MegDesk – The Blog

Saturday was a day with a few firsts for me.  Lucas set off with Mohamed on an ill-fated expedition to try to cycle to Sweden (they made it 140 km before the crazy heat, hills, and heavy packs made them stop and jump in a lake before catching a train back to Oslo), leaving me to my own devices.

Originally I thought I had most of the weekend to myself, given the distance to Sweden and back, so after running a few errands, I put off cleaning the apartment until Sunday.  Instead, I put on my swimsuit, packed a sandwich, a drink, and a towel, and pulled out my map book to find a cycle route to the beach. 

One of those fantastic things about Oslo is that you can ride for 10 minutes and feel like you’re in the heart of the countryside.  The pedstrian and cycle routes down to Huk beach wind through forests and farmland on Bygdøy, even though it’s right at the edge of the city.  There are even cows and horses!

Along the way I made a few wrong turns, but with the great weather, I didn’t really mind taking the scenic route.  However, my original path kept me on cycle routes and side roads, and after following the crowds and skipping my final turn-off, I ended up on a busier road.  Busy, of course, is a relative term.  But with the crowds of pedestrians headed to the beach, I couldn’t ride on the sidewalk, and while the road wasn’t too crowded, I hate making cars wait for me.  At one point, a car was stuck behind me until someone passed in the oncoming lane, and since the sidewalk was clear for a while, I tried to get out of their way.  I didn’t quite make it onto the curb and ended up crashing rather spectacularly onto the sidewalk.  By the time I fell, the car was long gone, and no one was around to bruise my ego, but I had enough bruises in other places.

I haven’t had the bike very long, so I’ve been wondering how long it would be before I fell.  I guess I know now!  I look like a mess with a few scrapes and some nasty bruises on my legs and shoulder.  When I got home, I couldn’t find enough ice packs to put on all the places that were swelling!  But two days later, everything is a lot less painful, although I still look pretty bad.

After my accident, I was nearly at the beach, so after finding a shady spot to catch my breath and survey the damage, I decided to just go on.  I was hot and out of breath, and the cold water was sounding very appealing.  And at least I would be able to rinse my scrapes with a swim.

Not surprisingly, the beach was spectacularly crowded, but I did manage to find a spot to put down my blanket and bicycle within view of the water, so I could keep an eye on things while I swam.  This was my other first for the weekend.  Last year the summer was so cold and wet that I could never bring myself to swim in the fjord.  Man, is it cold!  Even in the height of summer, it’s absolutely freezing!  But with 30+° temperatures, it felt really good!

My manager (who’s been here half the time I have, and still managed to go swimming before me) had said that the water felt thicker than usual.  I didn’t quite know what to make of that, but it’s actually sort of true!  I don’t know whether it’s the current or the cold or something else, but it feels difficult to swim.  I never felt like I was moving as fast or efficiently as I should have been.  Weird.

But overall it was a great experience!  Just sitting down there with a view of Oslofjord is great!  But despite the cold, swimming in it is even cooler (no pun intended).  However, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stomach it on any but the hottest days of summer!

In all, I think I spent about four hours sitting on the beach, reading a book, enjoying the scenery, and reveling in that, “I’m so glad I live in Norway” feeling (even though my scraped knee was bleeding on my beach towel).

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