We woke to dark skies and drizzle, with a forecast of hard rain all day. Our first destination upon leaving the flat was to get Daddy to a doctor. We spoke by phone with the owner of our flat and got his advice. We could go to the municipal hospital for free care, but probably wait for hours on end, or pay to go to a private clinic (which might not be covered by our insurance). Daddy opted to go to the private clinic, so after some internet research and map consultation, we headed to the bus stop.
According to the Reuter website, we should have been able to buy our bus passes there, but the clerk said they no longer sold them, but maybe another Joker store up the hill might. Daddy took off up a long path and about 100 stairs before finally turning around in anger. "Just up the hill" probably meant a mile away to the young immigrant clerk.
Like many European big-city transit systems you were expected to buy your tickets before boarding. If you didn't get them from a kiosk or machine, you could do what most people were now doing: buy one via SMS with your mobile phone. To buy a ticket from the driver there was a service fee added. The kids were free on the weekend, which was great, but tickets for us cost 30 NOK + a 20 NOK service fee, each.
When the bus arrived I pled my case to the driver and he just waved us on. We got off the bus at a major hub with tram and metro connections and I thought for sure we could buy passes there. Finally I located a machine, but it was either for topping up the card you already had, or buying single ride tickets. To get a multi-day card we had to buy one... somewhere else.
I finally found a transit worker who informed me that cards could be purchased at most convenience stores / newstands, and sure enough, the one nearby had just what we needed. New cards in hand, we caught the underground toward the private clinic.
We left daddy at the medical clinic and the girls and I walked through the large cemetery toward Frogner park, which is full of Vigelund statutes.
The girls spent a lot of time looking at the tombstones, calculating how old people were when they died, and pondering their names. The oldest person we found, during our 20 minutes walking just a small section of the immense cemetery, was 105 years old.
The rain increased as we left the cemetery and headed across the street to the park. The girls noticed a playground associated with a barnehage (childcare) and despite the wetness had to play for a few minutes. I watched dogs in a nearby dog agility park, being led through the jumps and tunnels by the treat-bearing owners. There was a well-tended vegetable garden in the middle of the park - not sure if it was put in by the barnehage or the parks department or volunteers.
By the time we got to the sculptures it was around noon and the girls were whining for food. I ignored them and focused on the beauty of the sculptures, some in stone, others in bronze.
All the subjects were completely naked, and some in rather scandalous poses for that era.
There were a lot of mother and child sculptures, some aspects of which felt rather familiar to me.
The rain brought an interesting dimension to the already intense expressions on some of the sculptures.
All body types, ages, and moods were represented. Looking at some of the sculptures you longed to know what Vigeland was saying. What was the relationship supposed to be between these two elderly women? Their expressions are so intense. One could easily jump to conclusions that they were lovers, but remember that ALL the sculptures were nude, so they could have been sisters at a gravesite, or neighbors hiding in a cellar together during a war. I'd like to find out more about each sculpture, and if Vigeland explained any of them.
I asked the girls to find the sculpture that most reminded them of themselves. Aubrietta chose this one.
This was my choice (of several, actually, since there were a lot of mother and child ones I felt connected to).
We were lucky enough to run into Daddy at the park, having decided earlier when we left him at the clinic to just meet up at the end of the day. We looked around the park a little longer, bought sandwiches from the park's cafe, then hopped a tram. The girls and I got off and picked up a little more food from a grocery (the sandwiches were not enough for them), and then caught a bus to the Bygdoy peninsula to go to the Norwegian Folk Museum. Daddy headed to the Norwegian Resistance Museum and the Maritime Museum, both of which were a disappointment.
The girls and I arrived at the Folk Museum just in time for the rain to turn to a downpour.
Thank goodness I brought our "garbage bag" ponchos along. Even with them, we got soaked.
Because of the rain, most things were cancelled. Kelsey really wanted to do the horse and buggy ride, but it was raining too hard for even the horses to be out.
We found a lady in costume making Lefse, a traditional flatbread. We bought some, still hot and smoky from the fire, and slathered it with butter, as is recommended.
All was good until Aubrietta's mouth started swelling. Although there were no nuts or seeds, there were several types of flour used, and we're begining to suspect she has some new grain allergies as well. Thankfully a pill (that I always carry) was all she needed, and no rush to the hospital for breathing assistance this time. We've learned on this trip that there are a lot of foods she is reacting to, even after careful label reading to ensure none of her known allergens are in it.
Kelsey happily finished off Aubrietta's Lefse, and also shared a few crumbs with the birds. We took shelter on the porch of one of the closed houses during a downpour, and Kelsey looked so pathetic in her poncho, totally soaked below the knees.
One of the homes that was open was a 200+ year old farm house that had been recently redecorated to look as if it might have in 1959, a time of many new modern conveniences, but still far enough away in history for children to be in awe of. I reminded the girls that their daddy was their age in this era, and that put a whole new perspective on it.
Inside the house the "farmer's wife" had the kids do crafts and needlework around the kitchen table. The premise was that with all the new appliances making the farm wife's workload lighter, she now had more time to spend with her children, and the children had more time for leisure instead of endless chores. The girls loved the interaction with the farm wife and spent well over an hour there, while I explored some other old buildings on my own.
The stone foundation and sod roof of this simple building was lovely.
This is the interior of a small 1-room guest cottage built in 1800 in Telemark, Norway. A wealthy farmer had a famous artist paint the entire interior - ceiling, walls, furniture.
It has been at the Norsk Folk Museum since 1910!
A newer installation is an entire tenement building, relocated from central Oslo, and redecorated to depict life in the building at different times in history. Each apartment was from a different era, and descriptions of who might have lived there -- from a multigenerational imigrant family to an old widow -- was explained in detail.
The girls liked this children's bedroom from the Victorian era.
They also could see themselves living in this late 1950's children's room.
Off to another part of the museum that has little shops, they found the weaving and knitting shop, and each girl bought a "knitting nancy," even though Kelsey really wanted that loom you see in the photo. I had to say no, since it wouldn't fit in the luggage.
We caught a little folk dance presentation. Since it was raining, it was just two dancers, and indoors. During nice weather there are many more dancers on hand.
We got to go inside a real "Stave" church. It is as dark inside as you might imagine, and although the architecture was impressive (especially for the era), it wasn't the kind of place I would go to feel closer to God.
We told daddy we'd meet him back at the apartment aby 18:00, so after buying some fruit and veg at a produce stand near the museum, we got on the bus.
Back at home we found Daddy had stopped at the conveience store and had dinner underway. Boiled potatoes, peas and carrots, and a whitefish with seasoned crumb topping (baked in the oven from frozen).
It wasn't anything fancy, but it was filling and inexpensive. Daddy took another pill with dinner, that the doctor had prescribed that morning, and said his knee was already feeling remarkably better.
The rain finally stopped and the girls wanted to explore, so I took them out in search of the housing complex playground. We also discovered two playgrounds at nearby childcare / schools, but I didn't have my camera with me to document the fun they found. We'd go back again, though, so more photos tomorrow.
The girls and I returned to the flat close to 10:00pm as it started getting dark, and got ready for bed.
NEXT: Day 25 - Oslo, Norway - Sunday, July 8th
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"These two boys (nude statues by Vigeland) are staring so intently at the sky. What do they see?"
Pants floating down from the sky? :)
Lovely photos, thank you!
Posted by: Gunnar | Wednesday, 26 March 2014 at 08:47 AM