Cafes in Oslo are sterile, neat and tidy places, with glass fronts, and nary a photo or painting on a wall.
They lack character.
I walk the Oslo port area, looking for any cafe that looks a little different, a little bohemian, but I find none.
I settle for the Kaffebrenneriet.
“Stedet for God Kaffe” it advertises – the place for good coffee.
Even the slogans lack character.
At least it has beads hanging in the doorway and easy-listening 70s and 80s music is playing in the background.
I order a caffe mocha and a pain au chocolat – exactly 100 Norwegian Krone.
I inquire, but am told, “Sorry, no tipping allowed.”
The view from the window is of a courtyard, the one with the famous spaceman statue by the contemporary artist, Brendan Murphy.
A tall man in a proper business suit, bright orange tie, and beige fedora walks by.
He ducks his head and enters the cafe, sits at a window stool, pulls out his computer, turns it on for thirty seconds, closes his computer, puts it back in his bag, and leaves.
Perhaps he is looking for WiFi and cannot find it.
I’m hungry, so I start in on my pain au chocolat.
Finally, my caffe mocha arrives in a large bowl.
It takes both of my hands holding the bowl to take a sip.
I imagine that if I were a one-armed man, I would have had to order a cup of coffee instead.
The cafe is nearly filled with people, business men discussing their work in English, young lovers leaning toward one another in confidence, and in the corner, a woman speaking to a man.
The woman looks just like Pamela Landy, a character from the movie Bourne Ultimatum, and so I assume she must be working for the CIA.
