The Great Norwegian IPod Crisis August 31,2006

I was up this morning about seven so that I could write the blogs before we go to get our haircuts at 10. I plugged my IPod into the computer to charge it and to my horror got a battery expletive message meaning the battery had gone Kaput! To those of you familiar with these little gems you know what this means. You have to find an IPod Service Center to have the battery replaced. Not only am I about a third of the way through a book, but I also depend on this device to insulate me in airports and train stations as well as lull me to sleep when I have forgotten and had coffee too late at night. In other words this was a major emergency! Holly reacted immediately by logging on and looking for the Norwegian Apple site. She quickly located this but as often happens in the movies this first attempt at disaster avoidance was plagued with a problem; the site was only in Norwegian. By now I was in a near state of panic. The situation was; this was our last day in Oslo we had one IPod down and absolutely no idea where or what form salvation would take.

The only things on the agenda today were haircuts and a trip to the Norwegian National Art Gallery. Maybe, with some luck, we could find a solution to my conundrum. While Holly was getting her haircut I followed a lead from the hair stylist (at US$65 I’m not calling them barbers) to a nearby store that sold IPods. The store informed me that there was an Apple store on the fourth floor of the building where we were getting our hair cuts. A quick visit and they directed me to the new IPod Battery Service Center about a mile away. The catch was the Apple Store didn’t have the street address of the service center only the block where it was located. We reached the block made a couple of passes but had no luck and then tried a nearby mall. No Apple but we saw another electronics store. The guys were very helpful even looking up the web site getting the phone number and calling the center. Thirty minutes later we were walking out of the center with an IPod that now had 80% more battery capacity than the original. Time to solve problem from detection: 4 hours 47 minutes. Life is good again.


The National Gallery was only a 5 minute walk from the service center but we stopped for a sandwich in the park before reaching it. It is another beautiful day in Oslo and we wanted to soak up a little sun as we were told this morning that autumn and rain are just around the corner. We joined hundreds of Oslonians in worshipping the sun while we dined alfresco.

The Norwegian National Gallery is best described as a nice little gallery. I say this after having toured the National Galleries in Washington, Dutch galleries a few years ago and then the Hermitage in St. Petersburg so my opinion may be slightly skewed. There are a few Manets, Monets, Gauguins and even a Picasso but the pride and joy of the house is the Edward Munch exhibits including such works as The Sick Child and The Scream. This really is a world class gallery deserving a visit if you find yourself in Oslo.

The afternoon was slipping by so we headed back to the hotel and started the blog and more trip research. Tomorrow we head further south to Malmo across the border into Southern Sweden.