Oslo, round 2

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June 6th 2007

Published: June 6th 2007

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Doc Nic

Viking carving

There were some great artifacts found with the ships. This carving was so cool. I want one!

I can't believe how much stuff I packed into one day. They say you can do Oslo in 2 days, and I just made it. This was the second of my 2 non-consecutive Oslo days and I still had most of the chapter left. I set out early to what I thought was the City Hall for a tour (sounds odd but Rick Steve gave it 2 stars out of 3). Where I actually ended up was the Parliament building. I ran inside and looked around -- they were in session but there were like 5 people. Looked just like C-span. That kind of blew my timeline, but I wandered over towards the ferry to do the museum tour. On my way, I walked by the Akerhaus fortress -- a complex that used to house the city of Oslo and still has some military components. There is also a very good museum there about the Norwegian Resistance in WWII. I had no idea the history of that country. Apparently, Hitler thought Norway was a very important strategic point to keep away from the Allies so he launched a surprise attack on April 9, 1940 and basically took over the country

Empty Parliament

Just like on TV except not as interesting since it was all in Norwegian.

in a matter of days. The Norwegians didn't sit idly by, and neither did the British. Although their efforts hindered the invasion (and allowed the King and Crown Prince to narrowly escape death), it didn't avert the complete takeover. There were many cells of resistance, but each time one was found out, they were all arrested, some shot, and others sent to prison camps (some with similar conditions to concentration camps). For 5 years it was a complete interruption in the country. The teachers refused to teach Nazi beliefs so they were sent to prison camps and there was no school. The sports leagues refused to play. The actors refused to perform. It was a standstill. Sometimes people were taken from their houses as hostages for different reasons (civilians), and some of them were shot. What a scary thing. And to think that everyone I met in Norway who was over 60 was probably there for that. It's amazing that they don't have a national hatred of Germans.

After the tour through Norwegian resistance, my next stop was the harbor to take the ferry over to the Bygdoy section (this computer doesn't have funky letters but the o has

The Fram

From the ferry.

a line through it). While I was at the harbor, I found the REAL city hall. Nice building! I had just missed that tour and the next one was in 2 hours though so I decided to pop over the harbor and hit one of the museums before back to the city hall tour. I toured the Kon-Tiki museum first which is a showcase of the balsa, rattan, and papyrus rafts used to sail across the atlantic to prove it could be done. There was some guy (can't even remember his name now) who had a theory that the Old World cultures of ancient Europe could have influenced the cultures in the West Indies. Interesting little exhibit. No one thought it was possible, but he did it. Then he found Easter Island, so the exhibit had a whole bunch about that. I always wondered what the fuss was about -- now I know! (In case anyone cares, it was settled in about 1100AD and the locals continued to live there. At one point because of war, disease, and slave-traders, there were only 77 people left). Easter Island is the size of Oslo and is WAY off the coast of Chile

Tough sailing

In the Kon-Tiki museum. One of the rafts used to cross the Atlantic.

(or was it Peru?) Maybe I'll make it out there someday... 😊

I had just enough time to zip through there and hop back on the ferry to make it to the City Hall tour. It was decent. The inside is lined with paintings by famous Norwegian artists and depicts the life and history of Norway (with a whole wall dedicated to the Nazi invasion). It was ok, but I don't think it was worth my precious time... However, while there I stumbled into the Nobel Peace Museum right next door. I'm glad I went to that one. City Hall is also important because every year on Dec 10 that's where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded (all the others are in Stockholm). It was a cool exhibit with a whole section for the 2006 winner who created microfinancing (or something like that). It basically gives free loans to the poorest of the poor in VERY poor countries (where $5 is life-altering). It's become a huge movement and now has branches all over. They estimate that it will cut poverty in half by 2015. Pretty amazing!

After that I hopped back on the ferry (a nice way to

Oscar

This was the closest I've ever been to an Oscar. They made a documentary about the Kon-Tiki voyage and it won Best Documentary.

get around!) and made my way to the other museums at Bygdoy. I hit the Viking Ship museum (with 3 viking ships in it!) and learned about the interesting Viking history (about 800-1100AD and they had very sea-worthy ships to go EVERYWHERE from Norway to pillage and look for new settlements. But they also had farming and regular little things like that. Cool!)

A little walk through some neighborhoods and I was at yet another outdoor museum. This area REALLY loves those! It was cool though because, in addition to the TONS of farmhouses from different time periods, there was a stave church -- the first I've seen! I didn't know it but apparently the term stave just refers to the poles inside and that it's all made of wood (fires were a HUGE problem back then because if anything happened the entire town burned down. In fact, over the last millenium both Oslo and Bergen -- and probably others -- burned to the ground at least once a centurty...until they got smart and used stone). There was also an exhibition on the Sami, a culture that has a similar history to our Native Americans. They actually look just

Easter

You dum-dum give me gum-gum. I love those big statues. The movie Night at the Museum just made it that much better... heh heh

like Norwegians, and blend right in these days. It was neat though. They traditionally live in the far north.

At the beginning of the day I bought the Oslo pass which, for about $30, gave me full access to all public transport (including the ferry) and almost all museums for 24hrs. It was great! I hopped on a 5-min bus ride to save me the 15-min walk (it was dang hot out!!) and ended up at the Fram museum. Only 30 min to closing time, but at least I made it. The Fram museum was actually really cool and I wish I had had more time there. The Fram was a big ship used from about 1892-1907 to travel to the North Pole AND the South Pole. I didn't have a whole lot of time to read all the info, but basically a Norwegian explorer, Nanssen I think his name was, decided he wanted to be the 1st to make it to the North Pole. The ship only made it to the edge of the polar ice, then he set out with a small team and dogsleds. He got SOOOO close but had to turn back because he was

Easter Island

In case anyone was curious about the history...

running out of supplies. He did make it to the South Pole first though.

Anyway, enough history lessons. From that trip I've taken away that I want to visit Easter Island (maybe) and definitely want to go to Antarctica (there's a tourist cruise that goes from somewhere in Greenland and ends up in Nome, Alaska. How cool!) Plus the military has a base in Antarctica so maybe I can pop out there someday when I have lots of free time (it takes a long time to get there!)

As a side note, I ate a lot of ice cream on this trip. Something about soft-serve...mmm... I've been averaging about 1 a day. The best so far, though, was just outside the Fram museum. It was perfectly hot with a slight breeze (so not sweltering and not enough to make the ice cream drip down my hand), and they had licorice sprinkles. Soooo good! I'm gonna miss the licorice. 😊 I wonder if I can find those sprinkles in the states? I'll totally bring my own topping to McDonalds. 😊 (my favorite low-cal soft-serve!)

It was still bright sun and was 6pm. The museums were closed. I considered

Inside City Hall

Some of the cool murals inside City Hall. It shows different aspects of Norwegian life. This is where they award the Nobel Peace Prize.

my next step. Consulting my bible, I saw that there was one more place that was open until 8, but it was a ways out. I'd have about 20 min when I got there. But what the heck, what else would I do? I caught the 6:30 ferry back over to the wharf and booked it to the T-bane (metro). I was on the train by 7:08 and making my way out to the outskirts of town. A nice 25-min train ride later and I was in Holmenkollen. Unfortunately it was still a 10-min hike to the actual museum. That was a tough hike straight uphill. But I made it by 7:40! I showed my nifty Oslo pass and was off on a 20-min breeze-through of the history of skiing (I really wasn't all that interested anyway, I just went because there was nothing else open and Rick Steve gave it 2 stars). I suppose that if I had read all the exhibits I would have learned something interesting about the history of skiing. I did see a neat video about the guy who made it all the way across Antarctica without help from anyone. What a cool video! Dang.

The harbor

A view of the harbor from inside City Hall. If I had been on another day or earlier tour, I could have gone into the tour with a great view of the city. Oh well. Not as good as the view from the ski jump I'm sure!

That's cold... The highlight was the huge ski jump (now THAT was a hike! a lot of stairs...) I'm pretty sure it's the one used in the olympics (they had olympic stuff around). It was SUCH a cool view though! The entire city of Oslo laid out below. Plus the walls were all glass so if you look down through the gate (closed) you could just imagine what goes through someone's mind just before they launch from there. Freaky.

After the ski museum I had just about finished the chapter. I made my way back down to the city and walked back over to City Hall. Outside are these great wooden carvings from Norse mythology. Very interesting! Great descriptions too. After all that, I was soooo tired and my feet were killing me. 7 days of miles and miles of walking each day on an average of 4 hours sleep was starting to take its toll. The Anker Hostel was great though (and for $30 a night you can't beat it!). Decent location (near the train station), and even though they were charging for the internet, they just let me use it. I was too tired to blog last

Nobel display

Inside the Nobel Peace museum there was an exhibit by artists from around the world with different media, all to increase awareness about environmental issues. A really cool exhibit with some awesome displays!

night though. Just had enough energy to check on my travel plans for a way home.

I sagged into bed at around 1 (it was actually dark out!) and was up again at 4 (bright light out!) to get ready for my bus and checkout. There's one big advantage to bright sunlight at 4am -- it makes getting up a lot easier! Something about light... I didn't even feel tired. If it were dark out.... I should do my surgery residency somewhere with 22 hours of sunlight (the only problem is the other half of the year). I struggled the 1/2 mile to the bus station with my one-wheeled bag and just made the bus. A 2-hour ride to the airport and I getting on my first Ryan Air flight. For those who don't know, RyanAir has some of the cheapest airfare in europe. If I hadn't been changing my flight, so incurred a 30euro penalty, I would have gotten the flight for 1 penny plus taxes (so like 20euro or $25). Not bad! Instead I paid $100, but still decent. The only problem with RyanAir, as I soon found out, is that they were very restrictive on luggage.

Nobel museum

The display was really cool! The little lightsticks changed colors and the picture frames had sensors so when you walked by them they displayed who the person was, when they won, and why they won. It would have been nice if I had more time to read some of them, but the display was awesome!

You can only check one bag or else you pay dearly. That checked bag can only be 15kg (like 33lbs) or you pay about $10 for EACH KG OVER! And they weigh your carry-on so it can only be 10kg. I was over by about 6 KG. So, time to reorganize and throw stuff out. I was able to do it by squirreling away my purse and another shopping bag with stuff in it so my bookbage was 10kg and my suitcase just made it to 15kg (I should have ripped off the wheels to give me some weight. haha). I only had to throw out some lingonberry jam (it wasn't a good brand anyway...and I still have another. 😊 The seats suck though. I got a decent seat (it's open seating) but they don't recline. How uncomfortable. I'm not sure why anyone would make a plane like that.

When I got off in Frankfurt (about 10 min early!) I grabbed a luggage cart (sooo nice!) and made the hike to the bus terminal which wasn't too far. The bus that takes me right to Ramstein. For only 11Euros, I was at a gas station near the base by

The Vikings are coming!

One of 3 Viking ships in the Viking museum. They were actually used for burial -- the custom is to bury the dead in a little hut in the middle of the boat with food, goods, and animals, then bury the whole thing in the ground. These were excavated on someone's land.

12:30 and for another 10 euros, I was in a taxi and at the terminal. Unfortunately, I got here about 5 min too late for the Dover flight. 😞 I can't believe how close that was! But considering that my bus from the Frankfurt airport was soooo perfectly timed (I showed up and it left about 5 min later) I guess I should be thankful for that. Now, there are no more flights to Dover today. There's one tomorrow at 9:15am that stops somewhere else in Germany first. I actually REALLY debated trying to get on the flight today to McGuire in NJ, but that means I'd have to get back down to Dover to get my car. (though it'd be nice to see my aunt, uncle, and cousins again) I just decided to get a room for the night ($30 isn't bad) and show up tomorrow. So now, I'm standing (ouch) in the USO at the Ramstein air terminal, surrounded by smelly army guys who are in-transit. It's pretty nice! Free cookies, cakes, soda, internet, tv, books. Not bad! Later today I'll make my way the 15min to billeting and will hunker down for the night. I'm actually kind

The Vikings are coming!

of looking forward to not doing anything for a good few hours. 😊

I'll write one last blog when I finally make it home (hopefully tomorrow! I wouldn't be too surprised if the plane breaks down at the other German base though and I'm stuck there...a possibility with these big planes). If all goes well, I'll be at my house by tomorrow afternoon/evening. Until then, I'm just relaxing!

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