Norway Day 10

Day 10, September 10

Our last sightseeing day in Oslo started with the Munch Museum via two busses. At the stop, the only sign was a road sign up the street. We started walking and brushed past a group of preschoolers dawdling on the sidewalk. A block up it became evident the preschoolers knew where they wanted to go and we did not . A university student directed us back in the direction we had come. After walking around the building, we found the entrance. A bunch of college students stood blocking the entrance doing nothing. We flashed our Oslo Cards sparing us the 75 Kroner/$12.50 each entrance fee and had to leave our water bottle and umbrella before entering. For those not familiar with Munch, as I was not, he has a wiggly alien screaming, "The Screamer", a painting with bright reds, yellows, and blues, very similar to what a deranged, troubled, special ed 5th grader who hates art class would paint. Our first stop, the movie of Edvard Munchs life narrated in Norwegian, showed us an eight ball artist with money to run around Europe and paint various objects, usually nudes. After a quick nap in the darkened deserted theater, we walked around the museum looking at various paintings, usually nudes. Our appreciation of his works held our attention as long as it took to walk quickly through the maze of rooms, collect our water, umbrella, and depart. Out the door and on to the history museum, botanical garden, and Toyenhagen Park, we enjoyed perfect weather, an Oslo open faced high priced sandwich, chips, Coke, dried apricots, and a lifesaver for dessert. As we made our way back to the original bus stop we figured out the Munch Museum entrance was only 40 yards from the stop, but because bushes obscured the sign, we had walked a half mile to reach it.
We jumped on bus 20 and rode clear across town to Frogner Park next to the nudie Vigeland statues (are we seeing a pattern here) and the Oslo City Museum. Once again, plagued by poor signage, we walked around ¾ of the museum before finding the entrance. We did not need to show our Oslo Card as the Museum charged nothing to enter. Naturally, I found this to be much more interesting than the others we saw that morning as they had a movie narrated in English about the development of Oslo from its beginning to the present day. Tram 12 took us as close to the Armed Forces Museum as we could get (Not very close). After walking forever, we could not find it and gave up. Do you suppose Denmark and Norway really do not have a military? We again made use of the Oslo Card to have tram 19 haul us up the mountain south east of the city. A beautiful forest and spectacular views of the fjord and city rewarded our side trip to Ljabru. When we returned to the Thon Spectrum, neither electronic key worked. I trotted down to the front desk where the clerk made no excuses or apologies, just rekeyed it and sent me on my way. We cleaned up, took an empty Coke bottle back to 7-11 for our deposit, ate a Big Mac, Quarter Pounder, fries, and Coke for 120 Kroner/$20, got a can of Coke with a recent Norwegian immigrant butting in front of us, and back to the hotel for our last Norge night.

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