On to Oslo

  Oslo, Norway
Saturday, June 2, 2007

On Comes the Weekend!  WOOOOT!!!

After a week of 8+ hour days of volunteer labour we get some very well earned time off!  With the bad weather finally clearing, we drove to a near by train station with the rest of the volunteers and caught a train in to Oslo.  One of the other volunteers had made plans with a local guy to go visit this island in the Oslo fjord.  The island only had a restaurant on it (apparently) but the ferry trip out was supposed to be beautiful.  We arrived in Oslo, met up with the guy and he led us to catch a bus to the ferry station.  Gabrielle and I were running very short on Norwegian money (Kroners) and we had just enough for both of us to catch the bus to the ferry terminal.  We had tried a nearby bank machine but it wouldn't take our cards so we hoped the ferry terminal would have one. 

More Cool Oslo Architecture

Now, upon arriving at the train station, I had though that I had seen ferry boats quite close to the train station.  Turns out the ferry terminal was in fact in walking distance, and we just spent enough money to have bought our ferry tickets on the 5min bus trip.  Chocked.  Plus, the ferry terminal had no atm and our local was in a huge rush... so Gabrielle and I got left behind.  But fortunatly we were within walking distance of getting back to town!

We hit up some info and headed off.  Oslo is a pretty cool city.  Very European with a Skandinavian twist (more blond people, less shouting, troll statues everywhere).  The city is very clean and artfully done.  Lots of statues everywhere, and lots of beautiful architecture.  It's not a big city either, so we were pretty good walking to all of the main attractions.  We headed for the store we thought we could buy our MacBook in and on the way ran into some promotional girls handing out free smoothies!  SCORE!  They were awsome smoothies too. 

Norwegian Patriot

As we walked with our smoothies we came across an open square with a big fancy looking building at one end.  It was the Nobel Peace Prize Museum.  5min later, after Gabrielle was able to calm down enough to speak, we went to have a look inside.  It was pretty awsome!  A totally digital museum with all sorts of interactive areas.  Heaps of information on all of the peace prize winners and an exhibit on the latest winner.  More bonus', they were refiting it for a new exhibit so the museum was half price.

Productive day continuing and weather getting better by the second, we managed to buy our MacBook, have it ready to be picked up when we planned to leave town, (but we can't open it till after we leave Norway or we don't get our tax money back) and headed out on the town again.

Turned out it was Oslo music fest!  So we stopped for a bit to listen to this awsome band play on an open stage for awhile.  We moved on again and passed another stage with entirely different music and found our way to the National Museum.  It was free entry and AMAZING!  The rooms were well laid out, mostly themed areas and some very special rooms as well.  Many of the rooms had one or two sculptures to break up the rows of paintings, many of them exquisitly done. 

Music Fest Oslo

One of the special rooms was entirely of Edward Munch.  One of his most famous painting is 'The Scream' (the one of that dude screaming - hands to cheeks) and it was there.  We didn't even know it was in this museum till we walked up to it.  There were other famous paintings inside the Gallery as well, such as 'Self Portrait' by Vincent Van Gogh, a few scuptures by Rodan including the 'Thinker' (that dude in the brown study pose), several works by Degas, as well as a few Monet's, some Cezanne's, some Matisses', a Renoir, some Manet's, a room full of some Reuben's and Picasso's as well as other famous works.  It was amazing to see those paintings up close that you see in books and study for art classes.  Pretty surreal.  And did we mention it was free to get in?  And so sorry, but no photos allowed inside the museum.

We were running late so we hurried down and picked up our MacBook (Yay!) and headed back to the train station.  We found our way back to the car and had some totally wild guesses at which was the proper way back to the farm, but we managed to make it there.

Norwegian Royal Digs

Everyone else is still out of the house so it's very quiet.  We're both still tired from the lack of sun all week so this evening is going to be pretty slow.  Come Monday we should be on the road again, with more sites to see! Hopefully Norway keeps on getting better!

All our best from Norway

Dan and Gabrielle