Made it!

Tweak, Ash, Pitch & I boarded a plane 7pm Monday night and got here 8am Tuesday morning. The flight isn't 13 hours long, it's only 7 but there's a 6 hour time difference, hence the 8am arrival time. The dogs made it through with flying colors, although Tweak stress slept alot of that day away. The Borderstaffies just wanted their next meal. :p

My friend Dina followed the next day with Simi as I couldn't take all 4 with me at the same time. That was a little bit of planning that had me relying on multiple friends to have everything go off without a hitch. Susan to take us to the airport Monday and then take care of Simi for me until Kate could bring her to the airport the next day to meet up with Dina, who flew down to Newark from Boston on an earlier flight. But, everything went off without a hitch, all parties are now in Norway and WOW do I have some amazing friends or what!

The first couple of days for me and Dina were about getting used to the time difference and taking small walks here or there. Once we were somewhat adjusted we started doing touristy stuff - went downtown and window shopped, saw the American Embassy which is guarded more heavily than Fort Knox, visited the King's Castle and gardens, spent some time at the wharf at city hall plaza, did some shopping, etc., etc., etc.

The amount of walking these people do is surreal. Man is my ass going to be fine though once I get used to it. I complain all the time about it to whomever will listen but secretly I'm happy I am forced to have more regular exercise in my life. Staying home all the time in an effort to save money doesn't really lend one to have an in-shape physique. Well, I guess that wouldn't be true if I had any desire to exercise but given the choice between being lazy and exercising, I'm picking lazy every single time.

The dogs are adjusting incredibly well. They go for walks multiple times a day and have had a few trips down to the park for some longer walks and frisbee sessions. They aren't reacting to the outside doors opening and closing or people walking up and down the stairs. All in all they're doing way better than I had hoped.

The dog food selection here is really limited. You can feed Pro Plan, Science Diet or Eukanuba and that's about it. Nobody feeds raw here, you can't even buy marrow bones in the market! But we did find one store that carries a limited selection of higher quality food. We visited them yesterday to buy food and found out that they're moving locations next week and will actually be closer to us. I'm cool with that because walking with a 30lb bag of dog food doesn't really give me the warm fuzzies.

Today is Sunday and the world stops in Norway on Sunday. You can probably count the amount of things open on a Sunday on one hand. Luckily for us Museums are exempt from the day of rest and are open. We have plans to visit the Viking Ship Museum (vikingskiphuset) today and maybe a few others that are in the area. But generally a lazy day is planned so we can somewhat recover from the walking tour of Oslo. All of us are feeling it in one way or another. :p

~D