Sunday was without a doubt the highlight of our weekend in Oslo. Finally our luggage had arrived!! After changing into new clean clothes, we headed out fairly early to take in several museums on BgdØy peninsula. In order to get there we had a nice walk down through the harbor area of the city followed by a ferry ride across the Oslo fjord. Very nice! Again it was incredible how much the city really reminds me of Seattle!!
Our first museum stop was the Oslo Viking museum. There are three Viking ships housed in the museum all are over 1000 years old and were excavated around the beginning of the 20th century. The Vikings used the ships as burial chambers for nobility and other high society personnel and
included a wide variety of other artifacts such as jewelry, furniture, food, animals and servants. The
first ship was probably the most fantastic. It had been decorated with intricate carvings on the bow
and stern and had been constructed to look like a sea serpent. Incredible!
After the Viking museum, we walked over to the Norwegian Folk museum. It’s one of the largest open air museums in Europe and contains historical buildings that have been moved there from all over Norway. Many of the buildings were houses but there were also several other buildings including a pharmacy, general store and our favorite, an old Stave church which dates to around 1200AD. The other highlight of the open air museum was the lefse making that was going on in one of the houses! Having grown up eating lefse at every family holiday… I found the traditional processes of making lefse over a fire particularly interesting! Yum!!
After a wonderful day on the museum peninsula and a short rest back in our room, we headed out to explore the area of Oslo colorfully referred to as “Oslo’s answer to Greenwich Village.” There were some great shops and restaurants in the area and we found a wonderful place to eat!
After dinner we stopped in a pub for a beer. I was off “recycling” and Mark was waiting for me at the bar when a guy started jabbering away to him in Norwegian. Of course Mark said, “Sorry Mate, I don’t understand…” So, they started the conversation again in English. They were getting on like old friends when I returned from the bathroom and before you knew it, we were sitting with Thor and his friends Jane, Bernie, and Bjorn drinking beer and having a great time! They even took us along to the next bar which had the cheapest beer in Oslo! (A great thing as everything is outrageously expensive in Oslo!!) We were out with our new friends until almost three in the morning! I can not express how wonderful it is to meet locals and learn about a city from their perspective! We felt really fortunate to have “bumped into” such a great group of people! Today (Monday) was going home day,… and considering the hangover I had it was probably a good thing! Our luggage even made it on the same flight that we did!
