9 Months in Norway: working backwards

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.