Oslo - A Cultural Day...

I'm catching the 6:50 fly bus this morning and the hotel puts on a continental breakfast early - it usually starts at 7:00. So that's a nice touch.

Onto the fly bus, to the airport, onto another plane - I really hate flying! Back to Oslo airport - I've been here four times already! And will be back again tomorrow... Then train into town to store my bags and have a wander for the day. Nice station.

Storing the bags is a saga in itself. I eventually find the bag storage place. It's 50 krona and they don't provide change - must be exact money. Apparently there's a change machine upstairs so I go up to look for it. Can't find it so downstairs again to ask where it is. Oh, it's out this other entrance, that you didn't state on your sign. Find the machine - it doesn't take 500 krona notes and of course that is all I have. So I go downstairs to get a slice of mushroom pizza as an early lunch and get some change. Of course I don't get a 50 krona note so I still have to go to the change machine. Eventually the bag is in the locker!

Then it's a stroll up...

I'm heading to the royal palace. But first I pass the Parliament House.

And a bit further up is the National Theater - a magnificent building.

There are hordes of teenagers inside - it's a school show on. That means the building is open and the lovely usherette lets me pop in to have a look - "only for seven minutes." That's all I need!

There's lovely statues all over Oslo. Don't know who this is but I like it...

Well, I know he's Johan Halvorsen but I think he's a conductor - he's holding a baton...

Then it's up to the palace...

Love it when birds land on statue's heads.

Beautiful gardens...

The changing of the guard happens at 1:30 so I sit on a bench for a while and wait for that. It's very formal. But the guards at the posts were answering questions and chatting to people passing by, so obviously less strict than the Buck House guards.

A parade of literally babies comes out from the side of the palace, they meet up with another group. Then two or three march to each of the three posts and the guard on duty is replaced with the next one on duty. It's a bit like a condemning - they now have to stand there for how many hours?

There are quite a few people watching and one very annoying girl who, every time the tourist group moves to follow the action, pushes her way through to be at the front, a few steps ahead of everyone so she gets the best shot with her extension stick. At one point she starts videoing and as she pans it round, I just quietly stepped into her shot with my best, "oh, look at that!" face. And she was not happy... I laughed a lot! She was being selfish.

Next on culture day is the Henrik Ibsen museum. 

This was a fantastic place. You started up the stairway into the exhibit room. There were posters from his plays on the way up and recorded voices with quotes and reviews.

In the exhibition rooms were all sorts of information boards and artefacts of his. He was a bit of an enigma, a loner, very vain, not very sociable. His plays were very modern and often risqué for the time. His females were always equals - never 'whores or madonnas'. His wife, Suzannah, was very much his equal and he discussed everything with her. Apparently they fought for two weeks over the ending of A Doll's House - she said Nora should go, he thought Nora should stay. Suzannah won.

After the exhibition, I did the little tour through their apartment that they lived in for the last 11 years of his life. He moved all over Europe and spent a lot of time away from Norway. It was a conflicted love/hate relationship he had with his homeland. The apartment was fantastic - odd shaped rooms varying from extremely opulent to quite simple. Can't take any photos unfortunately. He was quite the celebrity when he moved there and he liked to sit in the window where people could see him...

I got this photo of an old black and white picture of him in his study.

Next to the National Gallery. 

This was also great! Wandered through, they have this great auditorium and obviously a painting classroom...

A really interesting collection of artwork that culminated in the Edvard Munch room...

With, of course, Scream...

Lots of people taking photos of it and all of them stood in front and impersonated it. I did not do this.

Now it's time to head back to the station to pick up my bag, have a coffee and then head back to Mark and Jørgen's.

Mark and I arrive at the same time. It's a lovely apartment - on the top floor!

We sit and relax for a while before heading out to a diner to meet Jørgen for dinner. Their friend is working as a chef there and he sat and chatted for a while after his shift. The waitresses were American girls who had fallen in love with 'Vikings' and had moved here.

What a lovely way to end the Norwegian chapter!