105 lines
8.2 KiB
Markdown
105 lines
8.2 KiB
Markdown
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title: "Week 8, Sunday: Oslo Museum Reviews"
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date: 2024-09-22T21:55:00+02:00
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---
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{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/pordan.png" alt="Credit: Pordán Krisztián, YouTube" >}}
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The average Norwegian hotel really, really likes their breakfast. This morning I did not put on an
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alarmclock, because today is "our" cultural day, in which we take a good look at the museums in and
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around Oslo. Visiting Norsk museums is best done on a full stomach so I eat some bread with soft-boiled
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eggs, sausages and bacon. The Thon hotel also has _Nespresso_ coffee, which is great! A few eggs and
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bacon later, I'm ready to _pwn_ this city. We splurge on a 24h public transit pass, so that we won't
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have to think about tickets for the rest of the day.
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The game plan is to go up to _Frogner_ park, where the [[Bymuseet](http://www.oslomuseum.no/)] opens
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at 11:00. Before going there, we stroll through the park in a drizzle of rain to look at Vigeland's
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statues. He made hundreds of statues out of bronze and stone, and the theme is all human bodies in
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all sorts of configurations. Babies, toddlers (including the famous _Angry Boy_), girls and boys,
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men and women, elderly, and sometimes some stranger things like lizards and monsters. The statues
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are all _au naturelle_ (which is to say: naked). I really really like how precise they model the
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human anatomy. At the North-West end of the park, _The Wheel Of Life_ is a magnificent three meter
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bronze ring-formed statue. The _Monolith_ is a twenty meter high column of human bodies in stone. Mr
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_Vigeland_ also made a large bowl held up by four men. My personal favorite is the bridge lined with
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bronze larger-than-life statues.
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We arrived at 11:15 at the Oslo Museum, which is for the best because our coats are starting to get
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heavy with rain. The museum tells us the story of Oslo and Christiania, the big fire of 1624, the
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contrasts between the working class and the upper class in Christiania, the trade of timber and
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other stories of the city as it formed into what we are visiting today. There's also a few really
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nice paintings in an adjacent building. There's very finely detailed oil on canvas, a few less tidy
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sketches and a few more random ones in acryllic.
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From the Oslo Museum, we walk through the park -- still in the rain -- to the Vigeland museum, which
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is free of charge. We learn all about this artist, and how he was able to make such a vast
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assortment of statues (spoiler: he had a crew!). I also see how his style changed over the years,
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some more realistic, some more grandiose, and some more bizarre, but always depicting the human
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form. My favorite is the one with the young girls (see below); they look cheeky as if they have a
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secret to hide, and they ain't telling, nuh-uhh!
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After we leave the Vigeland museum, we grab the bus line 30 to Bygdøy, which has a few more
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museums to enjoy: Fram, the Norwegian Maritime, and the Kon-Tiki museums. We buy a ticket for all
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three, and read all about the expeditions to the South Pole, the North Pole, including the epic race
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between Amundsen and Scott at the South Pole. I never knew this: that Nansen and his crew
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used the _Fram_ to proove a theory: that they could let the _Fram_ freeze itself into the ice, and
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travel on a drift on the underlying ocean currents. The original ship was preserved and this museum
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was built _around it_. We walked through the inside of the ship and saw how the crew lived during
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their three to five year expeditions.
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Just across the road, the Maritime museum shows stories of boat-making and sailing the high seas. We
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saw a copy of the Royal Caribbean _* of the seas_ cruise ships, which we have sailed on before.
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There's also a set of stories on how the vikings used to make their boats. Overall, there's a lot of
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technical detail and stats about the various boats and ships and the history of sea-faring.
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Then, just next to the Fram museum is yet another cool story telling muesum: the Kon-Tiki is a
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**raft** built from balsawood and twine/rope, which Heyerdahl built as he was interested in
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demonstrating the possibility that ancient people from the Americas could have colonized Polynesia.
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He built this raft and in 101 days, used the ocean currents and trade winds to sail from Peru to
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Polynesia in the 1940s. What a story! We sit down in the video room and I'm blown away by the
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narration -- of Thor Heyerdahl himself! -- on how they made the trek. Unfortunately, our video
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watching is interrupted at 16:52 because the museum is about to close. `trombone.wav`, we'll have to
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finish this another time!
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We make our way back to the hotel, where we try to decide what to eat. We're both a bit peckish, but
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we spend waaaaay too long deciding. Finally, I let Marina choose one-of-three: 1) Sato Japanese
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noodle house, 2) Chez Colin frenchie, or 3) Posthallen, a steakhouse around the corner. "Not Steak"
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is quickly muttered, after which the menu for Sato and Chez Colin is inspected. "Noodles it is". We
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make our way to Sato, who inform us that we will need to wait 45min and order at the counter. That's
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a bit too rigid for me, and I decide to bounce.
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It so happens that just across the street, there's an indian place called _Natraj Tandoori_ and we
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beg for a table. It's fabulous food, where we eat Naan, Papadum, shrimp, lamb and chicken. The
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dishes are really good. And it's funny how we spent 45min thinking really hard about where to go,
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but we could just as well just walk into a place, too. We should do that more often :)
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Back at the hotel at 21:00, we lazily watch Tom Cruise in Maverick, while I write up the journal for
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today and yesterday. Tomorrow I'll go find my buddy Ole and we plan to have lunch together, maybe
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hang out a bit in the city. I'm glad that he's coming to NONOG too, because that way I can make him
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answer any gnarly VPP questions :-)
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## Pictures of the Day
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{{< gallery-category >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1479.JPG" caption="One of Vigeland's statues in Frogner Park" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1481.JPG" caption="The statue of the men holding a huge fountain bowl at Frogner Park" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1483.JPG" caption="An overview of Frogner park" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/oslomuseum.png" caption="The Oslo city museum called Bymuseet" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1489.JPG" caption="Vigeland's earlier work - very realistic statue of two old men" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1491.JPG" caption="An overview of Vigeland's stone statues, the ones that have been recast into bronze in Frogner park we just visited earlier" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1492.JPG" caption="One of my favorites - these cheeky girls are hiding a secret, but what is it?" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1493.JPG" caption="The monolith statue in a scaled down sketch" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1495.JPG" caption="An overvierw of the bay from Bygdøy's Fram museum" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1497.JPG" caption="Fram museum. This building was built around the original expedition ship Fram" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1500.JPG" caption="A maquette of the Fram captured in ice, floating along the ocean currents in the artic" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1502.JPG" caption="The ships in those days were pretty low. Marina just fits under the beams, and I just fit under the ceiling." >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1503.JPG" caption="The original Kon-Tiki raft made out of twine and balsa wood. It crossed the pacific from Peru to Polynesia!" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1504.JPG" caption="Another raft, which unfortunately we could not explore because the museum closed and we got kicked out!" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1506.JPG" caption="We are treated to a feast of food from the Tandoor; prawns, lamb and chicken" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1507.JPG" caption="The Ruter clock at Oslo Sentralstasjon, at night it's nicely lit" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-22/IMG_1508.JPG" caption="We write Quinn a postcard and Marina dutifully puts it in the mail. If it doesn't arrive, here's proof that we at least tried!" >}}
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{{< /gallery-category >}}
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{{< gallery-modal >}}
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{{< gallery-script >}}
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