Norway: Oslo
Oct. 12th, 2008 12:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deirdreTo travel from Sweden to Oslo requires a sea day, because Stockholm's on the eastern side of Sweden, and Oslo's in the southwest of Norway.
The Baltic narrows between Denmark and Sweden, and there's a rather famous bridge between them that opened in 2000: the Oresund Bridge. On our way to Denmark, we'd traveled over the tunnel between the end of the bridge and the main part of Denmark. However, on the second part of our journey, we traveled under the bridge. We were dining in the Tsar's palace as the ship went under the bridge.
In Oslo, we pulled up right next to Akershus Fortress, which was a castle designed to protect Norway, initially started in the 1290s. This made it easily the oldest thing we'd landed next to.
After the near-obligatory city tour, we saw a video about Norway that was really pretty, and then we went to see the polar ship Fram, which still holds the record for the wooden ship that's sailed furthest north and south. There were lots of exhibits about polar exploration, but the ship itself isn't particularly pretty. After looking at the ship and the exhibits, I shopped for postcards and had my second Pepsi of the trip.
From there, we proceeded out to a boat, took a tour around the harbor, then pulled up next to the Jewel. As we were walking back to the Jewel, a group of schoolchildren became intensely curious about where we were from. Given that they were obviously not ethnically Norwegian, I was curious about where they were from. I didn't ask, though.
One of the things that hadn't really registered was that Norway's recently-discovered oil reserves would bring in a large percentage of social changes, including many people from oil countries bringing over their families, and eventually I figured out these were probably kids from the middle east who'd moved to Norway with their families.
At this point, Rick went off to explore Akershus and see their war resistance museum, which documents the efforts of Norwegians to resist the occupation of Norway by the Nazis. One poignant part is outside the fortress in front: there are empty chairs to remind Norwegians of the Jews sent away to concentration camps who never returned. Here's an interesting page on the holocaust in Norway, and how it differed from the issues in Denmark.
Meanwhile, my mother and I went up for a quick bite to eat before our second tour of the day. Our first stop was at the Open Air Museum, where the fabulous stave church is. One of the comments made was that they weren't really fully committed to Christianity when they built them, thus they used familiar heathen motifs like dragons mixed in with the Christian motifs to hedge their bets.
Our next stop was easily the coolest of any of them for the sheer "oh yeah, this was HUGE in my childhood" feeling: getting to see KonTiki and Ra II in the KonTiki Museum.
Our final stop was at the Vigeland Sculpture Park. Viegeland was an immensely productive, albeit weird, sculptor. The park contains 212 of his sculptures, almost all nudes, produced over several decades.
Our tour guide took more time than she was supposed to, and we got back to the ship just before the all aboard call. We made it, that's all that's important, right?
The Baltic narrows between Denmark and Sweden, and there's a rather famous bridge between them that opened in 2000: the Oresund Bridge. On our way to Denmark, we'd traveled over the tunnel between the end of the bridge and the main part of Denmark. However, on the second part of our journey, we traveled under the bridge. We were dining in the Tsar's palace as the ship went under the bridge.
In Oslo, we pulled up right next to Akershus Fortress, which was a castle designed to protect Norway, initially started in the 1290s. This made it easily the oldest thing we'd landed next to.
After the near-obligatory city tour, we saw a video about Norway that was really pretty, and then we went to see the polar ship Fram, which still holds the record for the wooden ship that's sailed furthest north and south. There were lots of exhibits about polar exploration, but the ship itself isn't particularly pretty. After looking at the ship and the exhibits, I shopped for postcards and had my second Pepsi of the trip.
From there, we proceeded out to a boat, took a tour around the harbor, then pulled up next to the Jewel. As we were walking back to the Jewel, a group of schoolchildren became intensely curious about where we were from. Given that they were obviously not ethnically Norwegian, I was curious about where they were from. I didn't ask, though.
One of the things that hadn't really registered was that Norway's recently-discovered oil reserves would bring in a large percentage of social changes, including many people from oil countries bringing over their families, and eventually I figured out these were probably kids from the middle east who'd moved to Norway with their families.
At this point, Rick went off to explore Akershus and see their war resistance museum, which documents the efforts of Norwegians to resist the occupation of Norway by the Nazis. One poignant part is outside the fortress in front: there are empty chairs to remind Norwegians of the Jews sent away to concentration camps who never returned. Here's an interesting page on the holocaust in Norway, and how it differed from the issues in Denmark.
Meanwhile, my mother and I went up for a quick bite to eat before our second tour of the day. Our first stop was at the Open Air Museum, where the fabulous stave church is. One of the comments made was that they weren't really fully committed to Christianity when they built them, thus they used familiar heathen motifs like dragons mixed in with the Christian motifs to hedge their bets.
Our next stop was easily the coolest of any of them for the sheer "oh yeah, this was HUGE in my childhood" feeling: getting to see KonTiki and Ra II in the KonTiki Museum.
Our final stop was at the Vigeland Sculpture Park. Viegeland was an immensely productive, albeit weird, sculptor. The park contains 212 of his sculptures, almost all nudes, produced over several decades.
Our tour guide took more time than she was supposed to, and we got back to the ship just before the all aboard call. We made it, that's all that's important, right?