Day 12 - Oslo!

What a great night of sleep we had!  I know I said it before, but sleep can never be overrated.  When done well after not being done well, emphasizing its importance is acceptable. 

After a (wonderful) late start to our day, we walked to the harbor and took a boat ride to the Bygdoy Island.  It's really a pennisula, and it looks like it could be a little on the posh end, but it also is home to loads of touristy museums.  First we went to the Norwegian Cultural Museum.  The big thing there is that they have likely over 75 historical buildings that span a 400 year period.  Sadly, there was no area specific to Gudbrandsdalen or Oppland so we couldn't see a layout of a home that our relatives would've had.  But the ones we saw were very interesting. 

Then we went to the Viking Ship Museum and saw 3 original Viking ships that were excavated.  They were excavated from burial sites.  The jury is out on whether they were used prior to the important guy's death, but no doubt *some* boats were used that looked *something* like the ones we saw.  Also at this museum was a bunch of other artifacts found at one of the burial sites.  Honestly, I started getting overloaded with information and started taking pictures of all the human faces that were carved in the various old things.  It also seemed like a lot of the wood dragon carvings could've easily been Chinese.  Yet, there was nothing to either verify or deny my conspiratorial theory about that.

On the way back from the harbor we stopped in at City Hall because there is a giant room with huge painted murals.  It's like Diego Rivera met Henrik Ibsen and painted about what he heard...in a different style.  Okay, it's nothing like that at all.  However, in this vacuous room, Nobel Prizes have been given. 

I sadly took no minature photos today.

The last museum of the day was the Kon Tiki Museum / shrine to Thor Hierdal.  Mom did this one solo as they were about to close and I was museum-ed out.  She says that it was good and that Thor Hierdal proved that people sailed before they invented the wheel.

After a nice rest back at the museum, we took an evening stroll up to the Vigeland Sculpture Garden.  Vigeland is home to way over 100 sculptures by one artist (can't remember his name) and they are all nude.  All of them.  There are also dozens of relief panels.  I made up a story on these three panels.  Moral of the story is to not play with wolves or horses when you are only 3 years old.  It will not end well. 





One last thing to leave you with: restaurants in Oslo stop serving dinner at 9 p.m. This is no New York.  This isn't even Chetek.  We did find a Subway type of place whose motto is "Food with Care", not "Made with Care."  Important distinction. 

Day 11 - Arlandsvangen (and then to Oslo)

Today (Friday) we took a fjord boat tour.  The boat picked us up in Arlandsvangen at 9:15 a.m., went to Gudvangen, and returned to Arlandsvangen by 1:10 p.m.  The tour itself was very nice and scenic, but it the weather wasn't the best.  It went from light drizzle to light rain to windy rain the entire trip.  On the positive side of that, there were some really interesting small cloud formations alongside the walls of the fjord.  They sort of added to the immense scale of it all. 

Like I said earlier, this is the most touristy area we've been in.  Our boat tour reaffirmed that as there were loads of Chinese, Italians, and a few Germans.  We talked with one younger German couple a bit throughout the day as we the only ones who got on and off at Arlandsvangen.  They were from Munich.  We shared driving recommendations as they were driving from Oslo heading north, and we were doing the opposite. 

After the boat tour we drove to Oslo.  We didn't drive any further distance or for any longer time than any other day of driving, but as we started in the afternoon, it seemed like it took forever.  During the first hour or so we went through around 10 tunnels. Then we followed some dammed up lakes and rivers.  When we got closer to Oslo E16 was closed and the detour was long and slow.  At no point did we go over 80 km/h, because of the windy-ness of the roads, so all in all it took about 5.5 hours. 

Oslo is a manageable larger city and it will be easy to get around by just walking.  We think there are around 500,000 people here, so smaller than the Twin Cities.

Also...since I'm really writing this on Saturday morning...we both had a really good night of sleep.  To bed by 11 p.m. and up at 9 a.m. Yea, Oslo!