It rained hard overnight and we were awakened just after 6am to the garbage trucks collecting the trash from our building, followed shortly by the construction workers across the street cutting concrete with loud saws.
Since we'd done the Technical Museum yesterday, this was the day to go back to the Folk Museum, and it looked like the weather would be just as bad as Saturday. We should have gone yesterday. In getting ready to leave the house, we realized that one of the cameras was missing, the one that Daddy and Kelsey were sharing. It then occured to us that Kelsey had left it at the museum, so Daddy called there, and thankfully someone had turned it in to the lost and found. It would have been tragic to lose all the photos on that camera, since I hadn't uploaded photos from it to the iPad for about a week.
Daddy headed for the technical museum to retrieve the camera, and I continued getting the girls ready for the day, with plans to meet at the Folk museum at 11:30am. We caught the bus downtown, then had to stop at the Reuter office (I finally located it) to buy the girls 24 hour transit passes, since they'd been riding free on the weekend and it was now Monday. We then caught a bus to the Bygdoy peninsula, where the Folk Museum was.
When we arrived at the museum we found Daddy in the Museum's cafe (remember, all museums have a nice cafe), enjoying a waffle with strawberry jam and coffee. We joined him, then ventured back out in the rain to see more of the museum.
Just like on Saturday, it was raining hard and many of the activities were cancelled. There would be no horse carriage rides, that was for sure. We slogged around for awhile then retreated to the large indoor exhibits.
Since we weren't going to see many museum staff in costume today due to the rain, I took pictures of the exhibit about the ethnic dress, or "bunads." There were some vintage bunads behind glass on mannequins, and then photographs of people wearing modern bunads.
Aubrietta's favorite, with an owl, of course.
I prefer older men, but even I had to admit this young man was stunning.
This was another exhibit we found fascinating. 206 color photographs were taken in Norway by Albert Kahn's photographer Auguste Leon, some of the first true color photographs in the world. He also took stereographic black and white photos, documenting life in Norway in 1910.
There was a slide show of the stereographic images, with 3D glasses provided.
Another exhibit was about the native Sami people. Like the Native Americans, they've also struggled with forced assimilation, loss of land, and discrimination.
There is now a push to preserve the language and culture of the Sami people, but like in the US, much has been lost forever. Few young Sami today would choose to live in mud huts, just as few in the US, besides the Amish, wish to live as they did 100 years ago without modern conveniences.
The indoor museum also had a big exhibit with vintage toys. This doll in the sailor suit had a whole wardrobe of handmade clothes, pictured behind on hangers.
Check out this box of hand-carved, tiny wooden tools.
A board game about cross country skiing through Norway! I want to play!
Little wooden villages and animals were once a staple of the Norwegian nursery. Today kids act out similar imaginary scenes with Playmobil.
Look how happy these little girls are with their doll carriages!
Some lucky little girl enjoyed this doll, complete with kitchen, about 100 years ago.
We saw everything there was to see indoors, so we headed back outside. The rain was starting to lighten up, thankfully. I spied these three tots playing in the fountain as we came out of the indoor exhibits (big buildings in the background). The kids were dressed perfectly for the rain, with rain boots and rain suits.
Going from house to house, we stopped in for some Lefse bread as we had on Saturday, although this time we knew Aubrietta couldn't have any due to her allergies, so just Daddy and Kelsey had some.
We went to the 1959 farmhouse to find the "farmer's wife" was a different person today. On Saturday the girls had enjoyed coloring, making spinning toys with paper and string, and cross stitching. Today they could try the sewing machine, or learn to knit. Both girls were very enthusiastic to knit.
I had taught both girls knitting about 2 years ago, but they'd forgotten. Teaching Kelsey was a challenge for me since she's a Lefty so everything had to be in reverse.
We spent about an hour there, having nice conversation with the "farmer's wife." Unlike some living history museums, she was in costume, but she wasn't bound to her historical role. She told us all about her modern-day life, about her mother and grandmother knitting and how sad it was that more young women of her generation weren't learning to knit, about her travels, and about how she learned English and the Norwegian school system.
It was just this kind of casual, friendly interaction that made museums like this a favorite for our family.
Leaving the farm house, we stopped to look at the pigs. They way they root around in the mud with their noses, I'm curious how it is that their nostrils don't get so packed with muck that they can't breathe.
The rain finally stopped and we were able to catch up with the "summer school children." They have a camp program where 14 or so kids around 8 to 12 years old spend the day at the Folk Museum in costume, doing activities and bringing some youthful enthusiasm to the stoic recreations of life several hundred years ago. Kelsey and Aubrietta would just LOVE to participate in something like this, as they both are excited about history. Here the children are awaiting afternoon tea and waffles with strawberry jam. Inside the house nearby a woman in costume is cooking pancakes over a woodstove for them.
We walked back through the "Village," and explored the tenement house with 8 apartments furnished from different time periods that we saw on Saturday, then headed over to see if the folk dancers were out, now that it was no longer raining.
Hooray! We finally got to see folk dancers dancing outside! Had we come yesterday (Sunday) there would have been many of them, but since it was Monday and raining, only two were at work today. It was a great show, accompanied by authentic music on a vintage keyed string instrument.
The girls are always good at finding a comfortable perch to sit and watch a show.
Both girls we smitten by the performance, and the personable dancers who took time to talk with them afterward. It was now 17:00 and the museum staff were going home (though you could continue to walk the grounds, the buildings would be locked). We decided to head downtown and go to the "Bunad Store," where these traditional costumes were sold. There was a costume for each region of Norway, and some were more detailed that others with embroidery or design.
On the bus the girls busied themselves with their knitting.
At the Bunad store the girls were in awe, and quickly identified their favorites. A woman customer was in the process of ordering one, and pieces of embroidered cloth were laid out on the counter for her inspection. Adult Bunads are custom made to fit, whereas there were children's bunads on racks ready to go. It would have been nice to get the girls Bunads, since I know they would wear them and appreciate them, but the simplest one cost more than $1,000. USD, so it wasn't going to happen. Besides, there is no room in the suitcase. (That's my line now, when the girls want to buy stuff, or I see a sweater I want).
I loved the embroidery on this one.
Aubrietta loved these plaid Bunads. At several thousand dollars a piece, she'll just have to dream about having one.
We left the Bunad store empty handed, looked at the largest sweater store in Oslo and walked out of there without anything, either.
I was hoping to find a boiled wool hot pad (for the kitchen) that I had seen in Flam and not bought. Now I wanted one. They were handmade in Norway by Tula Tov and had interesting patterns and colors. You can see more of their designs here.
I was sure if I looked around I could find one in Oslo. Daddy and Aubrietta opted to go home, while Kelsey and I went to a downtown shopping mall. I went into every kitchen store, design store, home goods store, and gift store, but none of them had it. I rarely suffer from "non-buyer's remorse," but now I was. Oh well, maybe I could make something like it when I got home.
We also stopped at a toy store. It was just a cheap toy store, not a boutique toy store specializing in all wood toys, or just educational toys. Even so, I was surprised at the small amount of "war toys" and "pink plastic girly crap" that is so prevalent in American toy stores. There were a lot of basic toys: blocks, construction sets, puppets, playmobil, realistic looking dolls, sand toys, etc. Of course I loved the buses and trams! You're not likely to find those on the toy store shelf in America.
Back at the apartment we had a simple dinner of soup (tomato, cream of mushroom), polar bread, and sauteed zucchini and mushrooms. After dinner Daddy took the girls to the Barnehage playgrounds while I cleaned and packed for our departure tomorrow.
Tomorrow we fly to Switzerland!
NEXT: Day 27 -- From Oslo, Norway to Zurich, Switzerland -- Tuesday, July 10th
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