We stayed at Marken Gjestehus which was nice and had the cheapest double room we could find. 480 NOK per night. Cheap for these parts of the world. Plus it was located midway between the harbour and the train station so location wise, it was really good. Here's the view from our room. Pretty isn't?

Before going to Bergen, I kept hearing from people that it was a really beautiful place and the guidebooks keep going on about how it was such a wonderful and great city.

I am happy to report that Bergen did not disappoint. It really is beautiful place. Location wise, it is surrounded by 7 mountains and 7 fjords- the stuff of legends. We took the Fløibanen funicular to the top of Mt Fløyen. Check out the amazing view of the city!


The incline is about 26 degrees. Here's a picture of us going down, it was quite exciting.

You can also hike down to the city but the ticket seller sold us return tickets without being asked. I guess Jose K and I do not look like the hiking sort.



Bergen is famous for its historic waterfront buildings which are on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The buildings are located in the old quarter of Bryggen and was part of the thriving harbour scene of the Hanseatic merchants. I thought they looked very Nordic, the architecture is very unique.



Another Bergen characteristic is the weather. Bergen is supposed to be the wettest city in Norway and it's supposed to rain at least 275 days of the year.

We thought that since we were visiting in early April ie spring, we would be safe. But no.. on our second day there we experienced rain, snow, hailstones in a single morning. It was really strange, the bad weather just came in sudden bursts and then it cleared up and then it started all over again. The native Bergens (Bergenians?) took it all very calmly. They just waited at the corners of buildings for the weather to get better and then continued with their business. I guess they are used to it.

This picture was taken from the sanctuary of the lobby of a shopping mall. We went into it to escape hailstones but by the time I took the picture, it had given way to snowflakes. As you can see, the umbrella is an essential accessory here.


I really enjoyed our short trip to Bergen. The whole trip including our version of Norway in a Nutshell finally gave me a sense of what Norway is really like.

Norway without the Nutshell

The most popular thing to do as a tourist in Norway must be to take the Norway in a Nutshell tour. There are a couple of variations to the trip depending on where you start and where you end.

The Oslo-Bergen Norway in a Nutshell trip starts by taking a NSB train from Oslo to Myrdal. At Myrdal you switch to the Flamsbana train that goes to Flam. From Flam, you take a cruise through Sognefjord to Gudvangen. At Gudvangen you hop onto a bus to Voss and at Voss you finally get back onto the train heading for Bergen.

The Norway in a Nutshell is essentially a collection of train/bus/ferry tickets for the whole journey. After doing some research on the internet, Bjorg and I discovered that you can take the Norway in a Nutshell trip for less simply by buying the tickets for each leg of the journey separately.

It was a little difficult figuring out the connections at first but it turned out to be really easy. Here's how we did it.

1. Train from Oslo to Myrdal
We booked the minipris tickets online from NSB. A minipris ticket from Oslo to Myrdal was 199 NOK. It was on this leg of the trip that we passed through Finse (see previous blog entry). You can book tickets at www.nsb.no

2. Flamsbana from Myrdal to Flam.
The Flamsbana is this old train that goes throgh the mountans and passes some really nice scenery. There were waterfalls and litle villages tucked away in valleys. As the weather was still a little cold, the waterfalls were frozen and didn't look as grand. The Flamsbana has fixed price tickets without discount (100+ NOK I think). I don't think there's any need to book these tickets in advance. The train flamsbana schedule is on www.nsb.no.

3. Ferry from Flam to Gudvangen
Flam is a quaint village at the end of the Flamsbana railway by a fjord. Its surrounded by mountains. I wouldn't have minded spending another day in Flam. It was beautiful. The ferry from Flam to Gudvangen offers student price tickets for 105 NOK (I think). You can buy it when boarding. The ferry passes a number of small villages by the water. Although the villages are quite tiny and remote, they are quite old and most have been around for hundreds of years. The schedule for the ferry is on www.fjord1.no.

4. Bus from Gudvangen to Voss
The ferry stops at Gudvangen. From here, you just head imediately onto the buses waiting to collect people on the Norway in a Nutshell package. Because we weren't on the package, we bought student price tickets directly from the driver (I think it was 60+ NOK).

5. Train from Voss to Bergen
Voss is a pretty decent sized town and I hear it is the place to be if you want to do some outdoor adventure activities. The bus stops right next to the waiting train to Bergen. If you'd like to have alook around Voss, then you can just wait for the next train. We got onto the train and bought student price tickets from the conductor for 111 NOK. Needless to say, the route was very scenic.

We started off from Oslo at about 8 in the morning and got to Bergen about 6 in the evening. If you take the direct train ride between Oslo and Bergen, the journey is about 6 hours.

It was a really good trip and we saved quite a lot of money doing it ourselves.

Here are some pictures.

Hoth

Last week we took a trip to Bergen from Oslo.

We followed the popular "Norway in a Nutshell" route but did it ourselves instead of booking the tour. This saved us quite a bit of money. We got to see the fjords and lots of beautiful scenery along the way. More of that later.

One of the most remarkable sights on the train ride for me was passing through Finse, the highest station on the Norwegian train line (more than 1000m above sea level, I think). Here are some pictures.
If the pictures look familiar to you it may be because Finse was where the battle scenes on planet Hoth in Empire Strikes Back were shot. Finse is also where people planning arctic expeditions train.

It certainly didn't feel like spring but it was awesome.

Love from Granny- the Norwegian way

We recently bought a box of flatbrød to try.

Flatbrød according to Wikipedia means 'flat bread', it was a staple food of Norwegian shepherds and peasants.

We bought this particular brand 'Mors Flatbrød' (Mors means mother's) because the granny on the box just looked so... well you know, exactly what a nice Norwegian granny should look like. I mean, look at her.. that smile, that little shawl on her shoulders, that checked apron. How can you possibly resist her? (I wonder how they held auditions for this one).

Technically, with my limited Norwegian, I thought the brand should have been called bestemors (Grandmother's) flatbrød but then again, maybe it just doesn't have the same ring in Norwegian.

Ok, flatbrød is traditionally eaten with salted meats and soup according to Wikipedia. This was verified by the picture on the back of the box. See here.

Peering into the box....looks like arts and craft cardboard eh?

It comes in large sheets!

Now check out how thin the flatbrød is.

Being poor students, we couldn't afford salted meats and we were just lazy to cook soup. So we just put lots of margarine onto the flatbrød.


Verdict? The margarine was tasty. The flatbrød? It's crispy. Jose K thinks it tastes like bread. I thought it tasted like communion wafers.

I think I still prefer the traditional Chinese grandmother expressions of love via tonic soups. It's a cultural thing.