August 9, 2008

The MS INNVIK - My Floating Home

Berthed just across the water from the brand new Opera house (and pride of Norway) is my home in Oslo - The MS INNVIK.


Billed as an alternative theatre, a minimalist B&B (for the intrepid) and summer café, the INNVIK is a refitted car ferry and lives up to it's reputation on all accounts.

As I entered on the first evening, a sign outside advertised the night's performance as Hedda Gabler and (silly me) I imagined a sedate and serious play. Instead, Hedda Gabler turned out to be a heavy metal band (who, blissfully, only played til 11pm, but managed to out-shout my industrial strength earplugs until the bitter end). I could have gone to the performance for free as guests are invited in exchange for NOT flushing cabin toilets or taking showers during performances, but opted not to...leaving my imagination to conjur up 2007's Eurovision Song Contest winners - a Norwegian heavy metal dressed as Viking/Orc-types.


My little berth has everything I need - desk, bunkbeds & tiny bathroom - though at 54 and with Tintagel-induced aching muscles hauling myself up into my bed presented an initial challenge. Now, but 3 days later, it's a breeze - to get up, I just step on the bottom bunk, then onto the desk - whilst grasping the hand-hold - and hoist myself up and over. It's cosy, it's all mine, it's affordable (for Oslo) and I find it somehow preferable to sharing a room with a 1/2 dozen 20-somethings on holiday. It's also incredibly well-located: It's less than a 5 minute walk to the central train station/T-bane/busses, downtown shopping areas, numerous museums & historical sites and right on the eastern edge of Old Oslo (Christiana).

I've walked all over the city from here and have watched zillions of Oslo natives and tourists climb the Opera house (Oslo's newest pasttime). You walk up, you walk down...

Though right now, I'm sitting in the INNVIK café looking out across the Oslo Fjord to the Opera House. The water is glistening in a rare bit northern evening sunshine (It's been overcast/raining since I arrived) as gulls swirl over, two white swans glide by and numerous ducks paddle back and forth in front of the Opera house tourists (no doubt) in hopes of a tasty tidbit or two.

3 comments:

Max, Ebbie and the Fuzzheads said...

That's so cool. What an awesome place to stay, I'm glad it turned out so habitable, I know that was a slight concern :}

sharon said...

ahahahaahahahh
Hedda Gabler
oh how I laughed

ibu kate said...

You mean Lordi? The Finnish group that won Eurovision??? Oh God. That sounds almost a bad as the really bad blues/rock/reggae band that played over the road from the place Sharon and I stayed in Lovina. The bass was turned up so loud the earth shook every time a note was played. I wonder how many times that band has little old bookish ladies and men turn up to their gigs thinking they're going to see an Ibsen play.