08 Oslo Day 1

We rolled into the train station on time at 9:30 a.m. I visited with Amar some more as we stood in the hall and watched the scenery parade the farms and homes of Norway by our window. Amar is from India but has been in Norway as a student for two years. He speaks 3 languages and his brother came to Norway before him to earn his doctorate. He had been traveling for a month in Germany, France, Switzerland, and The Czech Republic.

My first impression of Norway was that the train station felt nearly abandoned (it wasn’t) after leaving from the Stockholm Station. We found an ATM and got 200 Norwegian Krones. I soon discovered that that was not enough to last the day. It is expensive here. But we were well warned about this before coming here. We tried to find someplace to buy breakfast but the muffins and coffee route was just not appealing. Penny suggested we have brunch since it was 10:00 and we made our way to Burger King where we each had a Whopper Combo – total cost 185 NOK or about $25.

We followed the giant “I” signs to the tourist information booth where we took a number and waited to be helped. We got a map with a “you are here” marked and an “it is there” mark as well indicating our hotel. It was a very short walk to the hotel. Our room was not available but there was a luggage room. We were given a key to the luggage room but we had been beaten by 3 or 4 ladies who were crowded in the room and in the doorway with baggage both travel and psychological (just kidding). Some of them left and the door was closed so I thought they had all taken a leave of absence but when I opened the door one was still there going through an open bag in the middle of the floor. I said I would wait and closed the door. A bit later a man came and did not see Penny and I waiting away from the door and he went in and she was still there. She came out with different clothes on. Baggage stored high on the only available top shelf and we were ready to go. I think I am getting a complete understanding of that old saying “the spirit is willing but the body is weak.” I was running on near empty.

Our first sight seeing was the Finnish National Art Gallery. It was within walking distance. Of course we made it longer by listening to my advice. We had been told to go to the main street and turn right. I looked and saw several blocks away a street with a steady stream of traffic. I said that had to be it. How much more Main Street can you get? As we approached the street it began to appear suspiciously like a freeway. I glanced at the map and sure enough we had passed the main street which was a pedestrian way. By the way it was not named “Main Street”. It is Karl Johnson Gat. At the end of the street is Royal Palace and next to that is the Gallery. Our decision to go there first was based on our love of fine art, that and the fact that the admission is free.

I actually quite enjoyed the visit. I did discover anew that I am much more of a realist than an abstract kind of art connoisseur. They had several beautiful landscape paintings of Norway by Christian Dahl and some seascapes by Hans Guide that were just breathtaking. You will have to Google Image them because I was not allowed to take photos. The works of both of these men made me think that perhaps Thomas Kincade was not the original painter of light.

The works of Fredrik Kolstø and Halfdon Støm suggested that Norman Rockwell may have taken some guidance from them. Their paintings were a slice of Norway life: a scene inside a pub with a man taking a great deal of interest in the lady behind the bar while a young boy in the foreground looked forlorn and perhaps forgotten.

There is also work by Edward Munch who is generally too abstract for my taste. They had one of his famous “scream” paintings. There is a whole museum here dedicated to Munch’s work.

We made our way back to the hotel about 1:00 to check and see if your room was ready. No such luck. We returned to a coffee and muffin place which we passed earlier and had admired the giant cups of coffee. We sat and sipped and planned our next move. We decided to go to the tourist information booth to buy a transportation ticket so we could ride the tram out to Vigeland Sculpture Park. Gustov Vigeland is Norway’s greatest (well known?) sculptor. He traded all of his work with the City for a studio and support. He created over 600 bronze and granite statues all of which are scans clothing. But it is a wonderful body of art (no pun intended). He sculpted people of all ages and backgrounds doing all kinds of things. None of them were sexual that I recall. Many of them called to mind love and passion for life and for friends. There was a whole section about kids. It was wonderful. That and the beautiful weather made for a lovely afternoon.


Back on the tram, after making a quick dash to the other set of the tracks after we discovered we were about to head further out of town, we made our way back to our hotel while watching the streets pass by the windows and the people of Helsinki walk through the doors of our tram. I had noticed in Stockholm that, with the exception of the obvious tourist folks, there were very few people above the age of 30 that I saw. This may have been due to the places we went or the Culture Festival that was going on, but Stockholm was full of the young and the beautiful. Helsinki has its share of the same folks but the parade of folks onto the tram included all ages, races, and apparently income. There are a lot of older people around and there are many beggars around.

Our room was ready. It is like living in the Swedish Royal Palace compared to the night on the tag (train). The room is large and has two windows. We are on the 7th and utmost floor of the hotel so the windows are in the slanted roof. I have already once bumped my dead on the ceiling. This does not bode well for the room at Harlaxton which has a similar feature. The room was a little warm when we arrived and there is no air conditioner. But we opened the other window and as I write this at 8:00 it is delightful. I am sure we will have to close the windows later. There is no free internet here but there is a computer downstairs and Penny is down now checking her email. I saw a sign at Burger King in the train station which said they had free internet. I will check that out tomorrow.
We ventured out about 6:00 to find food. There is a 6 or 7 story shopping mall right across the street, in fact our windows face the windows of the mall. We started looking for some relatively inexpensive food there. We found a Chinese fast food place and although it looked good we thought we would walk around the area of the hotel a bit to see if we could find something good and cheaper. Although we enjoyed the 8 block stroll we found lots of bars and pubs (no one was eating only drinking) but no restaurant that looked appealing. We wound up eating Chinese in the mall and it was very good. We walked into the Meny (means Menu) grocery store downstairs in the mall to check out what we might get for picnic foods on Sunday when we make our all day (but none of the night) train trip to Bergen. We then bought a piece of cheesecake to take away from a stand in the mall. Norway has a 24% tax on sit down restaurant food but only a 12% tax on take away food. Lots of folks take out food.

It is not 8:30 but I suspect I will be in bed shortly – I may be up at 4:00.

Ray