Spending only five euros to eat in Oslo was her new self-imposed challenge. Litz had put herself on a tight budget in a protectionist attempt to keep her wealth safer until the financial markets would stabilize. She browsed the online menu of a trendy grocery store offering fresh packaged food and went in for a mixed salad. What she found really appealing was the opportunity to visualise and select her ingredients. Happy with her abundant round bowl, she went out keeping it on her head, like a woman from a Sub-Saharian country carries her basket of goods back and forth neighbouring villages.
The Botanic Garden had been a great discovery. She had been able to work smart under the moderate sun of a Sierra-like sitting place in front of its library. Sometimes people looked at her like she was weird, as she was often working by mobile on its specific support. What she liked the most of her day in Oslo, though, had been her walk in Grünerløkka neighbourhood. Surprisingly the cheapest coffee there was espresso. She took it away to enjoy better walking around the city.
She had chosen to wear something as close as possible to the Scandinavian fashion. It was not hard to choose her clothes. There were too many she didn’t want to wear anymore. One day she would maybe sell them on Vestiaire Collective, her favourite second-hand online retailer. The fashion boutiques in Grünerløkka were luxurious. She noticed a few of the brands she would normally buy at, collected their catalogues, and mentally took note of their latest pieces. Followed on Instagram Hasla jewellery shop, catching her interest with their Lunar Surface silver earrings, fast tracked in her wish list. She looked herself in the mirror of a newly open barber shop with her brown vintage Ray-Ban sunglasses and found herself proud.
Walking slowly toward a local restaurant, she noticed the voluptuous buildings of the National Art School and chilled out around them. She even spotted a waterfall flowing noisy just next to the old buildings. Once at Liebling, she ordered an amazing home-made avocado toast, which she impatiently waited for drinking soda. Apparently, the bistrot was very popular in Oslo. It looked like it wouldn’t have made it through the winter without its supportive international customers.
The Royal Park was her next choice. She was not surprised to find a close link between the Norwegian and the Danish monarchies. Nothing impressive, to be honest. After the death of Queen Elizabeth all the glamour had soon disappeared. The only fascinating aspect of kingdoms remained in their statues. While she walked alone in the park, she meditated on her next career moves. Far from her she saw a tiny figure of a woman walking her same path ahead. She took a picture to remember she was not the only one.
The day after she spent her last hours in Oslo at the harbour. A huge festival displaying a diving competition had attracted quite some crowd. The best boats were showed off by their VIP owners. Enthusiastic thanks to the fest vibe, Litz proceeded toward the furthest local street food hub facing the Sea. She ordered a delicious Polish dessert based on goat cheese, sweet nuts, and strawberries. This time she denied two polished guys to share the table with her and instead politely left once they arrived. Strategically sat on a bench in front of the white Opera House, Litz distractedly observed many young women enjoying themselves in the floating saunas, screaming happily, cocktails at hand. She didn’t envy them at all, anymore.
After collecting her heavy backpack at the robotized luggage warehouse of the main station, Litz decided to buy her ticket to the airport by an automated ticket machine next to the main gate entries. She was going to put one of her physical credit cards to finalize the purchase, when she noted a previous customer had forgotten his green card there. Angry but determined, she started her journey to find the relevant authority to deliver the lost item.
After almost one hour, having spoken with many reluctant station’s staff members, she made her decision to destroy the card. She wisely extracted the microchip and trashed it separately from the plastic holding personal data. When she finally found an appropriate security guard, he resulted more interested on how she had destroyed the card than to inform the card holder. Fully disappointed, she even destroyed the picture of the card she had taken.
The unfortunate owner would have never known about it.
