9 Months in Norway: September 2011

Shorter post, but the next two will be longer because they were some really fun trips. Just to give you a preview, the next one will cover our trip to Stavanger on the the other coast of Norway and our 5-hour round-trip hike up Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock). The 2nd June post will cover our visit from Bobby & Caitlin and the gorgeous 16-hour Norway in a Nutshell tour that took us all over the place by train, ferry, and bus.

As summer arrived in full swing, the weather was so wonderful and I think everyone was keen to get out and enjoy the sun and the heat after our record cold winter. I wish I had a picture to show you this next bit, but I'll try my best to describe it instead. We live on a wharf with a long boardwalk lined with restaurants and little kiosks that sell ice cream and other treats. In the winter, the place was quite deserted and the kiosks closed. But with the warm weather it was like watching birds flock back from migration. All of the sudden there were people everywhere, sitting on all the benches all along the boardwalk with little wiggle room to spare, basking in the sun and I swear everyone - from the smallest child to the oldest adult - had an ice cream cone in their hand! It was quite a sight :-)

The nice weather also brought some fun outdoor fairs; three that we enjoyed were the Beer & Food Festival, the Thai Food Festival, and the Medieval Festival.

The Beer & Food Festival tickets were rather pricey, but I found an awesome deal on Groupon (pretty much the only coupons I've ever found here in Oslo) so we decided to go. Without the coupon, definitely would not have gone. It was fun though - with our tickets we got 12 free samples of beer and they had HUNDREDS of different beers from all over the place! They weren't huge samples, but it was really fun trying all the different beers and tasting the difference. Some were definitely better than others.

The Thai Food Festival took place over a couple weekends in one of the squares downtown. There were tons of kiosks set up by Thai restaurants and food vendors from all over Norway and they had a stage with different performers demonstrating ethnic dances or singing (what were apparently) hit songs in Thailand. Their embassy had a kiosk giving out tourism information and gave away free purple orchid buds - so pretty :-) The aromas wafting from all the food stands was intoxicating. We tried spring rolls and other yummy things, but the best was the chicken satay from this one booth - delicious! Unfortunately their restaurant is located in another city several hours away, but at least we got to enjoy them that day. There was a guy demonstrating fruit carving, which was really neat to see how he carved such intricate designs into the melons and other produce.

best...satay...ever!!!

fruit carving and fresh, crispy spring rolls - yum!

minstrels playing :-)

The last one was the Medieval Festival. Let me tell you: WAY better than any I've been to in the States recently. This wasn't a bunch of girls in trampy outfits and cheap knock-off stuff being sold at exorbitant prices. These folks were serious. There were high-quality handmade bows and arrows, forged weapons like swords and battle axes, and people dressed in actual traditional garb not some cheap bustier with all their stuff on display. We were really impressed and had a lot of fun. We played with all the weapons, shared a candied apple covered in cinnamon (best idea ever!), admired all the fine craftsmanship; I even bought a nice pair of copper earrings that look similar to a particular style of Norwegian bunad jewelry. Another fun way to spend the day outside enjoying the fabulous summer weather in Oslo.

These bows were amazing. The guy said he carved each by hand. Some had wood or deer antler inlay, others were adorned with different leather dressings. The detail and level of craftsmanship was SO impressive.

ready for battle; the candied apple with cinnamon - best idea ever!

oh yea, got our game faces on ;-)

So after Lisbon, Tyler and I finally went on our honeymoon as an early celebration of our 5-year anniversary. Y'all should have received my video from our trip, so I won't rehash that. If you didn't see the video and would like to, shoot me an email.

starting our tour of Akershus Castle

When we came back from Tahiti we were literally booked back-to-back-to-back with visitors! It was crazy, but so fun to see everyone again. First up was Leigh, one of my oldest friends who I've known since high school and was one of my bridesmaids. The weather had just started to warm up so it was a great time to visit as the flowers just started blooming and the fountains had just been turned on again. She stayed for about a week and we had all sorts of fun traipsing around Oslo - Akershus Castle & Fortress, Radhuset, Bygdoy, The Folk Museum, The Viking Ship Museum, Vigelands Park, The Munch Museum, The Botanical Gardens, The Opera House, Hadeland Glassworks, Holmenkollen Ski Jump, Ice Bar Oslo, and hiking in the woods from Frognerseteren to Songsvann lake. Since she was our first guest I was pretty impressed to see how much we were able to cram into the week and I had fun playing tour guide :-) I'm so glad she came out and enjoyed getting to spend so much one-on-one time together again for the first time in a LONG time.

as she put it, these were "Leigh-size" doors, not "Stine-size" doors ;-)

Viking Ship Museum - Leigh holding up the ship

at Holmenkollen and Leigh with her new friend the ski troll

walking through the Botanical Gardens and Vigelands Park

at the Opera House

fun at the Ice Bar; I LOVE this picture of Leigh and I :-)

during our hike from Frognerseteren to Songsvann

our view at Songsvann

posing at the end of our hike; on the bus to Hadeland Glassworks

waiting for the parade to start

Two days after Leigh left, Julia arrived - one of my best friends from Texas. She stayed for about 10 days since it was the beginning of her summer break of her masters program. Tyler was on a business trip for the majority of her stay, so it was really nice to have the company around the house and more girl time. The day after she arrived was May 17th - Norway's Constitution Day, with celebrations similar to our 4th of July. One of the day's events was a parade through the city of approximately 60,000 children most of whom were dressed in traditional Norwegian bunad. The parade route went past the Royal Palace where the royal family stood on the balcony and waved at the passing children. We managed to maneuver quite close to the palace and eventually ended up sneaking into the VIP section with our friends Jean & Lucas and her uncle and got seats in the front row smack dab across from the palace balcony! It was really impressive to see the huge turnout, to get pictures with the royal family behind us, and all the bands marching past. The funniest thing though had to be the fact that more than one of the bands were playing Michael Jackson songs as they passed - it just seemed SO random at an event celebrating Norwegian history. We went to a lot of the same touristy sites as I did with Leigh, but skipped some and went to a couple others, like The National Gallery of Art, The Ibsen Museum, The Kon-tiki Museum, and Fredrikstad & its fortress. I loved getting to spend so much time hanging out with Julia again and seeing some of the different museums and tourist spots for the first time.

scenes from the parade and the royal family on the front balcony of the palace

loved the Norwegian flag shoes ;-)

the royal family

us "with" the royal family from the awesome VIP seats we scored

a view of the palace from down one of the main streets (Karl Johans Gate)

National Gallery of Art

being silly; it turned out that Julia had actually been to the place in the 2nd painting

it felt like we had the gallery pretty much to ourselves

Julia with one version of The Scream at the National Gallery and me with

another version at the Munch Museum (I think he painted 4 versions in total)

horsing around; Jules really loved the detail of the woodcarving

fresh produce and flowers at a little outdoor market

in front of the Stavkirke (stave church) at the Norwegian Folk Museum

at Bygdøy peninsula - perfect weather!

enjoying the fresh lilacs that were blooming EVERYWHERE

Julia enjoying them a little too much ;-)

on the ferry back to Aker Brygge from Bygdøy

I think she liked Vigelands Park...

...or perhaps not. Posing with the famous baby statue.

starting another tour of Akershus; "scary" long tunnel

the many moods of Julia: from Charlie's Angel to terrified little girl ;-)

love this shot

another view of the room and its amazing tapestries

the pretty princess and Henry the VIII

at Hadeland we got to blow our own glasses and watch some folk dancing

before leaving Hadeland; at the fortress at Fredrikstad

Tyler returned from his business trip, Julia left shortly thereafter, and two days later Ari & Sara showed up for a long weekend after their trip to Istanbul. (I wasn't kidding when I said back-to-back-to-back, was I?) Ari and Tyler have known each other since the Academy and we've known Sara since back when they were just dating ;-) Since their trip was shorter, we didn't have as much time to do all the same activities, but we still got to show them quite a bit of the city - The National Gallery, The Viking Ship Museum, Bygdoy, The Opera House, The Botanical Gardens, Holmenkollen Ski Jump, and the guys went on a hike and Sara and I went shopping. While their visit was short, it was so great getting to see them both again for the first time in a long while due to both their and our different overseas assignments.