Oslo and Stockholm Syndrome

Capital Cities #4 and 5

Oslo
We arrived in Oslo, stepped off the train and were immediately assaulted by a wave of heat. A typical Scandinavian summer - or not! Apparently the high 20s we experienced while there were way warmer than they are used to. Thankfully, a light thunderstorm had just passed over Oslo when we arrived, which cooled it down a bit and gave us a delightful jandal backsplash as we walked to our accommodation.

Upon arriving at our Airbnb apartment, which looked nice and comfortable, we were informed that the floors were brand new, and were requested not to wash them. We agreed reluctantly, unsure if we would be able to suppress our all-consuming floor-washing urges.

We were treated to another thunderstorm that night, and also realised that the apartment had no curtains or blinds, which makes it a little awkward when the sun comes up at 5am. Thank goodness for sleeping masks!

The next day dawned hot and muggy, with crows cawing and bells tolling in the distance. It seemed quite last-day-of-your-lifeish. Maybe that was the terror warning preying on my mind, though - we had just learned of a security warning issued by the Norwegian government. 50 or so Norwegians had been trained in Syria as terrorists, and apparently were on their way back to Norway, and had issued threats which were deemed a real concern. Consequently, several of the typical tourist attractions were closed to the public - mainly the free ones, too! We contented ourselves with viewing them from the outside.

 The Stortinget (Parliament)

:-(

Radhus (City Hall). Yep, totally rad.

On the other hand, the buses were all crowded, mainly thanks to the Oslo football tournament we mentioned in our last post. Often two football teams would try to cram themselves onto an already rather full bus, and everyone would end up uncomfortably close to one another, so if a terrorist was going to attack public transport, the buses would be a good option. (By good option I mean bad option. It would be terrible.)

Happily, though, we were there on a Sunday, the day of the week the National Gallery has free admission. We saw Edvard Munch’s “Scream”, amongst other works by Norwegian artists, and tried to work out why it’s such a renowned painting.

We visited our first International Church that day, so were able to enjoy a sermon in English. Thank goodness for expats, and for English being the lingua franca.

We also walked up onto the roof of the Opera House, which is an activity we can recommend.

The opera house and its roof

The next day we made good our time with visits to four attractions, starting with the Akershus Fortress. We had quite an interesting tour around the place, which is still in use for state ceremonies.

 A loooong room in Akershus Fortress

One thing we’ve noticed about Scandinavia is the boats. Boats everywhere. It makes sense when you see the countries, though, filled with and surrounded by bodies of water, so it’s not really surprising that they’ve produced such epic (saga-worthy even) boats.

Look at the size of that thing!

The ships themselves were unearthed in the 1800s. They are huge, beautiful things, and seeing the actual boats in all their restored glory really gave me an appreciation for their great size. You can almost imagine how it would feel watching a handful of these gliding down the river bristling with Vikings. Unfortunately the period in which they were dug up means the conservation techniques used haven’t actually helped the artifacts, and they’re disintegrating from the inside out. Go and see them while you still can!!

Continuing the boat theme, we also visited the Kon Tiki museum. For those of you who don’t know the Thor Heyerdahl story, here’s the Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl), but basically he investigated some (probably erroneous) anthropological ideas, and undertook daring experimental voyages across oceans in boats made out of papyrus, or balsa wood, sailing across the Atlantic and from South America to the Pacific islands respectively. Whether or not his ideas are true, he’s one of the legends of modern adventures, and the Kon Tiki museum was a great look at the boats he used, the initial scoffing of his contemporaries and the challenges his crews faced on their epic journeys.

Ra 2 - sailed from Morocco to the Caribbean

Kon-Tiki - sailed from Peru to French Polynesia

Oslo also has the Vigeland Sculpture park, full of statues made by the one guy. They're all nude statues, except for the self-portrait statue (which we didn't actually see). The statues seem to depict the range of human experience, often violent, although one depicted a fight between a man and a handful of infants, which I can't imagine is part of the human experience all that often.

Straining figures hold up the fountain bowl.

The centrepiece: a column of writhing naked human figures (taken from afar, out of respect for their modesty).

At this park there also happened to be a Kongoland exhibition. The purpose of the exhibition is to promote discussion by recreating Kongoland - basically a zoo for humans that actually existed in Oslo a mere 100 years ago, as part of the wider 1914 Jubilee Exhibition, celebrating the centennial of the 1814 constitution. In the original exhibition, they brought Africans, ostensibly from the Congo, to put them on show like curios by supposedly recreating a village in Africa. In the current exhibition, they had called for volunteers to populate the various huts and buildings. This exhibition has attracted some controversy, with some commentators asserting it was perpetuating the very racism and objectification it sought to condemn, but it informed me about an event I hadn’t ever heard of before - and a relatively recent one, too!

All in all, we really enjoyed our time in Oslo, and liked the city, despite the criminally expensive prices. Also, cliffhanger resolution: we ended our stay there having successfully contained both of our raging floor-washing inner beasts.

Stockholm

The bus to Stockholm took about 8 hours. Buses in this part of the world are pretty nice, especially the long-haul ones. Most of them have wifi and a power outlet, which on an 8-hour trip is very useful. If the internet works, that is.

Upon our arrival in Stockholm, it became apparent that John’s bag wasn’t going to make it any further. Ever since, well, Canada, we’d been expecting the wheels to give out on it. Once we hit Stockholm, though, they finally did. John now discovered that carrying the bag on his back was uncomfortable and far too heavy, too. Here’s a tip if anyone wants to follow in our footsteps - don’t buy a bag off Trademe for $11 and expect it to last for six months of rolling over cobbled streets.

We didn’t actually do too much in Sweden, other than get a replacement bag for John, and wander around the atmospheric Old Town looking at all the buildings and the goods for sale. Mostly this was because John was unwell for both days we were there, as well as a couple of days on either side. In fact, he had a man cold (which is just a regular cold that a man has). We got through it though, just like we made it through Norway under security alert.

St George slaying the dragon in Stockholm's Gamla Stan (Old Town).

One thing we did manage to see was the changing of the guard at the Palace - such a great ceremony! There was marching, and the Swedish Navy band playing, and much pomp.

Another notable sight was the royal chapel, probably the fanciest building I’ve ever seen, which we weren’t allowed to take photos of. Such a lavish interior. You know how some things are so fancy that they’re garish? This one was far fancier than that, which pushed it into the realm of the magnificent.

We also visited Ikea, since it seemed like an appropriate thing to do in Sweden. There’s a free bus that takes you from the central station to an Ikea on the outskirts of town. We scored some free stubby pencils, and wandered around looking at things, almost all of which would be completely impractical to bring back.

Finally, we completed our boat education at the Historical Museum, which featured more information on Vikings, including a reconstruction of a Viking town, as well as a walk through Swedish history and a section on prehistoric finds.

From Stockholm, we caught a ferry on the appropriately-named Viking Lines across to Finland (incidentally, getting up at 5am to do so). The nice man at the check-in counter asked where we were from, and told us to send him a postcard! Dude - a) my postcards are precious things; I don’t just strew them round everywhere, and b) the principal objection: I don’t even know your name.

Anyway, what Viking Lines seems to be trying to do is make the ferry trip more like a cruise, so you can book cabins (which would come in handy on an overnight voyage) and they have entertainment options.

We were able to sit in an area that had a power outlet. This area also had the dance floor, so we were treated to a soundtrack with pop songs (first time I’ve heard “Waterloo” in Swedish!), then live music by a Finnish band, then a bingo game, followed by Finnish karaoke. For the first song or two I couldn’t tell if this was a proper performance still or not, as the singers were just about as good as the band that had been playing, but by the middle it was abundantly clear it was karaoke. It was kinda like being back in the train to Oslo with the wailing teenagers. Neither of us decided to join in on the karaoke session - they didn’t seem to have any songs in English.

Never mind - the ferry ride was only 11 hours long!!!

We passed mighty close to lots of islands in the Swedish-Finnish archipelago!

- Special thanks to John, with whom I harmoniously wrote this blog post.