The inquisitive: 2011

Our attempt to see Oslo in two days..

11 - 12th of September 2011

It was a rainy weekend in September, and I had been given the honour of showing a Hawaiian friend around Oslo. Oslo is not the biggest city in the world, so you can see great parts of it in two days.

We started off with a walk trough the most central parts (up the main street, Karl Johans gate) went around the parliament house, the Akershus fortress area (you can get lost there, yes) and the jetty, Aker brygge (harbour), with the city council towers, and then we stopped by the Natonal theater.

From Akershus fortress; overlooking Aker brygge (the harbour area)

We got Ruters 24 hours tickets (70 kroners) which meant we could ride bus/ferry/metro/train and tram as much as we wanted in Oslo. This is definity a cheap way, but it demands some navigation skills, or being with someone who knows their way around.

The downside was the weather. My Hawaiien friend was not impressed with the rain, he had turned up in a thin sweater and shorts. They don’t know how to dress for weather in Hawaii.

In Norway on the other hand, we are quite used to it. I was wearing shoes with thick soles, a waterproof jacket with a hood, and even my camera backpack had a raincover. A bright yellow one, that apparently made me look like a turtle. Hawaiien friend loves turtles.

We decided to go and see the vikingship museeum first. Off we went on buss 30 from the stop outside the National theatre. The museum have three ships from 800 and 900 A.C., and all the treasures etc found in the ships (most had been robbed before they were discovered). They have been kept well for so long, because of the mud they were buried in. After a few years at sea, the ships were used as burial chambers for kings and queens. The Vikings believed that everything they buried with you came with you to the afterlife! So slaves, dogs, 13 horses and a peacock (!) had been slaughtered and buried with their masters.

Osebergskipet - a queen's burial site

After this enlightening trip to see the viking ships we walked up the road to the folk museum. This place have authentic buildings from different places in Norway and also from different time periods. You can walk into the buidlings, and some of them have people playing the roles of people that used to live or work in such buildings. Here my Hawaiien, Maurice, got to taste sweet “lefse” made authentic over a fire place. Since then, he has never forgotten about lefse.

Gol stavkirke, reconstructed to what it looked like 900 A.CStavkirke (Church)

Norwegian "Fjord" horse

Maurice expecting some plants

The area is quite large, and also has a really nice “Stavkirke” church on top of the hill. There are also some inside museums, with traditional clothing, one that teach you about sami culture, and one with more contemporary installations and photography. Among other things.

We rode the same bus back, and got off by the castle (where our king monarchs from), where we went for a stroll trough the gardens behind, and my Hawaiian enjoyed photographing the ridiculous guards, (his words).

Then, we were starving, and we went to find some Norwegian traditional food. I had never tried this restaurant, but everyone told me that Kaffistova would have all this.

Kaffistova was sentral and easy to find. The hawaiian enjoyed meat balls with gravy and moshed peas. I noticed most of the customers where quite a bit on the old side, and that the layout remined of a work canteen. Perhaps not the first place I would revisit.

Next stop was the opera house. And this is really worth a visit if you like architecture. You can walk around on the top and it feels a bit like you are in science fiction movie. I though it was great. Hawaiian loved it so much he decided to go and have breakfast here the next day, whilst watching the sunrise (the next morning rained of course).

Walking on the Oslo operahouse

By this time my legs were buggered. It had been a lot of walking!

Next day, we took the tram (number 12) to Frogerparken. It is a fabulous park with lots of naked sculptures doing the weirdest poses ( a totally gay park according to the Hawaiian). I will let the pictures speak…

Then we took the tram back to Oslo S, and changed to the metro. We rode two stops east, to Tøyen. Destination: The botanical gardens. We could also visit the Munch museum here, (The Scream and Madonna paintings) but Hawaiien decided he didn’t need to. Instead we walked around in a lush green garden, with lots of foreign plant material, altough nothing too exotic to a Hawaiian.

The botanical gardens, Oslo

The green houses were more impressive. One smelled like jasmine and stored lily pads in a pond, and I am pretty sure it was the same type as I saw in the Amazon earlier this summer.

After this trip we desided to take the metro to Grønland (Oslo etnic salat bowl), a walk around there is very different to the streets of Frogner, and then walk to Grüneløkka, earlier the place of bohemians and immigrants, now mostly a place for young trendy people. This part of the city is always vibrant and colourful, even on rainy days.

Typical cornershop at Grønland

After the tragic events of Utøya, the city of Oslo was grafittied with love. Nothing has been removed (2014).

We ate at another old traditional restaurant today, Dovrehallen. It is in the bottom of Storgata, near the Oslo Central station. Hawaiien enjoyed rump steak with salted, boiled potatoes (very norwegian).

Today we finished our Oslo tour with a visit to the Oslo Domskirke, where people had put out flowers in memory of 22.07.2011.

Oslove became an expression after the tragic events.
Pictures show flowers in front of Oslo Domskirke

We were going to go and see the view from Holmekollen skijump but this is not very good on a cloudy day. On a clear day you can see the entire Oslo fjord (Oslo ocean view). Instead I took the Hawaiian on a train trip trough some forests, it was Gjøvikbanen (NSB), and has nice lake and forest views.

The Hawaiien said he had had a good weekend and that he wanted to come back one day, to see more of the country, and to have some more lefse.

If he does come back, I hope he brings some more of that beautiful Hawaiian chocolate, Hawaiian host.