Norwegian Wood
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| Oslo University - not 1977 vintage |
I was last in Norway in 1977 if I remember the year correctly, but Oslo - or to be precise Oslo University - played an important part in an epic journey (for me at the time) which went all the way from Glasgow to Newcastle, Newcastle to Stavanger, Stavanger to Oslo and - several weeks later - from Oslo to the small Greek island of Kos before heading back to Glasgow via the Magic Bus from Athens.
The reason I'm pretty sure it was 1977 is that in the middle of Greece somewhere - I remember seeing an English language newspaper announcing that Kenny Dalglish - one of the finest football players to pull on a Celtic and Scotland shirt - was moving to Liverpool Football Club for a UK record transfer fee of £440,000.
A complete steal, as it turned out - though that was pretty obvious at the time to anyone who knew anything about football.
Anyway, back to Norway which is where I worked for eight weeks before hitchhiking across Europe to the Greek islands - at Oslo University on the outskirts of the city - a beautiful site which was turned into a 'tourist' hotel over the summer holidays.
The pay was not great - not much above Norway's minimum wage at the time - but room and board were free so I was able to save up money to subsidise the planned trip south and east on leaving Norway - down into Denmark via Copenhagen and further south into Germany and Italy - before arriving in Greece on the island of Corfu.
But Norway was a lot of fun and the people I met there were great company - at work, rest and play - with a real love of the great outdoors and parties down by the lake which was a short walk from the university/hotel.
I remember that Norway was a very expensive place to drink alcohol - at least in bars - and it was also very difficult in those days to buy alcohol because liquor stores or 'off sales' (as we say in Scotland) were few and far between and were also run by the state - in fact they were called 'Vinmonopolets', if I remember correctly.
Maybe they still are, who knows?
Another memory that sticks in my mind is that Oslo was the first and only time I have eaten whale meat - which tastes like meat not fish - which is not surprising when you stop and think it comes from an ocean dwelling mammal.
So maybe I'll get back there some day and if I do I'll be sure to sing the following Beatles song - Norwegian Wood - which became something of a popular party piece while I was there.
