Hello and welcome to the final segment of my Norway travel diaries, Oslo edition!
In my final year of uni I embarked on short term exchange after years of contemplating overseas studies. By the way, it is the best thing you can do in university and such an awesome opportunity! It was my first time travelling to Europe and the journey from Brisbane to Oslo took over 2 days east to west across the globe (I experienced realll jet lag). I made three 8 hour flights (Brisbane-Singapore-Dubai-Oslo) with hours of layovers in between. It really made me realise how far away Australia was haha…..
When I arrived, I was so happy to see the glassy blue campus of BI after my 48-hour journey and knew this would be a summer I’d never forget.
Norwegians love summer and soak up as much sun as possible to recover from long dark winters with only 6 hours of sunlight at best. During July summers, the sun never truly sets and stays in a constant ‘twilight’ state during the night (so yea, that messed me up a bit). This is the Oslo Opera House taken at 10pm ^ The sun ‘officially’ sets at 11pm and rises at 3:30am.
I loved immersing myself into the Norwegian culture and embraced their love for the outdoors. This meant lots of BBQs, fjiord cruises, swimming and hiking trips.
Here’s my cute lil vlog I made of our summer school programme adventures, I just rewatched it and had a big ol goofy smile on my face :’)
Some of the yummyyy food I had on the regular fiskekaker (fish cakes), nutty yoghurt, polse aka. hotdog wraps (not pictured) and last but certainly not least
Skillingsboller.
Cinnamon buns.
My ultimate weakness.
The epic campus of BI Oslo Business School. 
Home for the month ^
We had some awesome opportunities to learn about some Norwegian companies. No Isolation created a robot for sick children at home to act as the eyes and ears at school. We also made a trip to visit telecommunications company Telenor.
Scroll down for a little photo tour of Oslo:
The Oslo Opera House is home to the Norwegian Opera and Ballet housing 1100 rooms and is just spectacular inside and out, resembling an iceberg in the water. It is free for the public to walk on with beautiful panoramic views on the rooftop. Somehow whenever I had free time I would end up here.
Akershus Fetsning, or the Akershus Fortress is a main historical landmark of Oslo built in the 14th century and withstanding invasions and sieges in the past.
These days it houses the Norwegian Resistance museum and a very popular location for wedding shoots, one afternoon we saw 3 separate couples taking turns for the scenic views of the harbour.
Norwegians are also among the happiest people in the world and fun fact: The Nobel Peace Prize originated in Norway! We made a little trip to the Nobel Peace Center which housed galleries of information about current and past laureates since the creation of the prize in 1901.
The Royal Palace, official residence of the Norwegian monarch.
A few hundred meters away down Karl Johan’s gate is Parliament House (Stortinget) which is directly opposite the Royal Palace.
St Olaf’s cathedral.
Oslo is a unique city because huge cruise ships are able to dock right outside the city. There are regular boats that head out to the islands in Oslo fjord. Island hopping is always a good idea. 
Just around the corner from the opera house is Sorenga, a long waterfront dock with restaurants, and swimming areas for a cool summer dip.
I especially like this shot, timing was perf.
After walking around Damstredet, we bought some coffee beans from Tim Wendelboe and made a sneaky stop to everyone’s favourite dessert shop Harald’s Waffles!
“In every shirt there is a story, because someone with a warm heart has been wearing it. All kinds of people are together here, but we are still the same. We are no wiser than fish. We still act like fish, always going in a group, following each other in the same direction, within a shoal of fish. We are a part of nature, and nature is within us”
– Kaarina Kaikkonen
Hiking around Sognsvann 
I seem to say this a bit too often but this is one of the times where I have allowed my procrastination skills to shine for the longest time (over a year hah!) Just choosing which photos to include out of thousands was hard enough but this was truly a time of my life that I will cherish forever and I can’t wait to go back.
Farvel for nå