Away We Went

As some of you may know my two besties and I recently embarked on a "why-the-fuck-not?" journey to Scandinavia. Being three fairly well-traveled ladies the high-north European countries were one of the places none of us had been to. So in July we packed our 'kinis, party dresses, and cut-offs and headed to the land of lutefisk.

"So, why the fuck are you here?" Was pretty much the ice breaker for most of our Norwegian conversations, and as I mentioned earlier, our reply was mostly "why the fuck not?" Though Norwegians, and Scandinavians in general, are said to be more distant and less likely to strike up conversation with strangers, we had no shortage of chit chat with the locals. (As was pointed out by a co-worker, being 3 obviously awesome girls probably had something to do with it.) In fact, we even made some friends....and probably more than a few enemies.

On our first night after having met up with a couple of kids at a rock club and drinking our weight in shitty- albeit insanely expensive- beer we headed home. Or we were headed home when we noticed that our hostel was basically above a strip club. If there is one thing you can say about the 3 of us it's that we're pretty much always down for a strip club.

We sit down. "Where are the girls?"
"Upstairs."
"How much?"
"125 kroner."
"But we don't wanna pay."

Somehow this worked and after a small exchange between the bartender and bouncer we were ushered upstairs to the club. After a few dances we bought a bottle of wine and were joined by Nadya, an adorable dancer from Russia. We spent about a half hour or so chatting it up with her before a slight pressure to buy a dance began was issued. We won't buy dances, but we sure as hell will dance with you. There are a few pictures to document the carnage of our revelry at The Oslo Diamond Club, but all I really remember is conning the dudes to load the jukebox up with Tupac songs for us, getting a free drink or two, speaking terrible drunken French with someone, and leaving after the strippers.

...And that was just the beginning.

On the last night we met up with a rock club owner who recognized us from earlier on our trip. Having bought us a couple of rounds at Garage, decidedly our favorite spot in Oslo, he convinced us to take a quick tour of some other choice rock/metal spots we had missed. He'd been working in the scene there for 12 years and could get us free beer, which in Scandinavia, is damn near impossible. We wound up raging like a hurricane through about 4 (or 6 or 10) spots where our guide introduced us to the owners and bartenders as the new all-girl Brooklyn thrash band.

Fuckin'A Right we are.

In one incomprehensible Nørge sentence he transformed us into rock stars. And so we altered our behavior accordingly. "I scream! I scream! I'm the screamer!" screached the long blonde. The maniacal look on her face was cause for alarm, as she is actually a middle school teacher. The brunette went on and on about playing the drums and beating everything in sight with invisible drum sticks. I probably claimed to play bass, then danced and dumped my beer on some kids from Santa Cruz. Oh, you're skaters? Well, fuck you, I'm a rock star.
(It made total sense at the time.)

Those were the two book-ends of the trip. Some in between highlights are being followed and ditching a Brit from our hostel, getting invited to a house party where one of us thought it hilarious to put the host's dental hygienic products in the dryer, raid their cabinets for crackers and chocolate, and then rage around his neighborhood for a half an hour, drunk, and with half a clue on where we had to go and what we had to do, but no clue how to get there. (Ok, it was me.)

Also there was the night (morning?) the teacher climbed 7 stories of scaffolding in 5-inch platform heels to watch the dusk turn into dawn again over Stockholm...and misplaced her dress. I think this may've been the same night I was head-butted at Debaser bar as a dance floor ice breaker... to which I threatened to head-butt him back again, but for real, if he came near me again. Or maybe it was the night I decided that a useful class to offer might be: English As A Second Language, Dirty Talk. Because, that shit was NOT a turn on.

When not being total outrageous assholes we found Sweden and Norway to be beautiful countries full of cool people, terrible food, and astronomical prices. We will most definitely go back.

If we're allowed.