Saturday, June 20, 2015

Downtown - Oslo, Norway

Have I mentioned that the sun never really goes down in Norway during the summer?  It becomes a little darker than twilight but not as dark as it does here at home.  The "sunrise" was at 3:30am and "sunset" at 10:30pm.

The Shrimp Dinner Boat tour ended close to 10:00pm and since it was still light outside Mike and I decided to walk around town and get photos of some of the sights.  As we were pulling back into the marina Mike took this photo of the Oslo City Hall.


 Here is another view as we were walking by:


Why is the Oslo City Hall in all of the guide books?  Because it is known for the Murals on the walls depicting life in Norway and it is where the Nobel Peace Prizes are awarded.  We did not get to go in because it was after business hours but it is still a beautiful building to see. 

Here some images I pulled from the web of the inside of Oslo City Hall



I regret not being able to go inside but we took so many turns that I did not know how to find my way back to City Hall.  It was not until the last night that we even found where the street signs were.  They are attached to the buildings and they are not in the same spot on the buildings.  So you are standing there like a goof trying to figure out what street you are on. 

Next up was a photo of the Royal Palace:


This is as close we were could get because my feet and legs were getting super tired and I did not want to push it to far (we still had to walk back to the hotel).  But I found a photo on the web of the entire palace for you.


So this palace sits at the end of the street and it is the residence of the Royal Family.  As you can see there are no gates - you can just walk right up to the door. 

On the way back from the palace we heard a clock ringing the hour and realized it was 11:00 pm.  We were standing next to this fountain at the time.


Yep that is what 11:00pm in Oslo looks like.

Oh you want to know about the fountain?  It was in a pretty little park not far from the palace.  The sculpture is by an artist that is featured all over Oslo.  I am not sure why the children are naked but it means something to the people of Norway.

The sculpture did remind me that there was a sculpture park I wanted to find that featured work form the same artist.  I never did find the park so I pulled photos from the web for you here too. Again I have no idea why everyone is naked ....





I told Mike that next time we go to Oslo (because I am sure there will be a next time) we will have to fly in a couple of days early so that we can do the sights together.  Mike was at the conference the whole trip so he missed out on the sights. 

We are making our way back to the hotel when we realized that we made a wrong turn somewhere, again no street signs to help us out.  We finally made it back to the hotel around midnight and our feet were so done with walking.  We were tired but I just could not settle so I pulled a coke out of the mini bar.

What do you notice about this Coke?  It is in a glass bottle!  I have not seen a coke in a glass bottle in years.  We all know what Mini Bar prices are like in most hotels so here is how my coke worked out money wise.

single coke 51.00 kon = 6.60 USD

Now before you ask why I paid that much for one bottle of coke, that was the same price as stores and restaurants so it was not any more expensive to just take it out of the room. Sometimes you have to have a coke....   Oh and the mini bar is on the honor system.  When we checked out they asked if I took anything out of the mini bar.  I said one coke and was charged for one coke. 

Stay tuned for my day at the NDC conference...

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