Hei fra Oslo!

Hello from Oslo! Well, I’m quite happy to report that we have had a lovely start to our journey. We arrived in the early evening on Sunday to a very quiet Oslo. Apparently, all of the locals are “summering” and working remotely in their summer cabins this time of year, so the city is inhabited only by those who don’t have a summer cabin and, of course, tourists. We are staying at the Revier in the city center with access to everything quintessentially Oslo. Our first meal in Oslo was not in fact Scandinavian in nature, but pizza. It was very tasty pizza and almost everyone in the restaurant was practically American, but we went for open and easily accessible for our first night in town after a long travel day.

After sleeping 11 hours (whew, jet lag got me hard!), the morning, despite a forecast of rain, was absolutely beautiful with a sun brightly shining high in the sky and temperature of a balmy 65 degrees — yes, I was still very warm and ran around the city in a t-shirt and jeans. We started our day at the famed Oslo Opera House, a stark white marble structure in the harbor that very convincingly represents an iceberg breaking through the water. With few people venturing out at 10:00 AM, we practically had the place to ourselves and had the opportunity to take some great photos of the structure itself, the harbor, and the city of Oslo from atop the Opera House. I am still not a fan of opera, but opera houses are extraordinary places and this one caters also to ballet performances and pop acts (Elvis Costello is coming in September).

The second stop of the day was to Vigelandsparken via Oslo tram. The tram was very easy to navigate and quickly transported us to our destination in quick succession — though for God’s sake crack a window! Europeans like their indoor temperatures a bit on the warm side which just makes me sweaty! On our tram was a group of retired Americans led by a woman who I could totally tell was a teacher prior to her retirement. “Carol, is this our next stop?” (said in what I believe was an east coast accent, probably Boston) was heralded through the car, “Carol, do we need our ticket to get off?” and “Carol is getting off, this must be where we go!” Carol was very patient and exacting with her instructions, she must have been an elementary school teacher in her former life, LoL. I also have a feeling we’ll probably see Carol and company on our cruise. Vigelandsparken is the world’s largest sculpture park made by a single artist, Gustav Vigeland. His work is everywhere, more than 200 sculptures in bronze, granite, and wrought iron. The sculptures are art but also intended to be touched. Children and adults climbed atop many of them, interacting with the pieces and enjoying the summer sunshine.

Our final tourist stop of the day was the Eduard Munch Museum. Now, all I know about Munch is The Scream for which there is a version in this museum. Everyone was crowded in the small room, including a large group of Norwegian children on a field trip of some kind running about and getting much too close to the art work — thank goodness there will be no children on my cruise! I didn’t realize, however, how prolific an artist Munch was and though I do find The Scream to be intriguing, I discovered that I liked a lot of his other work. His works put into visual context a lot of emotional states and his pieces on jealousy, envy, and isolation were very moving. Now, that sounds like I took a lot of time really delving into the work, but Sophia (the art teacher at my school) would be very disappointed to learn that I just read the captions on the wall and was really just drawn to the pretty colors . . . very pretty colors.

We ended our evening with dinner at a nouveau Norwegian restaurant, I mean we should try Norwegian food, right? We enjoyed our meal at The Grand Cafe, situated near the Norwegian Parliament, where I had a tame meal of a delish fish soup with mussels (yay, bivalves!) and shrimp, grilled halibut, and a raspberry mousse. Joe on the other hand, per his usual, was a bit more daring and had the chef’s menu which was raw crab with horseradish, whitefish with potatoes, cabbage, and caviar, and a pina colada pavlova. After 19,000 steps today, it’s time to rest my feet. Tomorrow still has lots of walking involved and we plan to hit up some of the sites that are closed on Mondays so still lots to see! God natt from Oslo!