After summer break had just started for me, I went to Europe (for the first time!) We went to France (more like Paris) and Norway. Going to France was mainly because there are no flights directly from San Francisco to Oslo.

Day 0:

Why 0? Because you should start counting at 0. Also, we were on the airplane that day.

As I mentioned above, we were on the airplane. It was a ten-hour flight, landing at CDG. In the security line, we saw one of my classmates. (people-we-saw-who-we-know-on-this-trip-counter: 1) At the start of the flight, I looked through the games menu. Instead of just going for Brick Breaker like usual, I checked all the other games. That was a good (well, not good for my eyesight) idea, for I found Mini Metro. I played only that game the whole flight (but I didn’t play for the whole flight), and got every level unlocked (NOT every level played.)

For some reason, I remember my legs hurting when I stood up in the middle of the flight to go to the bathroom. I also used the airplane’s blanket for practically the first time!

I wasn’t able to sleep for very long on that flight. Overall, a bad flight, but since all flights are bad for me, it was average.

Day 1:

(definitely not) worst enemy #1: jetlag. (I negated “worst”, not “enemy”)

When we got there, it was 10:00 AM in Paris, so 1:00 AM pacific time. That means while most other people in Paris were working or learning actively after a good night’s sleep, we were fighting to stay awake after getting barely any sleep on the airplane.

While getting our bags, my sister saw one of her schoolmates (one grade above, so technically not a classmate). (people-we-saw-who-we-know-on-this-trip-counter: 2) We met up with my mom (who went on a business trip and met us at the Paris airport).

Once we got out of the airplane, we went to the airport subway station. The ticket line was abnormally long, for the other times we were at that subway station, there was close to no line at all. For some reason, I don’t have any memory of being on the subway, and I know we did that only because the next paragraph happened.

Something that happens often when you use the subway is that you change lines, so it makes sense that we needed to change lines. When you change lines, you get out of the subway and into the station. Then, you find (important!) and walk to another line. At the station, we got off the subway and tried to find the other line. But, this station was not clearly marked, and it was a big room with square pillars. That is to say, it looked the same in every direction. We spent a long time walking around, until we finally decided to follow the signs outside (important!) the station. The way to go outside the station was to put your ticket through the slot in the gate. We didn’t want to do this at first because the tickets might get deactivated, and that’s exactly what happened!

My parents told me that the tickets were supposed to get us all the way to our station, but they didn’t. At this point, my parents already thought Paris was pretty disorganized. We went to the other ticket station, but we couldn’t buy the tickets (it was in French and the screen was not very responsive). Then we went to the ticket office to try to get tickets there, but when we told them our problem, they just let us through a side entrance.

We got to the hotel and rested for the rest of the day(I think).

Day 2-8:

More jetlag in Paris!

What we did these days was basic tourism. Everything everybody sees at Paris: Eiffel Tower (we climbed to the second floor, which was ~600 steps), Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, as well as some other less known stuff, like: Musée d’Orsay, some other random museum, that random church on a hill, the “ugly” tower (second tallest in France, the Eiffel Tower being the first), and some other boring stuff.

One day, we also met one of my sister’s chinese classmates. (people-we-saw-who-we-know-on-this-trip-counter: 3) We actually planned to meet up with them the next day.

Throughout these days, one thing that happened was very weird jetlag. Every night, I would fall asleep very late (that’s regular jetlag). Then, I woke up really early, because it would be around dinner time in California. After maybe 2 hours, I would fall asleep again because it would be bedtime in California. I would then go on to sleep until midmorning (in Paris). In this way, I was usually the earliest and latest to wake up, if that makes sense.

We aslo realized that one of the reasons Paris was so clean was because of the upcoming Olympics. It’s probably the best time to see Paris.

Day 9-11

Oslo is cool. (and bright)

We were in Oslo. I slept almost the whole flight, even though it was in the afternoon.

In Oslo, we saw the Oslo Opera House, the nobel peace prize museum (only this prize is given in Oslo, everything else is given in Stockholm), the Oslo fjord (I guess that’s kind of obvious, but I mean seeing some of the islands in it), and the Munch museum.

In Oslo, the sun sets at ~10:30, so it was very hard sleeping. I would often do something and not realize it was 10:00 until I looked at the clock.

We also found a really cool playground called the “playground munch”, which was basically like running around in a 2D game. I think this type of playground is just better for anything you want to do, including bonking your head on the roof.

Day 12

Waterfalls are nothing special now.

We went to Flåm on day 12. We had to go on a train to get first to Myrdal(?), which is the station where the high-speed train drops us off. Then, we descended ~900m to Flåm, on a train called the Flåmsbana(?). We went through a lot of tunnels, looped under the tunnels we went through in tunnels, and saw a lot of waterfalls. By the time we got to Flåm, all of us didn’t think waterfalls were that rare anymore.

Flåm is a pretty small town, but it is at the end of a very beautiful fjord, so beautiful that it’s a UNESCO world heritage site. There are also at least 5 waterfalls (some dried up) right next to Flåm.

By the time we got there, after the high speed train and the Flåmsbana, it was already pretty late. We wanted to go biking, but the bike rental had closed, so we went to find food instead. The restaurant we went to was almost closed too.

After this, we went on a walk along the river. We skipped some stones, and then started walking back. Just then, it started raining.

Once we got back, we started sleeping. For the maybe first time on this trip, I actually slept the right way (meaning I didn’t have weird effects of jetlag)!

Day 13

Water** + wind** = cold*

We traveled to Voss.

First, we took a boat from our starting fjord through another fjord into another fjord. Also, I don’t think fjords are that special anymore. Then, we went on a bus to Voss. On the boat, it was raining the whole time. I went outside for a few minutes and got soaked. It was very cold.

At Voss, our hotel was basically right on top of the train station. At first, we couldn’t get in our room because of some random check in time stuff, so we started playing shuffleboard. Then, we went to eat some pizza (although I had chicken nuggets), and there were actually vegetables with the chicken nuggets!

We stayed in our hotel and did nothing for a while. Then, we went to the gondola up the mountain. Turns out, Voss is actually a ski village too!

There was only one family other than our family at the station, and it turned out to be one of my ex-classmates. (people-we-saw-who-we-know-on-this-trip-counter: 4) On the mountain, I touched Norwegian snow for the first time! In the process, I got my socks drenched and my shoes muddy.

We ate at the hotel restaurant/buffet and then played more shuffleboard.

Voss = 5 star.

*water in the form of rain

*water at room temperature (or in this case, the ouside temperature)

*a noticable amount of wind

*wind at room temperature (or in this case, the outside temperature)

*to the person in the rain

Day 14-16

Oceans are very cold, and so are fjords.

We traveled to Bergen through the train station under our hotel. I slept the whole way.

At Bergen, we hiked down two hills. I also went in a sauna (I feel like it’s almost suffocating me!), a saltwater pool, and a fjord (I submerged my whole body (and head) in it!) We all went in a boat around Bergen’s fjord, called Byfjorden(?).

Day 17

Jetlag imminent

We went back to Paris to transfer back to the San Francisco, and we stayed one day because we were there anyway.

On that day, we tried to see the Eiffel Tower light up, but we couldn’t. We still got a few cool pictures, as there were olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower. We actually saw the rings before they were on the floor.

Day \(\infty\)

Why \(\infty\)? Well, it’s the last day of any trip, with no possible extensions (well, there are the bigger infinities, but…)

We flew back to San Francisco.

Not as much mini metro this time. Watched a movie (the Harry Potter movies) on my seat screen for the first time!

Conclusions

well, my objective conclusions, anyway

Paris is very old and way too big.

Museums are just people overanalyzing paintings.

Norway has lots of fjords and waterfalls. Way too many.

Norway is good.