Subtitle: Faith and I wandered around downtown Oslo one day. It
was cool, overcast, and occasionally rainy, but a good day to explore
the city.
I was in Oslo from May 21-24, 2015.
Other pages from the Norway trip:
000-DSC_7673: Rear Window outdoor art by Marisa Ferreira by the
Central Station (from Feb-Aug 2015).
001-DSC_7674: Some big pink flowerpots (why am I now sensitive to
words that use the Germanic-style smash-multiple-words-together construction?)
a couple blocks from the train station.
002-DSC_7675: Faith and a sculpture of Arne Skarpeno the "father of the
street children" who helped homeless people. Faith wanted the picture because
he looked like her father, including the baseball cap.
003-DSC_7676: A triangular (technically pyramidal) sculpture near a church.
003-triangle_Panorama: The triangle and the church.
004-DSC_7681: Another sculpture by the church that is a bible quote on
faith, hope, and charity (love?), and written on the heart in Norwegian
and English continues the verse with "but the greatest of all is love."
Faith mentioned that at a very young age she took personal offense to
that verse.
005-DSC_7682: More sculptures, on the side of the church. Some sort of
eagle and alligator eating a poor shmoe. Guess here must have been
more alligators in Norway back in the day...
006-DSC_7684: The door of the church. Faith thought the engravings might
relate to the Sermon on the Mount, which basically I know almost little
about and am not going to bother to look it up, so I'll just assume
she's right.
007-DSC_7685: A statue of Christan IV a king of Denmark (and Norway) from
the late 1500s through half of the 1600s. I don't think he normally had
a pigeon on his head.
008-DSC_7686: A fountain with statues of three, count them, three(!) chickens.
009-DSC_7689-header: The National Theater
009-DSC_7689: The National Theater and a statue of Bjornson, another
bepigeoned figure, who, I assume is a famous theater person (yes, his
name is one of the three engraved onto the theater, I must admit I've
only heard of Ibsen).
010-DSC_7690: Pretty flowers by the National Theater.
011-DSC_7691: Colorful tulips. There were many pretty, colorful tulips all
around Oslo. You'd think people might be a little weary of those flowers
what with all the fallout from the Tulip Mania in 1637, but apparently
they still love those flowers, or perhaps they've moved past the
economic havoc they wrought. Note: yes, I looked up information on flowers,
and market crashes, but not writers, kings, and religion.
012-DSC_7692:
013-DSC_7693: Cool patterns of flowers near the national theater.
014-DSC_7694:
015-DSC_7696: Angry flowers!!! They have teeth.
016-DSC_7698: I had to test them to see how sharp they were. (Actually,
they weren't.)
017-DSC_7700: A fountain outside of the National Theater.
018-DSC_7701-header: The Royal Place
018-DSC_7701:
018-DSC_7701:
019-DSC_7707: Royal Place Guards guarding the Royal Palace (royally). They
were not like the Buckingham Palace guards that don't move. They do
mini-patrols, turn, and so on.
020-DSC_7710: The view from the palace looking back down to downtown Oslo.
It was a little gray and rainy...
021-DSC_7711: ...but there were trees in bloom!
022-DSC_7712: I was in Europe. There was a sign on the building. The sign
indicated that it was a Euro-sign in case I had forgotten either of those two
facts. Clearly, this is the work of Captain Obvious!
023-DSC_7713:
024-DSC_7714: I don't really know what this sign means. My guess is that
it's warning people that the only way to escape evil robots that fire
multiple missiles is with a noxious blast from a particularly potent fart. It
might also possibly be used as a form of thrust. Also, notice the fart cloud
with eyes in the bottom right of the yellow sign.
025-DSC_7715: Cool sculpture outside of the Oslo Concert House (Konserthus).
026-DSC_7719: I have no idea what that was, just some puddle of spooge-like
substance that may some day become a towering stalagmite. Faith's
hand is there as a size reference.
027-DSC_7722: Another shot of the artwork outside of the Concert House.
028-DSC_7726: Tulips!
029-DSC_7728: The Oslo City Hall from the back/water side.
030-DSC_7730: Art by the waterfront, a silver liquid-metal Terminator T-1000
looking diver.
031-DSC_7732: A close-up of the silver diver state with various reflections
of me wearing my red rain jacket visible.
032-DSC_7734: Statues in front of the City Hall depicting workers working
doing their hauling, lifting, and manly man stuff.
033-DSC_7741: Electric cars plugged in in a street in Olso.
034-DSC_7742: More electric cars.
035-DSC_7743: Faith by a twisted, gnarled lilac tree.
036-DSC_7744:
037-DSC_7745: The Oslo parlaiment building.
038-DSC_7746: A lilac tree that was pretty twisted and gnarled and looked
like it had a troll-face in it.
039-DSC_7747: I figured I'd join in on the troll-facing in support of the
tree.
040-DSC_7751: More pretty lilac trees.
041-DSC_7752:
044-DSC_7755-header: Downtown Oslo
044-DSC_7755-headertext:
044-DSC_7755:
045-DSC_7756:
046-DSC_7757: Pretty flowers.
047-DSC_7758: More pretty flowers. No, I'm not channeling Rorschach
from The Watchmen.
048-DSC_7880:
049-DSC_7881:
050-DSC_7882:
051-DSC_7883: An older couple in traditional dress.
052-DSC_7884: The Hand Fountain is in the Kvadraturen (quadrature) area,
named for the rectangular street pattern. After a big fire in 1624, King
Christian IV (of Denmark and Norway) decided to rebuild the town and pointed
to that spot saying "The new town will lie here!" My theory
was that the Norwegians really liked Thing from The Adams Family.
054-DSC_7887: There were a number of people I saw downtown wearing
traditional Norwegian costumes. I don't know if there was an event or
some sort of tourist thing. Actually, given that there were people
of various ages in traditional dress, it seemed like more of an event
than a tourist thing. It was Saturday around 1pm, so it probably was
not them going to church. I don't know.
055-cityhall_Panorama: Oslo City Hall (Oslo rådhus), an iconic twin-towered
building across the street from the water.
055-DSC_7888: This was a pretty building with a nice garden in front of it.
I took the picture through the wrought iron gate.
056-DSC_7889-header: The Opera House
056-DSC_7889-headertext: The Oslo Opera House (Operahuset) was built
in 2007, sits on the edge of the water, has angled walls that allow
visitors to walk up to the roof and enjoy the view of Oslo, and is
covered with Italian marble and white granite, giving it a striking
appearance. It seems to be trying to out-Syndey-Opera-House the
Syndey Opera House, and is certainly in the running.
056-DSC_7889: The streetside view of the Oslo Opera House.
057-DSC_7890: The side of the opera house plus the glass and steel
sculpture called She Lies.
058-DSC_7973:
059-DSC_7974: A big cememt tube sat on the beach area next to the Opera House.
060-DSC_7975: For some reason people needed to walk in it and have their
picture taken.
061-DSC_7977: So did I, striking a pose.
062-DSC_7978: And in a dramatic silhouette too!
063-DSC_7979: The front enterance to the Opera House with a statue on the
left side of the picture and an ice cream stand on the right side (they had
good ice cream).
064-DSC_7980: Looking back at the cememt photo-tube.
065-DSC_7981: A statue of Kirsten Flagstad, a world-renown, and Norway's
most famous, opera singer is at the front of the Oslo Opera House.
066-DSC_7982:
067-DSC_7985: Looking up the ramp with me waving at the top like a loony.
068-DSC_7986: A white metalic wall on the roof.
069-DSC_7987: A view of the metalic wall on the roof.
070-DSC_7994: Faith was talking on the phone to the apartment owner's
boyfriend arranging how we'd get the key back to him. So I set my camera
on timer-mode and posed. I think she was amused...at least a little...
071-DSC_7996: Frank doing his version of the "Despicable Me"
shadow, even though he had not seen the movie.
072-DSC_7997: The view of She Lies from the top of the Opera House.
073-DSC_7998: A view of the bay/inlet/water by Oslo from the Opera House
074-DSC_7999:
075-DSC_8000: Just beyond the Oslo Opera House there was some sort of
running event going on. We saw people going there which was the end
of the race.
076-DSC_8001: Everybody was kunk-fu fighting...
077-DSC_8002: Those kids were fast as lightning...
078-DSC_8003: It was a little bit frightning... (So, some dude was practicing
his Tai Chi on the top of the roof. Not sure if this was his normal thing or
if he just wanted attention. I figured it was OK to take his picture since
he was in a very public space. I thought about editing the picture so it
looked like he was projecting a mystic fireball at the woman in the background
who appears to be floating in the air.)
079-DSC_8004:
080-DSC_8005: View of downtown Oslo from the roof of the Oslo Opera House.
081-DSC_8006: She still lies (and a cruise ship in the background)...