have you driven a fjord lately?
1 september 2001

going farther north wasn't really my first choice but going during the summer months is certainly a more motivating factor. gary has been slaving away in oslo now for about four weeks and so i had the good fortune to join him for a weekend. i'm not sure what it is about me that inspires customs agents to constantly pull me over but it happened yet again after arriving on friday night. do i look like a drug trafficker? at least he was nice and didn't go through all my stuff, only x rayed the bag and asked some questions, one being "do you speak any norwegian?" yeah, right buddy. he must have been high on crack. that sort of thing always shakes me up a bit but i was quickly calmed as gary and i watched the fading light and rolling hills of norway from the train en route to the center of town. not only were we booked into a corporate hotel but we were cozily tucked away in a business class room up on the 29th floor with a magnificent view of the fjord. not that you could get any room service that night.... some glitch was happening in the kitchen and i guess we weren't meant to eat dinner. so it goes. they did offer to comp us dinner but since it was past midnight, we weren't really interested anymore.

breakfast was a better experience with a buffet that included japanese seaweed and miso soup. i was indeed puzzled to find no trace of smoked salmon on that display however. aren't they famous for it? certainly it must have been accessible. this really bothered me. no time to dwell; the sun was beaming and there was a blue sky reminiscent of the kind you see in colorado practically everday and which you never see in amsterdam. let the sightseeing begin. most cities have an abundance of mcdonald's restaurants but oslo has 7 11's everywhere you turn. they are a bit more upscale than the ones in the states, with freshly baked bread and sandwiches that actually look edible. during our saturday stroll, we went through a wonderful fruit market and ended up buying these green things that we think were similar to small plums but sort of looked like grapes. we also sampled some brown cheese, which i've never seen before and didn't care for at all but gary was pretty gung ho about it. our exploration plans didn't include shopping but there was a huge sidewalk sale that we got very interested in because of some unbelievable bargains. people were snatching stuff off the racks at breakneck speed and we jumped right on that bandwagon. not being able to try anything on is always a risk but we scored some shirts and a pair of trendy pants for me for about two dollars a piece. who cares if they didn't fit; we were driven by the price tag and to our surprise the shirts were great, the pants about 3 sizes too small there's nothing like some good shopping to get one in a giddy mood.

continuing on our tour of norway's capital city, we visited oslo's cathedral, complete with a box for the royal family. If we had been there a week later, we would have seen Norway's crown prince getting married. the names escape me but of course there was lots of press about this union as this was the heir to the throne and the bride was an admitted former user of drugs and also an unwed mother. times are definitely changing, even in the monarchy. the church was small but had a massive golden organ and a beautiful three dimensional altar piece of the last supper. no use wishing to be there the following week; i doubt we could have seen anything anyway so it was great to appreciate it as it was the week before the event. onward through the city we took in the relaxed feeling despite large crowds of people everywhere and the contemporary architecture mixed in with the older styles. as we made our way to the harbor, the sun was very bright over the fjord and across the street stood a medieval castle. we were intent on visiting the viking museum since that is something entirely unique to norway.

there isn't much that gary and i disagree about repeatedly but the subject of boats always raises some hairs. why? mainly because i get a little queasy and never fully enjoy the experience. i've been talked into sailing in my younger years on several occasions and hated it every time. i can usually handle boats with motors that zoom along but the whole feeling of floating aimlessly with that 'weavin' and bobbin' feeling doesn't appeal to me. gary was yearning for the ferry experience so i reluctantly followed him to the dock hiding behind my anxiety. he promised if we got on and i didn't like it, we would get off. that's pretty much what happened. i knew it was too small a boat even standing in the fresh air on deck and we got on and so did a thousand other people. it just wasn't going to happen for me so i motioned to him that i was out of there and we pushed and shoved through the hoardes to step off just as the boat started to pull away. i can't explain how relieved i was.

plan b. we took a bus instead and arrived at the viking ship museum, a fascinating place. during the 1800's three viking ships were discovered in southern norway. the ships date back to the 9th century and were miraculously preserved in clay allowing them to be in pretty good shape after a thousand years. they were used as burial ships and the most famous one called the oseberg is believed to have held the bodies of a famous viking chieftain's wife and her slave woman. many treasures such as fabrics, leather goods, and kitchen utensils were also retrieved and are exhibited in the musuem. the vessels, made of ornately carved oak are huge and you can view them by standing on platforms built specifically for this purpose.

not far away is the norwegian folk museum, which has a mixture of indoor and outdoor exhibits. it was late in the afternoon, but still quite a pleasant temperature so we hiked through the pathways of the open air part. there were several different types of reconstructed houses, mostly wood with tiny little doorways and tiny little beds. we had the distinct sensation of being in fairytale land and wondered seriously if elves and ogres had once roamed this terrain. if you've seen the movie, "shrek" then you can relate. if you haven't seen it, you should. we toured a candy shop of olde and walked past a pair of gas pumps from another time. the herb garden was extensive and located right behind the apothecary and the simple church sat high up on a hill. we watched a woman who was weaving and she showed us how she was making a specific pattern. the whole experience was beyond charming and by the time we got back to the entrance, the indoor museum was already closing. we were thrilled to have traipsed through such a landscape.

oslo offers many things to the weekend visitor and there happened to be a chamber music festival in full swing. on sunday we chose a program that was being performed in the castle i mentioned earlier. hoping there were still tickets available, we rushed hurriedly up the knoll to the akershus festning, a stone fortress overlooking the gleaming harbor. no problem getting tickets but paying for them was a different story. somehow, we had forgotten to hit the atm and they didn't take credit cards and they certainly didn't take guilders {dutch currency} and we just didn't have enough norwegian cash to cover it. damn! at that moment our hearts sank because we would never be able to scurry back down the hill to search for an atm before the start of the concert. gary had his thinking cap on and just then a stranger, who was watching our dilemma asked us how much we needed! i couldn't believe it but it really happened and i was thinking, "how the hell are we going to pay him back" but he said he wouldn't mind having guilders. so gary did the math and paid him in dutch money right then and there. you don't encounter people like that too often but we must have looked so disappointed, that he felt the need to come to our rescue. we couldn't thank him enough and i'll remember that if i can help someone else out sometime in the future. the concert, in three sections, was wonderful. there was a quintet playing spanish guitar music with a lovely soprano and a percussionist with passion. then there was some solo piano, which wasn't quite up to par, and lastly the Oslo string quartet. performed a suite by Berg beautifully and i loved watching the musicians interact. they were really young and i was wondering how they could be that polished. during the first piece, suddenly a mobile phone started ringing. what an embarrassment, as it belonged to the man who was obviously the organizer of the concert. whoops! he kept trying to cover it with something like that would make itstop ringing. finally, he got clued in and took it out of the room but not before everyone was staring at him. we had a great laugh about that later.

we took a pass through the old fortress, which served as nazi headquarters in world war II and loped down into the dungeons. it was creepy and pretty claustrophobic but all part of the castle experience. if we had had more time, i would have liked to visit the resistance museum, also on the premises but we wanted to be out and about in the daylight. we finally got to an atm and made our way down to the harbor to await the opening of what looked like a great seafood restaurant. we had an hour to kill so we nestled into a spot with a view of the ships and the folks strolling by. there was an enormous cruise ship docked right there evoking visions of the love boat. if i were a boat person......but i'm not. we watched as it signaled and pulled smoothly away and got smaller and smaller with its liberian flag waving until it was finally out of sight. i should mention that we were celebrating our six year anniversary and were determined to have a very special dinner. at last they let us in and we sat in a sunny room, still eyeing the harbor and its happenings and enjoying the mondrian decor of the interior. i'm still on that less than exciting detox diet but i cheated and had some champagne to go with our exquisite food. those norwegians really know how to cook fish, whether it's salmon, halibut in curry, or thick and meaty shark. topping off the meal with fresh strawberries, no cream for me, and we were fully sated. happy anniversary!

our final activity of the day landed us at the vigeland sculpture park, named after the prolific artist who started it in 1924 and who was still working on it when he died in 1943. the sprawling park is dotted with bronzes sporting interactive figures in all angles imaginable. being silly, we attempted to mimic some of the poses while snapping photos, a very fun thing to do among this type of scenery. as you walk the length of the park, you begin to see the central attraction; a bowl shaped fountain surrounded and supported by muscular figures, said to represent the burden of life, while below water tumbles over and around more bronze bodies. as if this weren't breathtaking enough, slightly beyond the fountain, a very tall obelisk comes into view. vigeland stacked stone figures upon each other in every possible direction, masses of bodies heaped on top of one another, surging to a height of twenty metres, a depiction of the cycle of life as the artist envisioned it. what else can i say about something so monumentally expressive? one of the many unique highlights of oslo. the days are still pretty long in such a northern location inviting us to sit at the cafe in the park and savor a coffee {boring tea for me}. back at the hotel, i made use of the sauna on the 34th floor and we ended the day sprawled in matching leather chairs with the tube on.

gary's work week started pretty early on monday morning so i was on my own. i had a few hours to spare before boarding the train back to the airport so i set out with my trusty map, oy vey. i had the option of taking the tram but somehow getting lost on foot is less stressful for me. i'm getting better though and i didn't have any major trauma finding the national gallery. i toured the museum solo at a relaxed pace taking in some of the more famous names, such as edvard munch, norway's most well known painter and also being drawn to the less familiar artists. it was well worth the risk of getting lost and i walked back to the hotel in the light rain, wishing i could stay longer but being ever so fulfilled by the few days in this wonderfully vivid city. norway makes the 20th country we've been to since moving to europe! it's crazy living abroad, missing colorado and all the great friends we have there but i'm hooked on those weekend excursions at least for the time being. i still miss you all and am waiting for some more of you to make the trip over the ocean.

please stay in touch,

love,

deb