Parking aside, we soon walked back into the city to experience a bit more of what Oslo has to offer. It is quite the city. Seeing as Norway was in respect to itself quite a poor country only 70 years ago, it has now used the gold mine it found in its oil resources to invest in for the future, and for the people. The fund was valued at 250,000 dollars per citizen in 2021. That fund doesn’t only go back to the people, but the city can withdraw something like 3% per year to create its clean roads, connected infrastructure, and eye-catching architecture throughout. You can truly feel the quality of life when walking around. And we walked around a lot, something like 25,000 steps, and it was even almost dark when we got back!

Eric McDermott

Working from the AirBnB has been a breeze. Thimm also has meetings from time to time, but we have spanned ourselves out on the large walnut dining room table; me, with two laptops, one for work and one for video and photo editing, and Thimm with a laptop and an iPad. It truly feels like one of those digital nomad startup houses. Plus, we had over 200mbps internet, which means we can almost hear what our colleagues will say before they say it.

Fast forwarding a bit --- after work Wednesday brought a very cool event. I found a beach volleyball tournament taking place a few weeks before departing, and had wrote them an email whether we might be able to join. They accommodated with a free “one-day-member” pass, but told us that we would still have to register like everyone else, at 1800 the Sunday before the tournament, and they warned we had to be fast on the button. We managed to get in before the 48-person tournament was full.

So, there we were: A 48-person “social” beach volleyball tournament, where you change partners every game. We played 7 games in total, and had quite a few unofficial games. In the end, we met a good 20 people, many of whom gave us great suggestions on places to go and things to do. We ended up being the last group there playing, well into the extended sunset, and after exchanging contacts with a few new friends, we gave some others a ride home in our beautiful DYL van.

Eric McDermott