Vigeland Park

While in Oslo, we visited Vigeland Park this was one of the first things I heard about when I started trying to find things to see in Oslo and it was not disapointing. Wikipedia tells me it is 80 acres and home to 212 schulptures. All of the schulptures are made of bronze or stone and all are naked. The park was beautifully landscaped to showcase this art but mostly I loved the emotions in these stone faces. Here are some of the photos I took in the park.

Oslo, Day 2

I realized Oslo was a costal city but I never thought about how much of our vacation was about to be spent on boats. Our second day became boat day. We woke early up on our boat hotel because we had made reservations for a lunch cruise thanks to our Oslo Pass. The woman who took the reservation weeks before we left told us we would need to arrice at 9:00am to pick up our tickets for a 10:30 departure. I wanted to get off to a good start so we arrived around 8:45, picked up our tickets and were instructed to wait...so much for getting an early start. With an hour to go we thought we popped into City Hall, this is where the Nobel prize is awarded and the tour was includedi n the Oslo Pass but aparently the tour starts from the back of City Hall, we entered the front and it was more difficult than we anticipated to get to the back fromt he front so we looked at the posters outlining Oslo's commitment to being a Green city and then headed outside to walk along the harbor. We popped into a shopping mall to learn that none of the stores open until 10 and returned to the waiting spot for our cruise. It is worth mentioning that the sun was shining at 9:00am and had given way to serious storm clouds and rain by the time we boarded the boat. We were able to get 2 of the last places under the deck tarp which promptly soaked half of my body. I am prod to say that we stayed outside to eat lunch when most people headed in for cover. We say across from 2 Italians, next to 2 Australians and behind us heard a brit, 2 girls from the north of Norway and a German couple, there were several Asians on our cruise as well but they sat indoors so we didn't get to determine where they were from. The lunch was a Norwegian prawn buffet. I saw photos but somehow didn't realize how much work skinning prawns actually is...and then I got a pregnant one, screaming ensued and Patrick threw it overboard to some eager sea gulls. There were several with eggs and I quickly lost my appiteite but the bread and butter was delicious.

The cruise stopped at Oslo's version of Berlin's Museum Island. It's actually not an island and the museums are spread out but the houses in this area are the nicest ones in Oslo, we sailed by a house with it's own giant budda and an amazing boat. We took in the FRAM museum and the Kontiki Museum. I learned a lot from both museums as I was not familiar with any of the voyages. The FRAM museum is a triangular building which was literally built around the boat right at teh water's edge. The rain stopped about the time we entered our first museum and my right side dried right around the time we were leaving the second museum. We stopped for a pizza dinner at a local chain called Dolly Dimples and headed back to our boat in time to avoid a second rain. We were exhausted and happy to stay in out of the rain and plan the next day.

I've been Absent...It's not about to Change

Sorry about that, I was suddenly inspired to revamp my blog and then I got really busy and despite the fact that I have alot of posts in my head, I haven't had the time to get them on here. I guess this is what happens when I don't spend any time in airports. SO many things have been happening and will each get their own posts soon (I promise). First of all, I'm officially done with my job (even though I will be working unofficially for 1/2 day on Monday) and unemployed. I won't be unemployed for long becasue I am about to begin my doctoral studies at the University of Mannheim. I'm wicked excited and a bit nervous, if you're interested you can read the CV of my soon to be boss. I've recently learned that I'll have some free time between now and my start date of October 15th and thanks to Lufthansa was able to get a cheap flight to Boston, it was such a good deal that Patrick's coming too. He likes to remind me that he gets 25 vacation days each year so he'll be putting 10 of them towards this trip and we're hoping to combine a family visit, a friend's wedding, a suprise birthday party, our own wedding venue sourcing and a New England vacation in the time that he is there. We're also hoping the Euro will remain strong against the dollar for the next month as we are both looking foward to a visit to Wrentham ;)
However, in light of the big plans we have, including a wedding and 60th birthday party next week, we are going away for the weekend. We will be visiting the Castle Neuschwanstein which is a 3 hour drive but before I leave, I'll leave you with Wikipedia's insight into the Disney Castle.