I arrived in Oslo about 12 hours before Nina, and decided to get some preliminary exploring done. I gave myself a tour of the city and then settled down in a bar in the Grunnerløkka neighborhood. This bar had some live music: a group of three Norwegians singing mostly American tunes (Albert Hammond’s “It Never Rains in Southern California” and Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” were my two favorites). The best part was that the lead singer/harmonica was a midget who had an amazing voice. The second place I checked out was playing ‘50s and ‘60s American pop music. I even asked the DJ to play some Smokey Robinson, and she played one of my favorites, Mickey’s Monkey! All the Norwegian kids were dancing like they were at a sock hop.
One interesting things about the Scandanavians is that from time to time they will break out of their walking pace and spring for about half a block. I’m not sure if it really saves them very much time, but it reminded me of my driver’s ed instructor telling me that if sped I would only save a couple of minutes while driving across town.
Nina got into town very late and we crashed at the hostel for the night so that we could conquer the city the following morning. In the morning, we dropped our bags off at the new hotel we would be staying at and then visited a couple of museums. We also spent a great deal of time exploring grocery stores; see Nina's picture below for the proper way to consume bacon paste.
On the ferry out to the museums, the person who was collecting payment for the ferry was having translation issues with the first group of people he got to, so we ended up getting a free ride! However, on our way back, we took the public bus and landed a few blocks from our hotel.The first was the Viking ship Museum, which featured an old Viking Ship that had been excavated some decades earlier. Admission was more than $20, so we just walked into the entrance/gift shop. Luckily for us, you could see the entire Viking Ship from the area to which we were relegated! They should probably think about putting a curtain up or something so that people will actually pay to go see it. We walked around this residential area in which the museums were tucked, and noticed that a surprising multitude of the backyards had trampolines. They were all the fenced-in nerd kind though, the ones with very little injury of neck damage. I think it must be some federal regulation.
Our second museum, the Kon-Tiki Museum, was a personal mission. My dad had always talked to me about Thor Heyerdahl and his Kon-Tiki sailing adventures growing up. We paid for this museum and walked around, looking at this tiny raft that Heyerdahl’s crew built to travel across the ocean. On the original mission, there were six Norwegians and a Swede. (We figured that having one Swede around was like having that goofy Canadian friend around a bunch of Americans.) Nina noted their attempts to make the original ship look natural, even in a museum. They did this by adding in fake birds flying around the mast, flying fish that had landed on the deck, and a shark sitting on the back of the ship. You could also go on the level below the ship, where they added many varieties of fish swimming in fake water.
While waiting for Nina’s friends to arrive, we had some Norwegian snacks in our hotel room and popped on the television. Rather than watch the Russian news hour be replayed over and over as we had done earlier, we tuned into the movie station. They were playing a film called Factotum, which, by itself, is not a very notable event. The movie, however, was filmed in the Twin Cities, and we had a riot looking at shot after shot of our stomping grounds.
Renee and Melissa came into town that night and they were a blast. After walking by the Royal Palace, which seemed to be protected only by a single guard, we went to the Vigeland Sculpture Garden, which is a very large and beautiful park filled with dozens of sculptures of naked people. There was literally no sculpture of any other kind. While walking through the park, we saw an Asian couple taking picture after picture in front one particular sculpture near the entrance. We proceeded to walk through the park, spent about an hour in there, and when we left, the Asian couple was still in front of the same sculpture! It wasn’t even one of the famous sculptures (like the Angry Baby or the pillar of naked people), and there was nothing special about this particular sculpture. Just a naked person like all the others.
The four of us then took the train up the mountain to check out their giant ski jump. It was quite the sight, and we had a delicious lunch
at the top of the mountain at a restaurant that overlooked Oslo and the bay. On our way down, we found ourselves stuck in the middle of what appeared to be a very long relay race down the mountain. There were so many people that it seemed as though the entire city of Oslo was participating! The entire race was down a mountain, so it would not surprise me if the Norwegians had bad knees. Before we left, we also checked out Oslo’s museum which included Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” and Rodin’s “The Thinker.” Mom and Dad would have loved it.
Finally, a summary of the trip would not be complete without an explanation of a tradition called “
Russ.” While we were traipsing about the city, we noticed so many high school-aged kids walking around wearing red overalls that had been signed and decorated. Furthermore, we noticed many of these kids driving around in big red vans playing loud electronic music. Apparently it is a tradition in which graduating high school seniors partake in debauchery for the two and a half weeks leading up to the Norwegian Independence day. I would highly recommend the
Russ wikipedia article for more details.
In sum, Oslo was a beautiful and calm city. Yes, it was very expensive, but since we weren’t able to spend very much money, we were able to explore the city’s sites and appreciate everything that Oslo has going on. They also have great postcards.
