We Live Here Now! Oslo, Norway

Greetings from Oslo, where we live now! This flat, in the trendy area of Grünnerløkka, is lovely with a capital L. It looks just like the pictures, which is always good (since we picked it based on them) and the owners are exceedingly helpful. Here’s the setup: the door opens onto a big open room, with dining area and kitchen off to the right and sitting room straight ahead. (The sofa and chairs are surprisingly comfy.) Further to the right are two bedrooms, one with a small desk, and a bathroom. Everything is clean and airy and we like the design and layout and color. We look out onto a park and a bridge over one of the main rivers in Oslo. It’s exceedingly green.

Kitchen Confidential

Another winner! The eating area has a bench sofa on one side and three comfortable chairs. Good pots (in which we made first-day minestrone), great knives, and there are some pantry staples. This is sometimes gross but in this case they are fresh and we’ve used some spices already. The fridge is larger than we’re used to, and they even left us eggs and bread and jam for the first morning. The mugs are a good size (finally: we have suffered through wee cups of tea for three full months), but there is no teapot. We care a lot about tea, and have brought our own loose tea – which incidentally caused a scene at Heathrow – so we might have to buy a short-term teapot if we can find one for a low price. Hob and oven and dishwasher all entirely manageable. No microwave, which is ok but means we really will need that teapot. And we can identify nearly everything in the kitchen, except these two (help welcome!):

Bedroom/Bathroom

There is a comfy bed with lots of pillows and blankets; A+. (We don’t know what that translates to in the UK because we’ve asked a hundred times and the grading system remains opaque.) The larger bedroom has a closet, which in our experience is fairly rare in Europe, and most welcome. The bathroom has a very small shower which is ok by us, and is provided with shampoo and soap and tons of toilet paper. Also, note to potential landlords out there: people are MUCH more likely to clean the flat if you give them cleaning supplies – well done again! We have successfully used the washing machine, which was easy-peasy compared to some. And there is a clever retractable drying rack in the wall above it that stretches out across the whole ceiling. The bathroom is not as large as our last but we never did get around to setting up a playing field there, so this one will do just fine.

Sitting Room

In which we are sitting right now! Bigger TV than we used to own, with more channels than we could ever use. Comfy sofa and chairs, good color scheme, and a floor-to-ceiling window that looks out on the bridge. Good lights for reading (a rarity) and some cool touches – the coffee table and knickknacks are funky (in a good way). Our only hesitation here is some plants to water. We apologize in advance because that isn’t going to go well: there’s a reason we gave up on plants in our previous life. Miracle of miracles, there are even some books in English, not all of which we have read and two or three of which we might want to. In short, we’re home in Oslo!