Livin’ Small: Thoughts on Life in a Small Capital City
Saturday, 2. May 2009, 14:37:13
One thing that still surprises me about Europe is just how small some of its world famous cities are. Sure, London and Paris thrive at 13 and 11 million people respectively, but many other metropolises pale in significance. For a little geographical perspective, the city I'm from in Australia is Brisbane, which has a population of 1.9 million – less than half our biggest city Sydney’s total of 4.3 million. So when I discovered that Rome and Athens have just 3.7 million inhabitants, Brussels 2.7 million, and Stockholm 2 million, I was shocked. How could my home city, just the third biggest city in Australia and a city most tourists skip, be bigger than greats like Copenhagen, Prague, Helsinki, Edinburgh and Zurich? 
As such, I was a little miffed when Oslo – distributor of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, capital of the world’s fourth largest exporter of oil – turned out to have a population of just 600,000 people. 600,000?! Oslo has such a small-town feel to it that sometimes I actually forget that I live in a capital: like when my boyfriend points out a famous author or politician in the street and I think to myself, “Really? What are they doing here?!”
As such, I was a little miffed when Oslo – distributor of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, capital of the world’s fourth largest exporter of oil – turned out to have a population of just 600,000 people. 600,000?! Oslo has such a small-town feel to it that sometimes I actually forget that I live in a capital: like when my boyfriend points out a famous author or politician in the street and I think to myself, “Really? What are they doing here?!”
WIDGETIZE