- Two cultural gems on the outskirts of the city: Viking Ship Museum, is just across the street from the Norsk Folk Museum.
- See the opera house and perhaps an opera, and try to catch the water taxi.
At 4:30am I
popped out of bed. Dressed and
bags zipped in five minutes, Stephen helped me with the stubborn handle that came
right off the front door. I jogged
down a hill and over to the bus station.
Even with a ticket, the FlyBus is
first-come-first-serve, so I wanted to secure a seat. At the airport, I made a beeline for the coffee stand. A
warm, crispy, buttery croissant with ham and cheese was only about $4 (come on,
not bad for an airport), and was perfect, along with my grocery store
yogurt. In the terminal, I found
some decent duty-free wine for my friends Katie and David, who’d host me in
Oslo. I splurged an extra $3 for
D.O.C. Chianti instead of the cheapest screw-top bottle. (Katie had mentioned the high import
tax on alcohol was putting a crimp in their imbibing.)
All this
time and about two hours into the flight it was still pitch black. A tinge of red sunrise crept up the
opposite side of the plane. When
we landed it was snowing, everything in sight was white and gray pines. I sucked up the $30 for Flytoget,
the fast train, only twenty minutes to Oslo Central Station.
Katie and
David’s apartment was included as part of his gig at the opera: all Ikea
furniture, modern, tasteful, spacious rooms, even a picture window and little
balcony with a view of the hills outside town. Katie gave me a tour of the city center and we had coffee
and carrot cake to warm up (yes, I wore layers, but I hate wearing a hat).
I was eager
to see the local grocery stores.
Katie warned me (this fact was later confirmed by actual Norwegians)
that the cheap grocery store meat is kind of bad (looking, smelling, tasting). Visit a butcher for good meat, if you
must; but really this is the land of fish, and individual portions of frozen
salmon and cod are widely available and favorably priced. I got some Snøfrisk goat cheese, weird
rose-flavored hard cider, and we used the automatic slicer on a loaf of grainy bread.
We were
headed to the Folkemuseum, and planned
to ride a tall ship ferry that cruises downtown over to the museum district, in
Bygdøy. At the Opera house, one of
the boat’s stops, 10 minutes ahead of schedule, we watched as the boat slowly
motored up, did a slow U-turn and never came to the pier! So we took the bus instead.
The
Folkemuseum includes an exhibit building with antique furniture, clothes,
jewelry, and other artifacts, and large grounds with a semi-reconstructed town
of old buildings. There was a
tavern, a bank, a pharmacy, and a townhouse with period rooms from 1890, 1960,
and 1970, to highlight the glories of Scandinavian design. Further afield lay a grouping of
little, low log farmhouses and barns.
In summer there are craft demonstrations and historical re-enactors, but
we enjoyed having it almost entirely to ourselves, the country-like land
blanketed with snow.
The Vikingskiphuset
(Viking ship museum) is just across the
street. The building’s sleek
modern design and whitespace is in fascinating juxtaposition to its contents. I was stunned by the age and carving of
the wood. Found in the late 1800s,
two large ships, three canoe-sized boats, a carriage, carved staves, scraps of
tapestry, and decorative metal buried with the ships as part of a funeral
ceremony were built about 800-850 AD.
The oak boards are anciently black, preserved with pine pitch.
 |
| The museum's modern design offsets the ancient ships. |
We took the
bus back downtown to the famous Frogner park, home to the Vigeland Sculpture
Arrangement and museum. The park
contains more than 200 bronze and granite sculptures. The park is in an upper-class neighborhood with some large
individual homes, and high-end stores, a butcher, and gorgeous cafes. It was early dusk and we walked through
the trails past families and strollers and cross-country skiers. The statues are of people in all stages
of life—average, plain-faced, naked people expressing emotions and actions. The sun faded yellow and pink as we
walked over the grand bridge to the central fountain.
 |
| Pinky dusk at Frogner park. |
Delicious
inexpensive Indian food abounds near the central train station. We banished the cold outdoors with
tikka masala and pakora, drank wine, chatted and grew sleepy. But Katie prevailed upon me to go to
Oslo’s newest super-cool destination: the Ice Bar. It is,
we read, the hip place to be. $25
gets you a 45-minute “session,” which must be reserved ahead of arrival (or at
least an hour earlier from your apartment). The gel-haired attendants put a big furry cloak on you and
you get a drink ticket for a very good fruity mixed drink served in a big cube
of ice with a hole drilled in.
It’s Tuesday night, 10pm…and the place is empty. They still carefully time our admission
and politely dismiss us after 45 minutes.
But there are intricate ice sculptures, ice benches, ice tables: it’s a
dimly-lit ice palace of a bar. I
kept touching the wall and melting it a little.
 |
| Artwork in ice. |
The next
day, we started to the castle and the fortress. I knew the castle would be closed, but it was still neat to
see the old, thick walls of stone.
Battlements, cannons, and goose-stepping soldiers commanded views over
the harbor.
Then, we
failed again to take a ferry. The
docks were industrial and it was hard to imagine a little tourist boat motoring
between the cruise ship and the fish loading equipment. Instead, we visited the National Gallery, which is the perfect size museum—a bit of
everything European from Greek busts to modernism, with extra emphasis on
Norwegian painters. There were
some utterly beautiful landscapes, a Van Gough portrait, “The Scream,” and lots
of snowy fjords. We spent a
pleasant hour seeing it all.
We were pretty chilled being out all day, but in
Grünerløkka, creamy cauliflower soup with bacon and garlicky potato wedges with
aioli were the perfect remedy. Grünerløkka’s success as a bohemian neighborhood
with character—a square flanked by great looking restaurants, funky independent
shops, filled with students—is fending off gentrification. We admired scarves and tapas and the
last of the fading light.
Then, the
major event, the reason why any of us were there: opera! Katie lent me a gorgeous cashmere
sweater and boots to go with my dress, and lingered over her make-up until it
really was time to go. We rushed
to the opera house, a jewel-box of diamond light
at night, the glass shimmered like the water beside it. Our tardiness was a boon—we were led to
box seats so as not to disturb the row of our ticketed seats. I loved being close to the stage, you
could see singers’ expressions and into the orchestra pit (the orchestra
sounded fantastic). The show was a
modern staging of La bohème and featured
some odd concepts. We went up to
David’s dressing room at intermission and caught glimpses of people in costume
but, of course, out of character.
Mimi, no longer ill, chatting on her cell phone; manly Schaunard
carefully reapplies his mascara and rouge. After the show, Katie and I hurried home so I could change
and get to my overnight train from Oslo to Bergen.
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