Oslo

Part 2 of my Scandinavian journey was a wonderful week in Oslo...

I'll try to remember all the details of my trip, but since I've been back for a week already, the events may have become a little out of order. Bear with me here.

The first day in Oslo, we went to the Folkemuseet which  was a huge open-air museum complete with old wooden buildings with grass on the roofs and traditional dances in the courtyard.  The Stave Church (above) was built in the 1100s and the dragons perched above the gables show how some aspects of paganism stuck even as Norwegian religion changed to Christianity.

After the open-air museum, we walked over to the Viking Ship Museum.  Even more amazing than I had expected.   These ships were built somewhere around 800 a.d! Un.believeable.  

And the museums kept coming.  We walked to the Kon-Tiki Museum where we saw the reed boats that Thor Heyerdahl made for his historic journeys, and Kon-Tiki, a balsa raft that he sailed from Peru all the way to Polynesia.  

The next day, we walked to the palace, and enjoyed the hot weather (minus the nasty Minneapolis humidity).

Next, the sculpture park, snapping a picture in front of a pouty baby, that's very famous, apparently. 

The hot, sunny day suddenly turned into a downpour.  We huddled under the trees for shelter, but then just decided to embrace the rain and view the rest of the park.

Day 3 in Olso (I think...) We drove to a beach on a beautiful fjord.  Crowded, but beautiful.   On the way back, I even managed to drive the wrong way on a one way exiting a roundabout.  I'm sure our parents in the car behind us nearly had a heart attack when I quickly put the car back into reverse and drove back into the roundabout.

Finally, the day came when we had to say goodbye to Kari and Katie. :(

Our wonderful host family was back to work on Monday, so we walked over to the Munch museum.  It was one of the most interesting art museums I have been to yet, started with a documentary of Edvard Munch's life and followed by a collection of very interesting paintings.  This was my favorite, surprisingly not his painting,The Scream.

Finally, we walked through the botanical gardens that were near the munch museum.

The next day, we headed out bright and early at 4:00 am to catch our flights, Dad going back to Minneapolis, and Mom and I to Finland.