Category: Travels

My selection of restaurants in Oslo

9 December 2016

I love food and wine, and I enjoy trying new restaurants, often picking them on the Restaurant Guide from Aftenposten or the Michelin Guide. In over ten years in Oslo, several people have asked for my selection of restaurants in town, so here it is (last updated October 2023).

My favourite restaurants:

Last but not least, my favourite coffee bar:

  • Tim Wendelboe: Internationally recognised coffee roastery and espresso bar—probably the best coffee in Norway

As you may have noticed, I have not included many Italian restaurants in my selection. This is because the best Italian restaurant in Oslo is my place, of course 🙂

Cheers!

Dear Norwegian, our thing is over

30 September 2016

Dear Norwegian,

I am a frequent traveller, and I have been one of your loyal customers for about ten years. I have always experienced excellent service from you, and I have always recommended you to all my friends and family. I used to be one of your greatest fans. At least this was the case until I came to the gate of flight DY1550 from Oslo to Budapest on 25 September:

Ground personnel one: “Sir, you have two pieces of hand luggage, so we need to check them.”

My luggage consisted of a Rimowa Salsa Ultralight Cabin Multiwheel (dimensions 55 x 40 x 20 cm) and a Dicota Notebook Backpack Light (dimensions 47 x 33 x 20 cm). The size of the luggage was fine, but the Rimowa weighed 7.4 Kg and the Dicota 5.4 Kg, for a grand total of 12.8 Kg.

My infamous hand luggage
My infamous hand luggage

Ground personnel one: “I am sorry, but your luggage weighs 12.8 Kg and the maximum allowed is 10 Kg. We have to check your luggage, and you have to pay 400 NOK.”

Me: “Madam, I am on a business trip. Once I arrive at Budapest airport, I will only have one hour and 20 minutes to get to Budapest Keleti train station, buy a train ticket to Bratislava at the international ticket office1, and board the train. I have two pieces of checked luggage included in the ticket, but in order to minimise the risk of missing the train, I have decided to take hand luggage only. If I miss the train, I will be in serious trouble. Is an excess weight of 2.8 Kg that much of a problem?”

My ticket including two pieces of checked luggage
My ticket including two pieces of checked luggage

Ground personnel one: “Sir, too many passengers have broken the rules and brought excessive weight on board lately. We have to ensure that passengers obey the rules.”

Me: “Well, as we speak, other passengers are bringing hand luggage that looks much bigger and heavier than mine…”

Another ground personnel—who had probably started the day off on the wrong foot—jumped into the conversation:

Ground personnel two: “Don’t you understand that it doesn’t help to quarrel!? Don’t you understand that it doesn’t help to point at other passengers!? You have been caught with excessive weight. We will check your luggage and you will pay 400 NOK. Period.”

He used the term “caught,” seriously… Like I was committing a misdemeanour.

At this point, I avoided answering to be polite. I gave them the Rimowa and paid the 400 NOK fine fee. Yes, according to the rules, I was wrong and they were right. Yet, since my ticket included two pieces of checked luggage, they should have avoided treating me like I was trying to abuse the system. Besides, given my risk of missing the train to Bratislava, they could have shown some consideration. Eventually, I lost 20 minutes to collect my Rimowa at Budapest airport. Fortunately, I managed to catch the train at the last minute, but I arrived at my destination with a lot of unnecessary frustration and stress.

I have never experienced anything like this in my ten years as a frequent traveller. Not even Ryanair has fallen so low. One thing is certain: from now on I will give priority to SAS and other airlines over yours.

I have some friendly advice: stop this excessive strictness right now. Your hard-line policy seems to aim at exploiting customers rather than offering them a better service, which may give you the reputation of being cheap—as in “of little worth because achieved in a discreditable way”—rather than just low-cost. Getting rid of this reputation is extremely difficult, especially among business passengers, and you do not want to be placed into the same basket as Ryanair.

All my very best,
Alessandro Rossini, Ph.D.

Footnotes

  1. Slovakian railways do not sell international tickets online nor on machines. ↩

Six months in Oslo—Life of a researcher in the capital of Norway

9 June 2013

26 November 2012 at 3:00 in the morning. I was sitting on the bed of my bare room in Bergen, overwhelmed with fear and excitement, looking at my life packed into suitcases, backpacks, and boxes, and staring at my one-way ticket for the earliest morning flight to Oslo: “Will I like Oslo?”, “Will I enjoy my new life?”, “Will I miss Bergen?” Now, after six months in Oslo, I can finally answer these questions.

The city of Oslo may not have the charm of other western European capitals. It was built when Norway was among the poorest countries in Europe, and it is not difficult to notice. It has little classical architecture, and the one it has is not exactly impressive: even the neoclassical Royal Palace is way too dull to my taste. But Norway is among the richest countries in the world now, and the municipality is finally investing resources to give the city a new touch of contemporary architecture. The Fjord City project aims at opening the city towards the fjord by building housing and recreation on the waterfront part of the city centre. The Opera House in Bjørvika together with the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Tjuvholmen are notable examples of this development. Although controversial, I find these buildings amazing, and I believe that, together with the upcoming buildings such as the new Munch Museum in Bjørvika, they are going to give a unique character to the city.

Another distinctive feature of Oslo is that its people can be quite diverse. The various areas of Oslo have all different atmosphere, with Grünerløkka (Oslo East) featuring rather laid-back people and Frogner (Oslo West) featuring rather posh people—to the point that “vestkantgutt” (literally west side boys) is a common Norwegian expression to denote daddy’s boys. This heterogeneity is unique in Norway, where otherwise the law of Jante preserves uniformity across the society. Now there is good and bad with the law of Jante, and I must confess that I have incorporated some of these values into myself after many years in Norway, but one of its bad sides is that it tends to deprive people of significance. I find it interesting that this phenomenon is less evident in Oslo, where people are less afraid to show that they are successful.

I bought a new flat in Rodeløkka, north of Grünerløkka. It cost me a fortune, but it increased my quality of life dramatically 🙂 I have met plenty of charming people so far, both international and Norwegians, which made my social life enjoyable. I am also satisfied with my new job at SINTEF, where I am currently working on some challenging but stimulating EU projects—namely PaaSage, MODAClouds, and Broker@Cloud, for those interested. All in all, life has never been so good, and, to be honest, I have never really missed Bergen.

Four months in Madrid

26 May 2011

Shipol Airport, Asterdam. Two hours left before my connection to Bergen. I am not coming back home from a business or leisure trip this time, but from a four-month exchange stay in Madrid.

Research fellows at the University of Bergen are encouraged to spend from three to six months abroad to get in touch with another research group and work in a different environment. During the MoDELS 2010 conference in Oslo, my supervisor and I discussed the possibility of my exchange stay with Juan de Lara and Eshter Guerra from the Autonomous University of Madrid. The idea of staying some months in the south of Europe after three years in the North was appealing to me, and Juan and Esther seemed positive as well. Eventually, the idea became a plan, and I came to Madrid in February.

I lived in the centre of Madrid, which happens to be the centre of Spain as well, historically speaking. My flat was located 200 meters away from the so-called Kilometre zero, the ancient starting point of all the measurements in Spain. I loved the atmosphere of the city centre, incredibly lively and dynamic. I even loved the noise that you hear in the bars… Yes, the noise of people speaking and toasting and laughing and enjoying life, something that reminded me a bit of Italy and that I missed so much in Norway, where people are usually scared of speaking too loud or too much.

Juan and Esther have been very kind to me. They helped me with the accommodation and the transportation, provided me with an office and a workstation, introduced me to the campus and the city. It has been a rewarding experience to work with them, both scientifically and personally, and I sincerely hope that we will continue the cooperation in the future.

But my stay in Madrid would not have been the same without the people I met there. Thanks to Serena, I got in touch with a group of people from Italy, France and Spain. It was a pleasure to meet Federica, Antonino, Mathilde, Vani, Ysa, Clara and Jose. But above all, it was fantastic to meet Lucia, Teresa and Daniele; lovely people, who treated me like a close friend since the first day we met. I wish most of Italians were people like them; I would consider moving back to Italy.

The big 3-0

22 December 2010

Yesterday the universe had plenty of happenings: a winter solstice, a total lunar eclipse, the darkest night in 400 years, and, last but not least, the last day of my twenties. Yes, it had to happen: I turned 30 today. “What is important is to be young at heart”, some might say… Bullshit! I honestly hate this big 3-0 and all the social expectations that it implies. Anyway, entering a new decade always triggers some self-reflection. I have looked back at the last ten years of my life, and, inspired by the novel Caos calmo, I have written down some of the things I have done during these years:

Countries visited

Italy
France
Norway
Spain
Russia
Germany
Estonia
United Kingdom
Switzerland
Hungary
Denmark
Latvia
Moldova
Cyprus
Ukraine
Finland

Mountains climbed

Fløyen (400m)
Ulriken (640m)
Rundemanen (560m)
Sandviksfjellet (417m)
Lyderhorn (396m)
Damsgårdsfjellet (350m)
Løvstakken (477m)
Corno grande (2912m)
Preikestolen (604m)
Kjerag (1110m)

Airlines taken

KLM
SAS
Iberia
Ryanair
Sterling
S7
Aeroflot
Lufthansa
Estonian Air
Alitalia
Norwegian
Vueling
AirBaltic

Laptops owned

Sony Vaio PCG-FX801
Toshiba Satellite A100-703
ASUS Eee PC 1101HA
Dell Latitude E6500

Mobiles owned

Nokia 5110
Nokia 6110
Nokia 7110
SonyEriccsson Z1010
Siemens MT50
Siemens C55
SonyEricsson K610i
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

Camera owned

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P72
Canon EOS 350D
Olympus μ 1030 SW

Cars owned

Škoda Fabia 1.9TDI (2001 ed.)

Motorcycles owned

Yamaha FZR600 (1994 ed.)

There are many other things I could write down. All in all, I have been lucky to have had so many opportunities. I am curious to see how these lists will look like in ten years time…