Oslo & Tusenfryd

[furie]

That was cock Jake :roll:

You had the same opinion as me then Ian of Tusenfryd - not really much, but an oddly great atmosphere. I do really want to go back, just because it had something special about it (but not the rides :lol: ).

I'm sad you didn't play in the water fountains, go down the silly slides, canoe or do the completely tosh ghost house. They were all great fun (especially canoeing with Stone Cold and trying to get his half of the canoe stuck under the log flume drop ).

Such a shame Thunder Coaster sounds ruined It was such a great ride. Speed Monster is really meh, but again, I loved the Norwegian loop - it's the only highlight though.

I'd forgotten about the inlays in the Coke machines

We also managed to get four adults on Teeny-Weeny, we're obviously not as fat as you lot

Did they try to charge you £22.50 for an ice-cream? My vendor did. She didn't seem to understand that it was over the top (even for Norway) and in the end, I refused to buy it :lol:

And I did warn you the place was ****ing expensive!

Had to laugh at this:

we got charged £1.10 to use the bog in the station! After dropping our stuff

Also a pity the Dragon head ride is now closed, it was great Still, you had your own walking dragon with you.

By the way @Slayed! Where is the video of us at Tusenfryd???!!!!

 

[marc]

I really should not read trips reports by Ian or Furie when at work, I just gave a large lol when I read the broken coaster part .

 

[Jake]

The slides were shut, as was what looked like the ghost house (over by loopen and speed monster?)...

 

[furie]

Awwww -that sucks. The slides would have please Ian as they gave arse vibrations. The ghost house was by Loopen and Speed Monster, yeah - it's actually worse than Camelot's (i.e. is actually exceptionally fantastic in it's awfulness

 

[Pokemaniac]

The ghost house is actually listed as temporarily closed on TusenFryd's web site. Nice to hear actually, I think its days are counted.

Looking forward to see Ian's version of Day 3!

 

[rollermonkey]

They closed the attraction inside the dragon's head? Shame, it was very interesting.

Great PTR guys.

 

[Ian]

The ghost house is actually listed as temporarily closed on TusenFryd's web site. Nice to hear actually, I think its days are counted.

It did look closed and it looked in a terrible state as well...but I'm assuming that's all part of the theme.

That area was a strange on. On one side there was this shiny newish coaster and shops and on the other were tired, 1950's British Council Office style buildings. There was no merger of theme, it looked a bit of a mix-match.

They closed the attraction inside the dragon's head? Shame, it was very interesting.

What's inside? I would have liked to have seen it just because the Dragon's head looked mega sexy.

Looking forward to see Ian's version of Day 3!

Will be online later this afternoon.

 

[furie]

They closed the attraction inside the dragon's head? Shame, it was very interesting.

What's inside? I would have liked to have seen it just because the Dragon's head looked mega sexy.

It was a long tunnel then a kind if story thing. Basically, you get ushered into a Viking longboat and there's a big screen telling the tale of the Norse heroes braving the seas. The boat you're on moves in a boat-like fashion, and at certain points in the story there are huge animatronics around it. there was a big dragon on a stick that attacks the boat at the end.

It's one of those, really cool - lots spent on it - dull things :lol:

 

[Ian]

Part 3 – A Night In Oslo

When I visit a new country, I believe that I’m not going to find any culture or understand different nationalities in a theme park alone. A theme park is a very insular area; ride ops tend to be robotic and I sometimes get the impression that I’m just a punter from RCT. They only scratch the surface and that, to me, is a wasted travelling opportunity.

In order to fully appreciate a different country and its customs, I feel the need to immerse myself in everyday life – public transport journeys, pubs, interacting with locals and walking off the beaten touristy track.

First stop after arriving back in central Oslo was, yes, McDonalds. We hadn’t eaten anything in the park as, yes, it was too ****ing expensive.

This time I splashed out and went for a double Big Mac Meal (to the tune of £10!), Vadge has some sort of burger surprise and Jake and Ben had cheeseburgers.

I lost count how many cheeseburger wrappers I folded into neat triangles that weekend!

After we filled up on grease we decided to go to the pub. We walked around for a while eating our Dime Bar McFlurry’s (which are ****ing delish!) and ended up in a pub.

This was our pub of choice. It’s called Café Sor. We went there the night before – they did pitchers of beer, making it cheaper and they had free wi-fi. We all soon realised that we can’t live without Facebook (or Twitter in my case).

It’s a lovely pub (or bar, café, whatever you want to call it). It’s quite bohemian in decor, with café style tables and a variety of sofas and chairs. Very welcoming, warm and comfortable. It had a DJ laying down the beats and never seemed to get too busy.

It’s worth me noting here that the style of Norwegian boozing is much different to the British. Never throughout the two nights did I see large groups of druken people swarming from pub to pub wearing football shirts and being unnecessary loud – people just sat quietly, chatted to one another and made a pint, or a coffee, last for a good hour. I could never imagine a British boozer being like that. I love traditional British pubs but I don’t like the way we drink. I wish we would adopt a responsible, quieter style of drinking…although letting loose once in a while is good for the soul.

In fact, there seemed to be a shortage of pubs in Oslo. Perhaps they aren’t as brazen as British ones? When I’m on holiday I like to drink, and I tend to do it British style. It didn’t seem right to do that in Oslo. I can’t recall seeing one nightclub, or even a queue of underdressed tarts queuing up to get into a chavvy club. This photo is as chavvy as it gets!

As we were relaxing – I wouldn’t even call it “drinking” – a lady approached us and spoke in Norwegian. I explained (in basic English) we were English and couldn’t understand her. Without a second’s thought she spoke excellent English. She had dropped the contents of her bag around the sofa we were sitting on the night before. Both Vadge and I were utterly amazed how she spoke English using words like “sofa”, “sorry to interrupt”, “reading glasses” and understanding our lame jokes effortlessly. As Jake put it – she was fab! Or as I would put it – bit mutton, but only a three pinter!

Another quick example of how polite the Norwegians were was when a beggar approached us. We told him we were English and couldn’t understand, even though we knew he was after money. He spoke in broken English and we ended up poiletly apologising to him saying that “Norway is too expensive for us as it is.” He apologised to us and walked away!

Ben nursed one pint for several hours, Vadge, Jake and I had about three each before we decided to head back to drink the vodka in the hostel, stopping off in a 7-11 to get some mixers.

I spotted loads of these things on our way back. What are they all about? Ventilation? To tie dogs to? They were everywhere!

In the widow of one shop was a huge poster advertising swimwear. Swimwear in cold Norway in October…ok then :? On one side was a six-pack hunk, on the other was a tasty bit of crumpet where the butter had certainly melted.

On closer inspection, in the mid-section of her body, I spotted a well-placed drip. I wonder if they noticed or if it was put there on purpose. Needless to say, it made us chuckle.

There would be uproar to that sort of thing in the UK! Just shows what a relaxed attitude the Norwegians have towards nudity and suggestive imagery.

Eventually we were at the hostel. Vadge and I sat in the foyer as Jake and Ben went to the room and filled four bottles with vodka and mixer. That way we could drink it downstairs without anybody knowing we were getting pissed.

We spotted the same chap in the hostel that we had seen there all weekend. He was making friends. He was, to my estimate, about 40 and had a hair from the 80’s. He also had this strange stare. We called him Scary Man. The people that he was talking to were evidently not interested in what he had to say. They rolled his eyes when he finally left them to go to bed. Although he seemed a bit odd, I felt sorry for him, so the next day we left him a gift…see part 4!

Several beers and vodkas later, we had the munchies. Jake got directions to the nearest 24hr 7-11 and we headed off!

The chap serving in the 7-11 was the third person (bus diver and beggar being other two) that we encountered who spoke poor English. He was young, so I’m guessing he’s probably a recent immigrant. Or maybe he couldn’t understand our pissed British accents? However, we did manage to order some hot food to satisfy our hunger.

Not that hot food was really important considering the amount of chocolate on display!

And not forgetting the HUGE Lion bar ice creams – they were MASSIVE!

With hot food and alcohol warming our stomachs, we trotted back to the hostel and crashed out ready to spend one last day in Norway.

Coming up in the final part – A gift for Scary Man, annoying tram ticket machines, the slide of death, cosmopolitan cafes, fags on a plane. Raybould’s friend and, yes, lots and LOTS of cock!

 

[Nic]

i'm on a train. That made me lol so much that the biddy opposite keeps giving me evils

 

[Pokemaniac]

Haha... nice to see it from that perspective... As we see it, it England who has tons of pubs, are paranoid across the border of hilarious when it comes to nudity, and, weirdly enough, we say that Norwegians have the worst drinking culture in Europe. At least when they travel abroad.

You should have bought some of the bottom row chocolate (or the smaller versions on the middle row), the Freia bars.

Weird as it may seem, we have bigger ice creams than the Lion ones over here too (King'sIce springs to mind). In fact, Norway is the country in the world where it's sold the most ice cream per capita.

I'll have to check the things sprouting from the streets. I think they are water pipes, or even drains. Carrying out reparations on underground pipes is very hard when the ground is frozen (November to March), so I guess these are for easy access to them.

Last, if you wonder, the sign behind Jake advertises diving classes, every Monday.

 

[Mushroom]

I am looking forward to seeing what you put about my friend =] Good trip report so far =D

 

[Ian]

Final Part – Killing Time In Oslo

Our flights home from Rygge were not until 8pm-ish so we had to kill time in Oslo until 5pm.

Here’s our hostel room.

We had to share the room with four others – Boring Man (went to sleep really early), Orange Shoes Man (had a pair of orange shoes), Black Man (he was black) and Scary Man (he was scary).

I snore, especially after a drink. Jake told me that Orange Shoes Man and me were having a snoring competition during the night…and I was woken up by Black Man snoring. Must have been a nightmare for the others!

I think we all agreed without really discussing it that Oslo doesn’t really offer much as a tourist destination unless you have loads of cash. We were on a budget so we needed to find free stuff to do during the day to kill time.

We stayed in the hostel room until the last minute – 11am. The Sleeping Beauties didn’t get out of bed until 10:30.

We still had a whole bottle of vodka left over and due to the 100ml rule, we had to leave it behind. We left it under Scary Man’s pillow with a note.

We minced outside the hostel for a while before heading to McDonalds for breakfast.

I didn’t bother with a McD’s this time, I went for another calzone from 7-11. I also dropped mine and Vadge’s bags off at the train station. I knew there would be a lot of walking today and I didn’t fancy lugging it around.

After several cheeseburgers, we headed north through the city on a longish walk to Vigeland.

By walking this route, you can see how Oslo is separated by the Royal Palace, which, incidentally, looked a lot better in the sunshine.

South of the Royal Place, Oslo is a typical city centre – offices, shops, hotels and plenty of concrete. Immediately north of the Palace, Oslo becomes very wealthy and leafy.

The buildings are grand, the sort you’d expect to see in Chelsea or Notting Hill in London – impressive Georgian style buildings. Certainly more residential. I think we passed an embassy or two as well. I found it rather strange how the Palace so precisely splits the city. The northern half of Oslo didn’t feel like the Oslo that I’ve spent the rest of the weekend in. It felt richer, quieter and warmer.

After an hour or so of walking we had reached Vigeland Park. Vigeland is a huge, impressive public open space, with loads of naked statues, a bridge and a monolith.

Jake hoped that there would be “lots of cock” and he was right!

Aside from cock, there were also plenty of boobs, even the odd lesbo couple!

It had to be done!

I’ve been to Amsterdam, which is probably regarded as the world’s most relaxed city when it comes to nudity and sexuality. However, all of this nudity was in a grand, shiny public park for all to see. Kids were standing next to the statues holding on to the dongs, and school kids appeared to be drawing the statues. It was quite surreal.

It’s a shame that the iPhone camera is so turd as my images can’t really show off the sheer size and grandeur of the park. For me, Vigeland was the best place I had visited in Norway, I would even recommend a visit to Vigeland over Tusenfryd.

You’d think the woman in the middle would look slightly worried!

As we made our way through the park towards the monolith, nudity was everywhere, even on the gates!

The statues around the monolith also became more raunchy and impressive. HUGE stone sculptures, all in various positions. Marvellous!

The monolith itself was awesome. I hate using the word “awesome”, it’s so American and overused, but there’s no other apt word. A pile of 121 naked bodies reaching 46ft towards the sky = AWESOME!

Here’s the view from the monolith plateau back towards the entrance.

And for those of you that like to know facts about Ian From CoasterForce – this is the furthest north that I’ve ever been!

We walked around the park – discovering some water slides that go directly into some lake water – and ended up in the café at the entrance. It was typically expensive – a beer and baguette cost Jake £14. We sat outside drinking our coffees and smoking. Just like the bar we went to the night before, blankets were provided so you could keep warm outside. No doubt if they had these in the UK, they would be stolen!

There’s a kids play park there as well.

And a bench for the less energetic.

We had managed to kill several hours and our prebooked train was getting closer and closer.

We got a tram back to the central station. A tram ticket cost about £2.80 and is valid for an hour. We wanted to use up our coins – loads of them – but the ticket machines were terrible. It took us 10 minutes of trying until they accepted all the coins.

After the tram we waited for the train (which left bang on time!).

Then a free bus to the airport.

And then a plane back to the UK.

On the plane back, Jake asked the trolley dolly loads of questions, but she was a friendly lady and she humoured him. She also knew of Raybould and his theme parking. She wouldn’t give us any gossip though!

Jake also brought some of those smokeless cigarettes.

And that was that.

The weekend was brilliant. I had a really great time, even if I couldn’t throw money away like I tend to do when on holiday. In all honestly, it felt like the park was a secondary reason for visiting, we just so happened to go to a theme park.

Oslo is not a city that I will rush back to, or possibly even go to again. I’m not saying that it’s not worth visiting, but I think I’ve exhausted the place as much as I can on a budget.

Tusenfryd is worth a visit and with Ryanair doing cheap flights from the UK, I would strongly suggest that people give it a go. Just take loads of money and don’t expect to be incredibly thrilled and you’ll have a great time.

Thanks to Jake, Ben and Vadge for a LOLtastic weekend and thanks to everybody else for reading!

 

[davidm]

Nice trip - well done.

Some of those "culture credits" were a bit odd tho'!

 

[Pokemaniac]

I'll have to do a report next time I go to England... it will be filled with paranoia jokes, mostly.

Glad to see that you enjoyed Oslo the last day. If there ever will be a next time, I'll see if I can dig up a few things to do on a budget there. Walking aimlessly around doesn't bring a lot of good results even in the grandest of cities. I should have mentioned beforehand that no place in Oslo is further than three quarters of an hour away from the forest, given that all public transport runs on time. And by forest, I don't mean British tree clusters either. Also, a shame that Holmenkollen is currently being rebuilt. You'd have enjoyed the view from the tower.

By the way, you were right. The embassy area is north of the Royal palace.

 

[Emmett]

:lol: , great read until the end Ian. I think that was the same hostel we stayed at, the Anker hostel and pitty you didn't get the 'A' into the photo.

Nice to see some of the other sights of Oslo outside the park.

 

[thx]

That was great! Thanks for sharing, I also really appreciate seeing other cultural things in TR's. It's sort of funny how to hear your views about the statues (visited that place, Oslo and Tusenfryd 2 years ago) as in Scandinavia (maybe continental Europe for some part-as you mentioned) naked statues aren't considered anything that special. I am not saying that Vigelandsparken isn't very unique though!

One thing which I was pleaseantly surprised of though is that the prices in supermarkets' (although it was maybe 1-1.5km outside the very centre) were considerably cheaper than in like 7-11 or small kiosk's. A 50cl bottle of coke, costed exactly the same as in Finland, or maybe it was even few cents cheaper, whereas in 7-11 it was double-priced.
I agree what you say about Oslo, it felt as an ok city, sort of boring, even if you wouldn't want to think about it, still the expensiveness does have quite an impact on at least my view.

 

[Gazza]

When I visit a new country, I believe that I’m not going to find any culture or understand different nationalities in a theme park alone. A theme park is a very insular area; ride ops tend to be robotic and I sometimes get the impression that I’m just a punter from RCT. They only scratch the surface and that, to me, is a wasted travelling opportunity.

In order to fully appreciate a different country and its customs, I feel the need to immerse myself in everyday life – public transport journeys, pubs, interacting with locals and walking off the beaten touristy track.

100% agree with this, I find it really just wandering around, taking it in, and seeing "the way they do things", what buildings are like etc. Even seemingly inane stuff like supermarkets can be interesting.

Public transport is always fascinating, seeing either done quite well (UK) or quite poorly (US) :lol:

Personally, I wouldn't enjoy a trip much if I was in theme parks the entire time*...It'd be too tiring, and It'd be a real loss to not see the other stuff the country has to offer.

*Unless its a place like Orlando where there is nothing but theme parks.

 

[Emmett]

Public transport is always fascinating, seeing either done quite well (UK) or quite poorly (US) :lol:

I wouldn't go that far regarding the UK Gazza, things are getting better but the rail transport is still a bit of a mess. Unreliable at times and very expensive.

Yeah, you can get a bit spoilt in Europe with most parks having decent transport links unlike the US.