Oslo

SnowSnowSnow!Driving on the Right!Snow!Snow!Snow!Right!Road Sign with a Reindeer on it!Snow!Snow!SnowSnow!Right!Snow!Europey-looking forest!Snow!

Thus ran my thoughts upon arrival in Oslo. Having caught a RyanAir flight to "Oslo" it meant that I had an hour and a half bus trip from "Oslo" into Oslo, so this gave me ample time to appreciate that there was snow on the ground. While I'm thinking about RyanAir - which I have developed a firm belief that one should do as little as possible, lest one absorb too much of their attitude that one is really just an annoying hindrance between an airline reaching its target of perfectly meeting its timetable - the competition between RyanAir and Easy Jet seems particularly fierce on number of fronts, the more obvious being for passengers and securing routes, but oddly seems to be made manifest in the desparate battle to make their staff look completely ridiculous. This could be an extreme-safety measure, on the theory that no terrorist, no matter how committed, would ever pose as one of their staff if it meant wearing a jaunty combination of bright blue and yellow, or flourescent orange. But actually I think it is just an outworking of the contempt in which they hold their staff, and particularly, their passengers. I think they feel that they have to be that obvious because their passengers are too stupid to pick up that six or seven people on a plane wearing matching outfits of any more subtle colour combination are likely to be the crew. That, and that weird approach to sartorial matters that follows the line: 'weeeeeeeeee we're really bright! that means we're hip and fun! yeaaaaah!' in the hope that one doesn't notice the underlying 'if we were dressed in grey it would draw attention to our facial expressions that convey our contempt for you and our fervent wish to be upgraded to carriers which convey packages and live cattle.' Just a theory.

I arrived in Oslo at about 11.30, and my friend kindly came an collected me, very fortunate as I hadn't gotten a guide book and my Norwegian, oddly, is non-existant. She lives in am old part of town, where cobblestone still feature, and beautiful wides streets of apartment buildings. Beautiful wide streets that feature quite a lot of ice at this time of year, as Judas and Thomas demonstrated by skeetering out from under me, sensing their chance for escape, and a truly excellent opportunity to embarrass me. Fortunately no damage was done, to me, or perhaps more significantly, to my camera. It was a good way of learning to pay some attention where I was putting my feet, and proved a constant battle between looking at the ground to make sure I didn't go flailing down a stone staircase, and gaping around touristicly at the scenery. Norway clearly likes me more than Scotland: it had thoughtfully had some freezing weather leading up to my arrival, to provide a nice snowy welcome, but then was unseasonably warm, no worse than Canberra at its worst when you are out in the mddle of the night, inappropriately attired. Thankfully I had a decent jacket (thanks R!) and so was quite cosy. In fact, it was like getting to wear a sleeping bag out and about, which is excellent for naps.

The next day we went to a large sculpture park, featuring works by Vigeland and more snow. The park has an amazing amount of work in it, especially when it is all work by one artist, even if he did have a studio of assistants, he was incredibly productive. Then we headed to the Munch Museet which features both the work of Edvard Munch, and the most incredible museum security. Unsurprising, after someone ran off to a waiting car with two of the Museum's central pieces. Fortunately, and as regular readers will undoubtedly recall, they have since been discovered. Unfortunately they are still in conservation, so I didn't get to see them, but I got to see a lot of others, so I'll have to be happy... the museum had up a lot of stuff beyond the wailing wall of depression that one usually associates with Edvard, who knew that he had so many dogs, or drew them so much?

Then we took a walk around Oslo, got to see the Royal Palace, and the centre of town. I really like Oslo - its small enough that you can cover most of it, at least very briefly in a day, and it has the benefits of being in Europe (old, good bread, and so on) with out the crazy numbers of people. The next day, after extensive directions, I found my way in the 'burbs to check out the Viking Ships Museum - excellent! Vikings were very thoughtful of future archaeologists by burying people in ships, with a sample of everything they owned. Unfortunately most of these burial mounds were raided, so the jewellery and other valuables were taken, but the ships have been preserved very well, and it is incredible to consider how far they sailed in not very large ships. After that I went to the Folk Museum, which is also excellent - they have gathered together a range of buildings from all different periods of Norway's history and reconstructed them in a giant open air museum. The first time I've been able to see my own breath while at an exhibition. And the first time I've enthusiastically examined barns. With my new knowledge of Norwegian farm architecture from the thirteenth century to the present I am going to be a hit on the dinner party circuit when I get back!