OSLO
I got to meet his girlfriend (who is the nicest person! I really enjoyed talking with her) and his precious baby, Nicoline, before he took me for a spin in his Tesla.
The next day I spent in the city exploring before meeting up with Andreas and his family. I went to the Nobel Peace museum, which was really cool. There's a room lined with blue lights and tablets with the faces of Peace prize winners on the screen. When you tap the tablet it tells you about the winner and a quote. Very cool. I saw City Hall, the opera house, the harbour, the fortress (which inspired the Arendale castle in Frozen), and a few other little shops.
We finished the day with a stroll around Vigelandsparken. It's the world's largest sculpture park made by a single artist and has over 200 statues...all of which I'm pretty sure are nude. I want to do a little more research on the park's namesake, Gustav Vigeland, to find out how he got all the land and what his fascination was with naked people. The most famous sculpture is "The Angry Child", but again, out of all the statues I'm not sure what set this one apart. The part was beautiful and I can only imagine how much more beautiful it would be when everything is in bloom! Andreas said they have concerts and events out there which seemed like it would be fun.
Upon arriving at the train station I was greeted by an old friend, Andreas. Andreas and I went to high school together before he and his family moved back to Norway. When I saw him at the station it was the first time we had seen each other in ten years!! so naturally I walked right by him :) It only took a few minutes for us to find each other and then we were off to his place.
I got to meet his girlfriend (who is the nicest person! I really enjoyed talking with her) and his precious baby, Nicoline, before he took me for a spin in his Tesla.
The car was pretty sweet even for someone who doesn't really car about cars, but it was really cool to see some of the local "sights". We drove to the Christmas House which is basically a shop that looks like Santa's Workshop! Andreas took me to the ski jump they used in the 1952 Olympics. I've been to the one in Bavaria but it always amazes/terrifies me how high the jump is. As we were leaving we noticed a person practicing on the "smaller" jump just below the olympic one. So I got to watch as the skier jumped and sailed literally five feet from my face.
It was incredible!!!
I honestly have no idea how they do it!
Not me.
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| Nobel Peace Prize museum |
The next day I spent in the city exploring before meeting up with Andreas and his family. I went to the Nobel Peace museum, which was really cool. There's a room lined with blue lights and tablets with the faces of Peace prize winners on the screen. When you tap the tablet it tells you about the winner and a quote. Very cool. I saw City Hall, the opera house, the harbour, the fortress (which inspired the Arendale castle in Frozen), and a few other little shops.
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| view of the fjord from the fortress |
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| harbour at sunset |
When we all met up we went to the Viking Ship museum. It's wild to me that some of these ships voyaged so long, so far, and so ferociously but are a fraction of the size and quality we use nowadays.
I mean, think about it: we're still talking about the power of the vikings, but their mode of transportation was basically a sturdy canoe.
These guys on a boat.
Wild.
From there we went to the Holocaust Museum; it was one of the best ones I've been to. The museum is in Norwegian, but I was able to take a free audio tour and tablet that translated most of the exhibits. I really enjoyed the museum. It was different than the other ones I've been to, because the whole place flowed in the order of a timeline. Interesting, informative and easy-to-follow. Loved it.
Following that we had a brief visit (it closed 6 minutes after I walked in) to the Kon-Tiki museum, which I had never heard of before, but was really cool. The Kon-Tiki was a raft that sailed from South America to the Polynesian Islands chartered by Norwegian zoological researcher Thor Heyerdahl. We watched the movie that night; really entertaining and an all around good story.
We finished the day with a stroll around Vigelandsparken. It's the world's largest sculpture park made by a single artist and has over 200 statues...all of which I'm pretty sure are nude. I want to do a little more research on the park's namesake, Gustav Vigeland, to find out how he got all the land and what his fascination was with naked people. The most famous sculpture is "The Angry Child", but again, out of all the statues I'm not sure what set this one apart. The part was beautiful and I can only imagine how much more beautiful it would be when everything is in bloom! Andreas said they have concerts and events out there which seemed like it would be fun.
My time in Oslo was short, but enjoyable. I didn't find it as romantic as Copenhagen, but it was nice. From there I traveled via train to Bergen.
The train ride from Oslo to Bergen is one you'll read about on most blogs and travel sites. Now having done the trip, I totally get it. It was one of the most picturesque views ever. During the 7 hour journey there were moments I was terrified I might actually freeze if Bergen had even a fraction of the snow I saw.
Easily three or four feet of snow and zero degrees Celcius. Easy. Which is normal if you're from that part of the world, but for this Virginian girl, that's a doozy of a winter.
The video clip is only a few moments of the journey, but it's a good representation of the whole.
My friend Maria, who I met while she was studying in Oz, lives in Bergen and was sweet enough to host me for the two nights I was there. Bergen is surrounded by 7 mountains which makes for great hiking when the weather is right. And the weather was perfect!
We went hiking up one of the mountains and had the best chat! It was a nice change of pace from visiting museums and reading maps. After our descent from the mountain we visited the old leper colony/hospital. It wasn't open, but we were able to look through the windows. I really appreciated how there were new buildings around the colony, but the city decided to leave it as a landmark. A lot of places are constantly updating and changing out the old for the new. Europe is full of historic buildings which serve as a reminder to future generations of the past. As nice as "amenities" can be, I do love the charm of an old building. Maria took me to a strip on the harbour called Bryggen. The buildings are super old, to be technical about it :) If you look up you can actually see that the buildings are slanted. Pretty cool.
Hiking, walking around the city and lots of girl talk is good for the soul. The physical activity was nice, but spending time with Maria was the real treat!
One day when I'm more adequately prepared for the frigid temperatures I'd like to go further up in Northern Norway and go dogsledding, see the Norther lights and stay in an igloo. But I'll need at least 12 more layers before that happens!
