July 17 and 18 Oslo and Bergen

We did not have as much time as we would have liked in Oslo so we had to pack in the sights yesterday...

Our place in Oslo was ... unique... We were in a two story flat that was right in the middle of an apartment complex. It was eclectic in its decor and not as big as it looked on the AirBnB website. It had enough beds for everyone, but it had some pretty treacherous stairs up to the second floor.

Amy and I have a friend, Emily, from Gustavus who lives in Oslo with her husband and kids. Joel, Emily's husband, is a pastor at the American Lutheran church in Oslo. They have two boys, Nestor and Johan (13 and 11), who are fluent in Norwegian and attend a regular Norwegian school.

Emily volunteered to be our tour guide for our big day in Oslo. She arrived at our place about 9:30 AM and helped us get 24 hour transportation passes. We started out at the Oslo City Hall right on the waterfront. It is quite an impressive building with many large murals celebrating the glory of Norway. Our next stop was the Royal Palace where we met up with Nestor and Johan. Emily, Nestor, and Johan helped us navigate the public transportation system to get to the Norwegian Folk Museum. The Folk Museum was similar to Skansen in Stockholm, with historical buildings from all over Norway set in a park. Because Emily has a membership to the museum, we all got in free (that was nice because Norway is quite expensive!) We spent about three hours in the museum. The highlight was the traditional wood stave church from the 13th century. It was moved from another part of Norway and placed in the museum in the 1890s. The museum also had a reconstructed apartment building that had various examples of Oslo apartment living from the turn of the century to the 1990s.

Close by the Folk Museum was the Viking Burial Ship museum. The museum housed three Viking burial ships (almost 3,000 years old!) that were excavated in the the 19th century, two of which were fully reconstructed. The ships were found in dirt mounds with the skeletons of the buried still in the them. In addition to the bodies, the ships held all the goods the deceased were to take on their journey to the afterlife. The museum had the skeletons and other items also on display. It was a small but impressive museum.

After five hours of seeing stuff, we were invited over to Emily and Joel's apartment for a home cooked meal. It was interesting to hear what life is like for an American family living in Oslo. Luke, Nestor, and Johan bonded over their shared interest in soccer.

After dinner we walked over to the Vigeland Park. It is a park that is full of Gustav Vigeland's (Norway's most famous sculpture) work. His work is quite interesting. All the sculptures are naked and are either sitting and standing different positions. The sculptures line a walkway that leads up to a hill where there are more sculptures and Vigeland's masterpiece, the Monolith. It is a 50 foot tall sculpture carved from one piece of stone that contains 121 intertwined figures. While we walked through the park, the boys kicked the soccer ball around (Luke needed that!).

Our day ended with a stop at the pier on the harbor and some ice cream. The Scandinavian countries have the best sprinkles on ice cream I have ever tasted. They are crunchy and tasty in their own right. We would like to find some to bring home.

This morning Emily, Joel, and the boys met us at our place and helped us get our luggage to the trains station. We had a seven hour train ride to Bergen that left at noon. Before the train left, some of us had time to hit the National Gallery, home of one of Edvard Munch's "the Scream." We did not have a lot of time in the museum, but we got to see the iconic painting. Luke and I even had a little time before the train left to check out a soccer store near the train station. This was the store Luke had been waiting for all his life. It had every team you could imagine and, had we not had to catch a train, Luke could have stayed there for hours. We said goodbye to our gracious tour guides and then boarded the train to Bergen.

The train got off a little late and it was slowed down by the possibility of sheep on the tracks (!!??!!). It took about seven hours to get to Bergen, but the ride went quick because of the scenery. We flew past snow capped mountains and beautiful mountain lakes and rivers. We arrived in Bergen around 7:30, found our hotel, and broke down and got McDonald's for dinner. Tomorrow we will take it easy in the morning as we have our big fjord tour in the afternoon and evening.