The day after my visit to the Palace , I packed my bags and set off for my summer holidays in Scandi

The day after my visit to the Palace , I packed my bags and set off for my summer holidays in Scandinavia and Russia. southwest airlines case study The plan was to spend a little time seeing Norway and Sweden before meeting up with Steve and Fiona in Helsinki. From there we d take the train to St Petersburg and commence our nine-day tour of Russia. I departed Southfields in a rain shower, walking down to the Underground station in the balmy drizzle. After a quick change southwest airlines case study at Earl s Court, I was at Heathrow in less than an hour, examining the new Terminal southwest airlines case study 5 that had experienced such gratuitously bad press when it was opened for business and distributed its passengers bags to the four winds. But it has sorted its act out now, and the BA-only terminal now works well and benefits from the spacious and modern design so the travelling experience is most un-Heathrowish, in that it proceeds smoothly and without irritation. With this major airport-not-sucking surprise out of the way, the 100-minute flight to Oslo proceeded without southwest airlines case study incident over the North Sea, up the Skagerrak and along the winding Oslofjord. Soon I was on the ground in friendly Norway, negotiating the immigration process with my traditional left ear decompression deafness leading me to rely on the usual mix of smiling and nodding in the hope that I was agreeing with positive statements rather southwest airlines case study than accusations of smuggling. The airport is quite a way outside of Oslo, but they ve thoughtfully built a train station underneath it. These Norwegians think of everything. It s kitted out for the winter cold too: the escalators down to the platforms are encased in glass and you exit through air-sealed double revolving doors that keep the heat in. Going through them felt a bit like visiting a space station, as opposed to travelling on British Rail, which is more akin to a visit to a freezing works, only slightly less offally. The tidy streets of downtown Oslo were sparsely populated when I arrived in the late evening, and after a bit of elementary orienteering and a ten minute walk with my trusty pack I arrived at the Anker Hostel , my home for the next three nights. After an initial hiccup in which I was assigned a dorm room plentifully populated with Poles but with no spare beds, I ended up in a nice spot with a bed next to the window. There was still plenty of light at 11pm when I turned in Oslo is 60 degrees southwest airlines case study North, after all: the equivalent latitude in the Southern Hemisphere lies somewhere between Cape Horn and the Antarctic Peninsula. == Breakfast wasn t included in the hostel price, and what was offered seemed jolly expensive, so I started the day the same way I did in Iceland last year: a quick trip to the supermarket. As it happens, the most common supermarket southwest airlines case study chain that I saw in Norway was called Kiwi . Norway is famed for the costliness of its food, and as for alcohol, you might as well forget it. Even the Kiwi supermarket was quite punishing on the wallet, but it beat the alternative, so I loaded up on breakfast and lunch there. It was a bright and sunny day in Oslo, and I patrolled the city to get my bearings. I was soon wandering along the waterfront in the sunshine, admiring the harbour and watching the fishermen pull in small catches here and there. southwest airlines case study At the wharf in front of the Radhus (town hall) I took a small ferry on a short trip across Oslofjord to the nearby Bygdøy peninsula, which holds a brace of interesting museums. First stop was the Norsk Folkemuseum , a large park-like collection of traditional Norwegian farm buildings and exhibits on Norwegian home life. The impressive courtyard soon gave way to winding dirt tracks through pines and shrubs, giving a real village feel to the place. southwest airlines case study One of the first buildings I came to was a small sod-and-grass roofed hut that turned out to be a 19th-century schoolhouse. The noise of a primary school lesson being conducted in Norwegian emanated from within, so I went in for a look. To my surprise, rather than a recording of a lesson, there was an actual lesson taking southwest airlines case study place, with a stern-voiced schoolmistress in proper garb teaching about a dozen children aged about eight to ten, all of whom were also in period southwest airlines case study costume. As it was a weekday, the first thought that occurred to me was, hang on, this lot should be in school oh wait, they are Further up the path, at the head of a sward of lush grass lay the museum s most famous building: a traditional Norse stave church, originally built in Gol in the 12th century. Inside, the dark wood was carved with devotional scenes, and you could imagine the dark and narrow chapel in the depths of a medieval winter, filled with fur-wrapped worshippers stamping their feet to keep warm. Other buildings on display included a wide range of farm dwellings from recent centuries, with a strong emphasis on the traditional log-frame construction that befits a nation with plenty of trees to spare. In more recent times Norway was subject to German occupation from 1940 to 1945, and in one exhibit the museum illustrates one of the smaller challenges faced by the Norwegian people. Alcohol sales, traditionally heavily regulated by the state, were heavily rationed during the war and the Germans also outlawed southwest airlines case study queuing outside the state monopoly stores before opening time. In response to this, the Norwegians adapted by loitering in the street in the general vicinity until just before the shops opened, and when the doors were opened there was a stampede of hundreds trying to get inside to get their prized grog rations. There was also an museum of national costume, with an entertaining diorama of the traditional Norwegian hat-kicking dance. Designed to show a suitor s physical prowess, apparently the girl holding the hat on the end of a broomstick would vary the height of the hat depending on how much she liked the chap. If she didn t like him, he might pull a ligament before he managed to kick the blasted hat! After a pleasant morning at the Folkemuseum, I walked a few hundred metres to the specially-built Viking Ship Museum , which houses the remains of three ships, which had all been buried as part of chiefly funeral rites. The Oseburg ship is probably from the 8th century, the Gokstad ship is probably 9th century, and the more fragmentary remains of the Tune ship are probably from around 900 AD. Together they represent a tremendous historical resource and are a vibrant glimpse into the soul of the Viking mind, for the Norse were defined by their sea-going prowess. I took the photos that everyone else takes: the beautiful raked bowsprits of the longboat, southwest airlines case study topped by whorled crosier-like peaks and with intricately-carved keels depicting Norse dragons and sea-monsters. There was also a collection of the other grave goods buried with the ships to sustain the chiefly afterlife, including some ornately carved wooden sleds. Not to be content with a mere two museums, I went on to the nearby Maritime Museum , which boasted a five-screen panoramic film of the dramatic Norwegian coastline. Aside from the usual nauticalia amongst the museum s exhibits, chief of which was the twisted, southwest airlines case study gnarled remains of a 2200 year-old dugout canoe, I also enjoyed the slightly mad exhibit of a fully-rigged sailing ship made entirely from cloves. The museum was a fairly casual place - upstairs in the art gallery section there was no-one around so I shut a door opening onto the sea breeze, which was causing a batch of 19th century ship paintings to flap and clatter around like they were trying to take off. I took the bus back to the hostel to dump my stuff and shelter from the Scandinavian sunshine for a short while, and met one of my dorm-mates, a young chap from Korea who was cooking his dinner. He asked me do you like life? I took this to mean either: A) I am a born-again evangelist type, watch out; B) I am quite depressed and enjoy telling strangers about my psychological problems; or C) I am a hostel-dwelling psychopath, so if you like life I wouldn t get too attached to it, if I were you. Turned out it was just a translation issue. He meant rice , not life . As it happens, I like both, but I d probably pick the latter over the former, if push came to shove. As the afternoon heat waned I visited the splendid Oslo opera house on the waterfront, with its daring angles and high-tech aluminium panelling giving it a futuristic air. In winter-time cityfolk carry their skis up to the top and ski back down its roof, which has snow-traps and jumps to enhance the experience. After a walk along the shopping precinct and main street of Karl Johann s Gata, I dined on a kebab (one of the few halfway affordable meals available anywhere) and contemplated my successful first day in Norway. == The next morning I set out for Oslo s castle, southwest airlines case study the Akershus Festning southwest airlines case study , which was constructed from the 1290s onwards, southwest airlines case study and still guards the city from its promontory overlooking the fjord. Army guardsmen patrolled the grounds and ceremonial cannons watched the Oslofjord, serving to protect the capital from the massive cruise liner docked nearby which almost threatened to overshadow southwest airlines case study the castle. Then it was time to break my record: I saw four museums in one day. First up was the national art gallery , with its collection of Edvard Munch (not my cup of tea) and some splendid patriotic landscapes and maritime pictures. I enjoyed the small encounter with the Scandinavian mindset in the locker room where you deposit your bags: each locker requires a 1-kroner coin (10p) to close its lock, but rather than expect southwest airlines case study gallery visitors to pay, there was a bowl full of 1-kroner coins for the use of visitors. Nice to be trusted! After a quick lunch I moved next door to the history museum , which was a real highlight. Its medieval woodcarvings and Viking exhibits were excellent, particularly carved scenes from a stave church portal from 1200 AD, and the amazing decoration on a medieval church roof, transplanted whole to the museum. Next I paid a quick visit to the modern art museum, which occupi