And A Little Bit Of Culture..

...For Celine

After having a great time in the mountains skiing; it was time for some city outing. The main purpose of the trips was to renew Chloe’s 3 passports: French, USA and Argentina. For me it was back to civilization.

Chloe’s passport renewal was not as eventful as Jeremy’s last year and there were no melodrama with the passport photo either but when you don’t live in the country capital, you not only miss out on the diverse cultural exhibitions but you also need to make the trip for everything that has to do with administration (Chloe will even have to go back to Oslo to pick up her French passport in person!).

Oslo was cold and snowy… colder than Stavanger and snowier than Stavanger (What am I complaining about in Stavanger?!) but it was nice to be back in a big city (bigish… it’s about 590,000 inhabitants!).

So apart from 3 Embassies we went to the Viking Ship Museum (Vikingskipshuset), home of 2 of the world’s best-preserved Viking vessels from the 9th century and sections of a third one. The ships are considered to be among Norway’s greatest cultural treasures

Gokstad ship excavated in 1880, the 24m (79ft) long ship has 16 pieces of planking on each side compared to the Oseberg’s 12 pieces

Oseberg ship 90 per cent of the 22m (72ft) long ship is of original wood

Norsk Folkemuseum, an open-air museum featuring 150 reconstructed townhouses, farm buildings and churches from Norway’s past.

The National Gallery (Nasjonalgalleriet) to see the Scream (Skirk) painted by Edvard Munch in 1893. We even made a pit stop at the geology museum (wonder whose idea this was?!!) and stroll around the city center with a quick look of the royal palace from outside

Not my idea!

the Rodhust (City Hall)

and the Nobel Peace Center

Fresh from Obama's visit

We also managed to go see the granite sculptures at the Vigelandsparken. It is Oslo’s largest park and has 212 sculptures depicting humanity in all its forms. The focal point is the 17-m (56-ft) tall Monolith, comprising 121 human figures, supporting and holding onto each other.

Not too bad for a 3-day trip. We’ll have to come back in the spring or summer at some point since I would like to see Oslo under nicer weather.


Little anecdote I read somewhere about the stairs leading to the Royal Palace often referred as Eli-Trappa (Eli Stairs). (well you cannot see them under the snow on this picture!)

Eli-trappa

Eli is the wife of a prominent politician in Norway. One day (in 2001) she had to drop off her husband at the royal palace in Oslo for a government dinner. She had been to the palace grounds many times before but had never driven. Not sure where to go, Eli headed straight for the main road… down the palace stairs. She had driven off the palace circle road, past the Karl Johan statue and right over the mouth of the stairs. A little embarrassed, she drove straight home. When her husband called to see if she was all right she wouldn’t answer the phone. In fact, she didn’t answer the phone the whole night even though it was ringing off the hook. The media had gotten word of her ‘little embarrassment’ and were now camped outside her house pushing for an interview, a comment, a picture – anything!
Today, the palace stairs, Eli-trappa (the Eli stairs), has become a house-hold name.