oslo’s cold snap made me reevaluate everything (and also my life choices)
i arrived in oslo with a duffel bag full of regrets and a thermos of lukewarm chai. the first thing that hit me wasn’t the architecture-it was the silence. or maybe the -39.81°f air? whatever. i checked the weather app and it said "there right now, hope you like that kind of thing" and i nodded, even though i didn’t. nothing about this felt right. the kind of right where you’re standing in a snowbank and your boots are full of slush and you’re still smiling because you’re drunk on caffeine and existential dread.
then a random guy at a bus stop shouted something about "barcode" and pointed me toward a street food cart. i didn’t know what he meant at first. maybe a QR code? maybe his name? turned out he was yelling about a late-night taco stand that sold chili hot enough to make your eyes water. i ate one. it was.... intense. i found the place later and told the vendor i’d been led by a lunatic. he just shrugged and handed me a napkin.
someone told me that the neighbors here are like ethical time travelers. i don’t know if that’s true. i heard they’ve been complaints about a commune from the 1970s that still exists in the woods. the guy who whispered it to me had a tattoo of a maple leaf on his bicep. i asked if he was part of it. he said no. but his chill was so consistent it felt like a cryptic yes. if you get bored, oslo isn’t that big. just park your bike and wander. the city’s walls are literally made of ice right now.
i read on the oslo tripadvisor that the central station’s elevator broke last week. i pretended i didn’t hear it. i took the stairs instead. they were cold. really cold. i ended up buying a scarf from a vendor who looked like they’d stepped out of a sixties poster. i wore it everywhere. it was itchy. it smelled like regret. the neighbor next door to that vendor’s cart said i looked like a tourist from a rom-com. i didn’t tell them i’d been there for three days and still couldn’t find a working public restroom.
the reviews on the yelp page for the hostel i’m staying at were all over the place. one person wrote, "don’t come here if you’re allergic to human interaction." another said, "the bathtubs are haunted. i saw a shadow." i didn’t care. i took a bath anyway. the water was freezing but i guess that’s the point? maybe the ghosts like it. i’ll never know.
here are some photos i took. nothing fancy. just a blur of cold and chaos:
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