Asking You For Advice.

So now I sit in the Deichsmanke Bibliotek, which has just won the Ben award for the Loudest Library Ever In The World, Ever. For the last three days it has been populated by schoolchildren on summer holiday trips singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at top volume, accompanied by nothing other than a trumpet. They then walk up the stairs, screaming at each other and pulling each other's hair. It is truly quite amazing.

At about 7pm last night, for the first time since arriving in Oslo, my dorm became occupied by people other than me. Because of this, I have now solved the mystery of why there are so many Norweigan military personnel walking the corridors of the Hotel Perminalen. Norway has compulsory military service, which is paid poorly but comes with perks, like incredibly cheap train travel and cheap nights at the Hotel Perminalen. Whenever the kids get off-duty time, they can spend the night at the hotel for a fraction of the cost, and the state pays the rest.

Two such military servicemen shared my dorm last night. One of them, a tall, thin bespectacled fellow, barely spoke a word. Counter-intuitively, it was the short, well-built sportsman who talked. Firstly, it was about the sights of Norway, and the fact that one small Norwegian town is so full of European history that Hitler wanted to make it the capital of the Third Reich, as the historical home of the Aryan race. He then exclaimed, 'He was messed up. Thank God, thank God he was stopped!'

We talked about Australia, and he asked me why Australia was engaged in such dangerous relations with China, as though I were personally responsible. At the time, he wasn't even aware that I am a politics teacher. Our hour-long conversation touched on the limitations of social democracy and solutions to the middle-east crisis. Then his taxi came, and he left for the day. So, if you're ever reading this Bjorn, you were a fascinating part of my Norwegian stay, and I hope you do make it as an independent member of the Norwegian Parliament.

It is to that very Parliament, the Stortinget, that I intend to go today for a free tour.

In any case, I'm actually writing this to ask for advice. I am thinking of quite comprehensively changing the itinerary of my European adventure. I was going to spend four months here pissing about, but that was based on the naive idea that I could absorb myself into a foreign city and become one with its amazing foreignness. Instead, I have found that no matter how awesome Europe (and Oslo) is, there's only so long you can stay somewhere where you don't speak the language, don't know anyone, and don't have enough money to get really, really drunk. I walked around Oslo last night to find many venues closed, a quite awful cover band with a cover charge, and this rather amusing public toilet.




So rather than spend two weeks in Sweden, I'm thinking of spending four days.

And I'm thinking of cutting my whole trip back a month.

This will offer me three things:

1. The ability to not get bored and agitated while staying in places where I don't know anybody and don't have enough money to get really, really drunk.

2. The ability to go see Low in Malmo, and the Smashing Pumpkins in France (jealous?)

3. The ability to come back early, not to a cramped postgraduate office in Adelaide, but to an old farmhouse in suburban Melbourne.

Your thoughts?