Oslo

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Today we were in Oslo our first stop in Norway. Mom and I had been here in 2001 on the Baltic trip but it was a new port for Erin and Dennis. Last trip Mom, Dad, Jim, and I went to the Olympic Ski Jump (the one featured in the old Wide World Of Sports where the skier falls from it), the Norske Outdoor Folke Museum (where they have old houses and buildings from all over Norway), and the Resistance Museum. This trip we had scheduled the Hadeland Glass Factory and Viking Boat Museum. So we had an early breakfast in the Lido then headed to the Queen’s Lounge just before 9 to get our blue stickers. There was only one bus for this tour and it wasn’t quite full.
Our guide’s name was Jane and we started out with a quick tour of downtown Oslo which was very quiet and almost empty since it was Sunday. We then headed out in the country to the glass factory. The scenery was very pretty lots of farms (with red barns so there’s color during the long dark days in winter) and a couple of lakes they call fiords even though they aren’t. She also told us about Trolls but probably didn’t understand why we were pointing at Erin and laughing.

At the glass factory we watched them make a large plate with tools etc that have been used there for centuries. The differences from when it was originally founded are they now use electricity instead of wood and they use sand from Belgium instead of from the lake. The lake sand was ok for the old medicine bottles but not the art glass they make now.
We then had refreshments of coffee/tea (ok so I bought a coke for 50 kroner since I haven’t figured out what the coins I got for change are worth yet) and a Danish that was very good. We then had time to shop so checked out the Christmas Shop but none of us bought too much. We tried to find a birthday card for Uncle Al’s 99th but looks like he may get a postcard instead at this point.

The restrooms were interesting. In one room there were 3 stalls for the men on the left and 3 for the women on the right. So line had both waiting. However, each stall had its own little sink (and I mean little).
We then headed to the Viking Ship Museum as it started to rain. Each time we went thru a tunnel it started to rain harder and by the time we got to the museum it was raining fairly hard so we scurried inside. They have 3 recovered Viking Ships in the museum. One from a queen, one from a chieftan, and don’t remember the third one. She had mentioned during the morning about the Vikings burying people in the ships but had assumed that meant the put them out to sea. But that’s not the case they actually buried them in the ships. We had seen one of the mounds where one is still buried that hasn’t been dug up on the way from the glass factory. They buried them with all the things they’d need in the next life including minerals, fabrics, etc and pointed the ship to the nearest water. The queen’s ship was very well preserved and they said over 90% original. I think it was from the 800s AD. The other thing we learned was that their helmets did not have horns. She said that came from a character in an Opera where they had the singer wear a helmet like that. Since running thru forests with horns on your helmet wouldn’t work well makes sense to me.

After the museum we headed back to the ship with a quick stop in the terminal looking for the birthday card. After a quick bite to eat we headed up to Bingo but they didn’t have enough people to play so we got double stamps instead. We then headed to Erin and Dennis’s cabin to see if we could figure out why they couldn’t connect to the internet. Couldn’t find anything wrong so Dennis headed up to the Internet Café where the guy originally acted like he was stupid but turned out their whole link was down. Mom, Erin, and I headed to mass. Then it was time for dinner and then the cast show Europa. This was the first show for this cast who just boarded when we did. They were actually very good. The CD warned us before the show that they often have problems with the microphones when off Norway but they’d switch to the hand-held ones if necessary and they did that about ½ way thru. After the show we made a very brief visit to the casino (Mom and I lost our donations before Erin finished buying a sweatshirt in the shop so at least she had something for her money).

Well tomorrow’s another sea day but I suspect we’ll keep busy again!

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Photos

London
this was the courtyard at our hotel in London

White Cliffs of Dover
A ferry leaving before us in front of the "cliffs"

Viking Ship
This is the queen's ship

Vikiing Ship
This was the Chieftain's ship

Comments

[Janet]

catching up
Ok I'm caught up now. It has been busy here too. I'm enjoying your blogs keep them coming and I promise I will check everyday. Your tirp sounds very interesting and fun.