We said good bye to Iceland the next day and after we landed in Oslo airport, we looked for our train into the city center. It was very easy to transfer from the airport to the train station, and soon we were on our way. We emerged from the platform to find a vibrant central station before us.

The Norwegian transit system is very efficient and varied in the ways you can get around. There is the bus, the Tube [subway], the train, the ferry, bikes and the ever popular mode: walking.

The train station was situated right across from the tram and bus station and only a block away from the Tube station. If you didn't go by any of these modes of transportation, there were bikes and pedestrian everywhere. The city center was in fact "Pedestrian only" on 4 of the streets that lead to the  hub where we were located.




 We were surprised when we found out that many people commuted across the fjord daily, and left their bikes on the Oslo side for the second leg of their daily commute.





We had agreed to meet up with our hostess Renate Ostergard in front of the train station later that afternoon when she got off work. In the mean time we enjoyed what would be one of the clearest days we had in Norway. Time flew by as we watched this busy city whiz by us, much of it run by electricity, instead of gas.

 We thought we had hit the jackpot when we found the electric car plug-in station parking lot where at least 20-25 cars could charge while their owners were at work.

The next morning we didn't head for Oslo, but to Drobec which is a small village south of the capitol city, to get a feel for the local community. This usually sleepy little town was wide awake as it was market swap day. We got to to see many cottage industry products like hand made soap, crocheted clothing for all ages as well as hand made toys and pottery.  There were also the usual personal treasures up for trade as well. Everyone was friendly and most were able to speak English quite well!




Renate shared an even better secret with us when we had wandered a bit. this town was the home of the original Christmas Store! We headed straight for this absolutely magic store and had a wonderful time  reminiscing about favorite childhood stories of this very special season. We also found out that Santa came by the post office located in the store to drop off letters to boys and girls that have been extra specially good that year. We found one of his elves hard at work when we stopped by!

 Then we walked around the village itself and fell in love with the old well kept homes and businesses.  But as captivating as the village of Drobec we had to tear ourselves away because we were headed to the Norway Open Air Folk museum to find out what kind of carbon footprint Norwegians hundreds of years ago left. We wondered if they knew how to recycle in the 10th century, and being the tough detectives that we are, we would let nothing stand in our way! Not even a few measly centuries.

What we found was that the ancient farmers of Scandinavia were the original recyclers. Everything came from the land and the land was everything. These people took everything from the forest that they needed and what they didn't need just became compost and went right back into the land.

The buildings were insulated in quite clever ways. For instance, the roof was protected by growing plants on it. It kept the farmers dry in the wet times and warm in cold times as well as cool in warm times. During the long dark winters they spun linen from flax [ a plant they grew for the grain first] and carves wonderful objects from wood.

We left the Folk-museum in awe of these first Norwegians. We knew it was a hard life back then, but we didn't realize how efficient they were in the process. This visit inspired us to persevere in our quest for 0 carbon footprint answers!