Day 1: Oslo to Berlin

As you can imagine, the flight was quite lengthy, and since I was moving westward, I lost a day in transit due to the time difference.  The aircraft was the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner and I must say, it was a solid machine!  The interior was nice, but I can tell you that no dreams were had (even though I tried).  Sitting upright is never the most ideal position for dreams, or sleep for that matter.

If you look at the picture, you'll notice the wings sweep upward in an elegant arc, a new feature that somewhat mimics the wings of birds.  Another nifty feature are the electronically tinted windows. Instead of the standard cover you can pull down over the window, with the push of a button the windows become tinted.  The airline attendants like to call this "sunglasses mode" because the windows are tinted, yet still translucent like a pair of polarized sunglasses!

I naively thought we'd be flying straight over the Pacific, straight over Asia, finally reaching Norway. But due to the spherical nature of the Earth, the quickest route to Oslo was actually a polar route.  Interestingly, we took off and proceeded to fly over the Rocky Mountains, then northward over Canada's Hudson Bay, continuing over polar Iceland, and finally landing in mountainous Norway.  It's about 8,000 miles in total.

Finally, I reached Oslo in the afternoon of the next day.  At first I was going to stay in Oslo for a day or two, but I decided to instead take a direct connection to Berlin, Germany.  I had heard good things about Berlin, and it is significantly cheaper than Scandinavia.

To give you an idea of how expensive Scandinavia is, some nachos were pushing close to $40 USD. NO THANKS!  (They did look good, though.)

As you can see, this small meal was about $18 USD.  In the states, this same meal would be less than $10.  Ouch.

After a bite, I was off on my final connection to Berlin.  I arrived in Berlin and quickly went to searching for a hostel.  A hostel is a cheaper alternative to a hotel and is somewhat like a college dormitory.  You share a room with other travelers, get a single bed, and other basic amenities.  They are often used by young travelers so it's the perfect lodging if you're looking to make new friends abroad.

I put my head down for some much needed rest.  Tomorrow I was to explore Berlin!