Oslo, Norway

I write to you while we are in route to California. We spent two full days in Oslo before departing for home. 

First, an observation: The Norwegians are excellent English speakers. In my opinion, the Norwegians were far superior to the Scots we encountered previously on this trip. The Scots say things like, "Yer a wee scunner!" which apparently means, "You're a nuisance." English is a mandatory part of the curriculum in Norwegian schools and we didn't encounter anyone who couldn't speak it reasonably well, if not completely fluently. At no point did we have to explain, "Jeg snakker ikke norsk" (I don't speak Norwegian), and at some point we stopped asking altogether whether someone spoke English, as we realized English speaking was basic and worried this question might almost seem rude.

We visited a lot of stuff while we were here, including the Rådhus (city hall), the opera house (for a tour, not a performance), the Munch museum, the historical Akershus fortress, the Fram polar exploration museum, the Norwegian folk museum, and the Frognerparken (large city park).

The Norwegian folk museum is a collection of reconstructed historical houses and buildings from different parts of Norway scattered throughout a large park. Hannah  got in touch with her inner Viking here. She was particularly intrigued by the homes from the parts of Norway that her ancestors are likely from (assuming 23andme is accurate). She identified with the intricately decorated farmhouse from Telemark. She emerged from that house explaining that her Telemark ancestors must be the source of her artistic talents.

Hannah had a harder time understanding how she was related to the Norwegian polar explorers we learned about in the Fram museum. The Fram is a ship that is now kept at this museum for visitors to explore. It was a specially designed ship used to explore both the artic and antarctic on different expeditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These polar expeditions typically lasted at least a year, if not several, which included one or more winters in extreme polar conditions. For her part, Hannah dislikes temperatures below 55 and likes her bed. I was touched to learn about Fridtjof Nansen, a polar explorer and polymath: he conducted important scientific research in oceanography, zoology and neurology and then went on to become the League of Nations High Commisioner for Refugees, a role for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Importantly for me, Nansen was a hero for over 300,000 Armenian refugees, for whom he helped secure special passports that were recognized by 52 countries and enabled Armenians to move around the world and establish new lives after having been dispossessed by the Turks. Today, there is a statue of him in Yerevan.

The Oslo Opera House tour was enlightening because it clarified just what a tremendous exercise it is to put on an opera or ballet. The tour took us through the entire facility, including the workshops for costumes and sets (everything is made on site at this Opera house), the prepatory stages where sets are kept during the performance, as well as the auditorium itself. The floorplan of the facility epitomizes this: only a fraction of the space is used for the audience and the stage that the audience sees and experiences. Most of the space is stuff the audience never sees and probably doesn't think about.

On our way to dinner last night, we wandered though a more bohemian neighorbood set beside a creek. Many of the formerly industrial buildings had been converted into cafes, restaurants and performance spaces. Street art covered the walls and one cafe had placed a large inflatable phallic "swan" in the creek to while away the long days.