Tuesday, September 21, 2010

First day in Oslo

*LONG POST*

Thursday morning the kids got up and got ready for school.After that I got a ride downtown with a bit of a tour along the way. I started my day by stopping at the tourist information centre to pick up a map of Oslo. It’s almost right beside City Hall, so I got to see that as well. Then I decided to head off to the National Gallery. Since it didn’t open until 10, I wandered a little until then. There was a building across the street from the Art Gallery playing a Nickelback song. All I could think was "HAHA OH CANADA!!".

If you’re visiting Oslo, I definitely recommend the National Gallery. It’s free!! Woohoo! Plus, since you’re not allowed to carry a bag with you through the gallery, they have little free lockers to put your stuff in. They have a nice selection of paintings. I got to see some paintings by the masters (including Monet, Degas, Picasso and Van Gogh) and of course "The Scream" by Edvard Munch (the painting is truly the pride of Norway – the whole frame was behind a special sheet of glass!).

The scream.


My absolute favourites of all the paintings in the gallery were some landscapes by a Norwegian painter named Johan Christian Dahl. He's known as the father of Norwegian landscape paintings, and every single one he did was sooo gorgeous. My favourite of his was this one:

Double rainbow!! This one was huge, and it was so beautiful. This image does no justice to the painting.



Next I went to the Opera house. To get there, I went across this metal footbridge. It was actually so terrifying for me I could hardly get across. I just do not do well with heights when I can see through the floor. Seeing through to a busy road beneath me didn’t help either! The Opera House building itself is really neat, and you can actually walk right up the roof to get a great view of downtown Oslo and the bay. That part of the landscape definitely reminds me of Vancouver.

The opera (photo taken by me).



I walked to the main train station to check that out since I figured I’d have to use it a few times, and bought myself some food at the grocery store there. Then I walked to the cathedral. It was really beautiful, just as most cathedrals are.

Inside the cathedral (photo by me).



I checked out a few shops on my way to the Contemporary Art Museum. This is another spot I would recommend for any visit to Oslo. Since it is a part of the National Gallery, it is also free, and the lockers are pretty much the same, except you have to put in 1KR (approx. $0.17 CAD), which you get back as soon as you unlock the door to get your stuff out. The art itself is pretty much what you’d expect from a contemporary gallery. Some of it was interesting, some weird, some awesome, and some total crap. I still think it’s worth going even if you’re not a huge fan of contemporary art, just because of how neat the building is. It used to be a bank, and I felt like all the details inside really contributed to the artwork.

My favourite part was right at the beginning where they had this video of crop cirles playing with eerie music, and the lights were all dimmed in this huge room with high ceilings and pillars and moulding, it was just cool.
Right across the street was the Museum of Architecture. It was smaller than the other galleries, and it had a neat exhibit about a castle, but unlike the other two places, everything was in Norwegian, so I didn’t spend as much time there as I might have otherwise. Too bad because they had tons of blue prints and sketches of room designs that looked awesome!

Then I walked around this old fortress/castle area. There were some neat old buildings there, but not much that you could go into. I decided that my legs were getting pretty tired from all that walking, so I should pack it up pretty soon.

Inside the Akershus fortress/castle.


I went back to the tourist information office to book a ticket for Norway in a Nutshell. It took the poor girl a bit to figure out what she needed to do because parts of the tour I had to pay for, and other parts were covered by my Eurail pass, so I didn’t have to pay the full listed price. I made my seat reservations all at the same time, and then decided to go home.

I took the Oslo Metro! I’ve been a pretty big fan of the metro ever since I lived in Montreal. The Oslo Metro is quite a bit different from the Montreal one. It’s cleaner and feels much more spacious (although Oslo has a lot fewer people, and maybe there are other times of day when it’s more crowded). Plus, you really have to pay attention to which train you’re getting onto, because downtown, all the lines run on the same tracks. The train stays underground through downtown, but then comes above ground. I had no problem getting to my stop because it was the last one on the line!

After I came home and showered, I got to hang out with M while her mom went for some groceries. I pulled out my Norwegian phrasebook and started saying some things to her. The first thing I told her was “My name is Charlotte,” and as soon as I said it, she broke into a huge grin and nodded at me. So then we started playing a game where we would point at things and say them in Norwegian and English. I can’t say I learned much because all I remember are the ones that were cognates, but we had fun.

Another cousin came for dinner (she’s L's niece) and after dinner, I showed everyone some pictures from home and the tour book of Kamloops I brought with me. I also got to see some of their photos which was really interesting because some of them were from a trip to the “Land of the Midnight Sun,” so all sorts of photos that looked like they were in the middle of the day were actually in the middle of the night.

After that, I headed off to start my Norway in a Nutshell tour! That's coming next!

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