When I told others of my plans to visit Oslo over the Easter weekend, I got to hear 'too cold and too expensive.' As someone who has been in Scotland for close to two and a half years, the elements no longer scare me. And as an Indian who still converts to rupees before making any purchase, any place is expensive! So, I decided to risk catching a cold and running down my bank balance.....
The weather websites warned me with considerably-lower-than-Edinburgh temperatures ergo I went well clad, but apart from a bit of rain my first and last days there (to ease me out of and into Scottish weather), I got beautiful warm days of sunshine with not a cloud in the sky. I didn't even have to use a jumper....bliss..
Contrary to my expectations of efficient-and-short lines at Immigration, there was a snaking queue and the gentleman who finally had to stamp me into Norway took his sweet time in doing so. He fingered my passport (especially at the place where the lamination is beginning to come off) and asked me the usual twenty questions....why are you here? Where will you stay? When are you going back? It seemed he was just waiting for me to trip – and I finally did falter when he asked, ‘where do you stay in England?’.
I answered ‘Edinburgh’ and immediately recognised the trap he had set for me. With a ‘ha ha, got you’ look he promptly stamped my passport and then said very sweetly, ‘Edinburgh is in Scotland, not England. Welcome to Norway.’!!!!!
The first thing that struck me about Oslo - apart from the stunning blue-eyed-blondes - was the number of statues the city had – definitely the highest per capita statue count I’ve ever seen. Museums are also in excess there – and I had to really do a bit of juggling to get to the ones I wanted to see – since many were closed – and on different days of the Easter weekend.
Norway, despite its size (or lack thereof), boasts of a ridiculously high proportion of intrepid explorers. And why not? Norwegians are subjected to terrible weather six months of the year (close to darkness all the time), so they make full use of the balance 180 days of sunshine by being outdoors - skiing, snowboarding, hiking, trekking, fishing...
Fridtjof Nansen was the first person to cross Greenland on skis in the fin-de-siecle 19th-20th century and almost made it to the North Pole (on skis again) in 1895 – he is considered God in Norway, as is Roald Amundsen - who beat Robert Scott to the South Pole and was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. Amundsen's expedition to the Antarctic used the Polar-ship Fram which is housed in Vasa-like (you remember Stockholm?) museum. Fram holds the distinction of being the wooden ship to have sailed farthest north and farthest south (at the turn of the previous century).
Next to the ‘Fram-museet’ is the Kon-Tiki-Museet, which is dedicated to Thor Heyerdahl's adventures – he sailed on a raft from Peru to Polynesia (8000 kms) in 1947 to prove that in the past contact between these cultures was a possibility.
And then there were the Vikings, who controlled more than half the known world from around AD800 for circa 300 years. What I didn’t know was that Leiv Eiriksson discovered America in around AD 1000 and is said to be the first European to reach America. So much for Vespucci and Columbus.
I tried to read up on the history of Norway but it was a lot like acquainting one with the travails of Elizabeth Taylor’s marital life – there were countless unions and break-ups with other Scandinavian countries - the last break was with Sweden in 1905 when Norway ended its 91-year union with that country).
O.k. enough of history – how about some art? Edvard Munch’s ‘Scream’ (skrik) is probably the best known painting after Mona Lisa – 2 copies of this painting (both of which were, in the last 20 years, stolen, and subsequently recovered) can be found in the National Gallery of Norway and the Munch Museum.
Oslo is situated on the Oslofjorden and in the 1980s the harbourfront, Aker Brygge, was converted into a shopping, entertainment, and residential area. I’m not one for ‘modern’ architecture but I was taken aback by the ease with which the modern construction here blended with the surroundings. The harbour front is crammed with bars and restaurants – I naturally went to an Italian resto (there were no Indian ones there) and tried to immerse myself in my book but was distracted by the motley group on the table next to mine – a Middle Eastern-ish gentleman (with shoulder-length curly hair that you would expect to see on a Metallica or Iron Maiden front-man) was having an animated discussion with his companions - one of whom looked like a club manager (in a rather sharp suit) and the other one was obviously a player who would have rather been in a bar with his team-mates or a woman he would have liked to pick up. The rock-star-haired was trying really hard to sell a player to the manager but the 'manager' was more interested in his pasta. At one point the 'seller' tried to use his garlic bread to explain a superlative kick that the player in question had made (he even offered a comparison to Ronaldhino's free kick against England in the previous edition of the world cup - this level of detail only proves how seriously I was reading my book).
Food, as always, is a problem for the gastronomically parochial like me – Norwegian delicacies consist of meat, meat, and more meat - Reindeer meat, elk meat, Salmon, Cod....so it was Pizza, pasta, coffee, and beer for me....
The prominent landmarks of Oslo town are the National Theatre, the Parliament building (which was, for the duration of my 5 days there, taken over by the Tamils of Norway demanding cessation of hostilities in Sri Lanka). The main thoroughfare is Karl Johanns Gate, a mile long street that ends at the Royal Palace. Unlike its over-hyped counterpart at Buckingham palace, the changing of the guard ceremony at the Palace was (for lack of a better word) cute. There would be 3-4 guards who would, every hour, simply swap places with each other in a rather no-nonsense way - and the whole ceremony was never observed by more than 5-10 people anyways. My hotel was very close to the Palace so I was regular fixture and would often double the audience numbers by my presence. Speaking of my hotel – I was pleasantly surprised when I noted that the hotel I was staying in had an important role as a plot device in the novel I was reading (‘The Half Brother’ by Lar Christensen).
I also visited Fredrikstad – a town about 100 miles south of Oslo. The reigning King, Fredrik II got this town built in the 16th century when a nearby town was burnt down. Wish I could build a town, and name it after myself. Fredrikstad is known for its art galleries, handicrafts, and cobbled streets – however, I found it to be like a ghost town (photos will prove my suspicion) with hardly any people – but atleast the buildings and the surrounding were beautiful. However, my high point came when a Gwyneth Paltrow look-alike served me a mozzarella wrap – the best i’ve ever had in my life. Maybe it had something to do with the blueness of her eyes..
(Apr, 2009)
