The Nordic Lands - Day Eleven

Dream World

AS the morning sun settles into place over Oslo, a weird gobbing noise sounds from the window outside the hostel. I catch the eye of the French girl who's just moved in to share the moment, but she just looks at me with her sad, French eyes. I suppose she was too busy being existential. 

'The park is worth it for the view'

ELLIE and I make our way over to the National Museum to see a Tori Wranes exhibition. By now, I've decided that I quite like contemporary art (which Ellie informs me is not the same as modern art). Wranes' dream world is fascinating, and I can almost believe I'm in one. The security guard sitting outside halfway between the dark cavern of the gallery and the white brightness of the fountain outside looks beautifully bored in his strange placement, almost asleep. I suppose you will get bored if you stay anywhere for too long. Next, we travel to the Vigeland Scultpure park, which is packed with people (both real and sculpted). The sculptures themselves aren't really that interesting imho, but the park is worth it for the view - the highest point looks out across houses and hills and greenery and tarmac, which is fine for me as I sit at the bottom of a huge monolith of stone bodies and gaze into the distance. 

An American woman has just told me to move so she can take a photo. Typical. I almost refuse on the grounds that she's not going to take a better photo than the hundreds of professional ones that already exist of every bloody thing in this park, but I don't. On the topic: maybe I've been away too long, but I pass two girls with the most fake sounding English accents I've ever heard. Is there a place in Britain where people sound like bad American  actors that I've just never been to?

'A boat takes us to one of the islands that run along the fjord'

A boat takes us, along with Sofia and Anja, to one of the islands that run along the fjord. It amazes me that taking such a boat costs the same amount as the tram or metro. It's beautiful, and the monastic ruins that characterise this particular island are overrun with teenagers playing a complex game of what appears to be hide and seek tig. We sit on the beach, eating an assortment of food and scuffing our shoes in the sand. 

BACK at the hostel, we chat to Ana, an affable, affectionate, and amusing girl with a head of curly brown hair, one strand of which is dyed into a rainbow. We sit on the roof and talk about scenography. On a less picturesque note, I can't believe that:

a) You have to ask for a key to use the toilet at reception.

b) The way they remind you to give it back afterwards is by plastering the door with old memes such as 'one does not simply keep the toilet key' and 'I don't always use the toilet key, but when I do, I remember to give it back.' This has the effect of making me almost use said toilet for vomming in.

c) The graffiti in the cubicle ranges from standard ("I love scandinavia") to political ("Fuck the Tories" "Yes mate vote UKIP") to bizzarre reviews of the actual hostel ("Don't order the breakfast. Very disappointing.")

With Anja, we sit in the half light, drinking tea while it rains outside and discussing anything in the world - the annoying way academics write, creepy guys, and the pros and cons of different education systems. She's so nice to talk to. Everything instantly becomes both personal and philosophical.

'We sit in the half light'

The Nordic Lands - Day Ten

SCIENCE

TO get to the Science Museum, we travel through the morning sunlight and mountains of Kjelsas, a little suburb a tram ride away from the centre of Oslo. On the way to the building, we buy watermelon slices from some children setting up a stall at the side of the road. The silent hilltop town just seems too beautiful. The museum, to put it simply, is amazing. We spend the morning dancing to A-Ha on samply synths, using split second timers to race each other, making wind tunnels, and playing on tiny roundabouts. It sparks a discussion that culminates in Ellie and Sofia agreeing to create the most interactive and interesting exhibition ever, in any country other than the US (reminder that Sofia is Mexican and Ellie is a #DirtyCommie).

WE wind back through the valley and back into town, where we stop off a few stops early at a food festival, comprising of about 20 marquees selling snacks of every kind. Sofia grabs me some empanadas (in Spanish) and we wander through a maze of pakora, Thai curry, tapas, samosas, and the largest amount of olives I've ever seen. There's also a little stall of Norwegian sausages but it looks a bit sad and neglected in amongst the beautiful freshly cooked noodles. On the way back to the hostel, we pick up some free juice, stare at a girl with emerald green hair crossing the road, and stare at some girls in fancy dress, who wave manically at us.

LATER, we go to an exhibition at a contemporary art museum from a number of Chinese artists. I spend nearly all my time sitting in a box watching a utopian simulation. It makes me incredibly sad. We walk back along the waterfront, which looks essentially the same as in every other European city - grey and glass and black, and populated by expensive restaurants. We do stop for ice cream though because the view is quite nice. Back at the hostel it's what will be the first of many quesadilla nights back at the hostel, and the salsa drips down our fingers as we mingle with a few new arrivals in between mouthfulls of melting cheese.