Oslo, the weekend

This was a crazy great weekend full of adventures firsts and lots of walking.

On Thursday we left Hamar a little after 8 AM on the train for Oslo. Oslo is the capital of Norway and we were headed to visit their supreme court building along with their parliament building.

On the way to the supreme court building Inger showed us a bit around the city and we got to see this beautiful old church. Here are a few pictures. The church is "the church" of Norway. Norway is a secular state, however, Lutheran is the national religion. I know that that sounds sort of strange, but it means that the government by no means forces anyone to be Lutheran, in fact it is in their constitution to have religious freedom. It is also in their constitution that if you are Lutheran and have kids you should teach them to be Lutheran too, not that you have to but you should.

We also went to the new opera theater in Oslo. The building is really cool. The architect is the one who is designing the memorial on Ground Zero. You can walk on nearly all of the roof of the building, its slanty and marble. The view of the fjord is beautiful, even in the rain. The inside of the building is very cool as well. The walls are all sort of crazy shaped and have this interesting wooden design on them. We were told that when they were building the Opera House there were some (sort of a lot) Norwegians that thought it was a waste of money to build it and that no one like opera anyway. Though apparently if you were to look at the number of opera theaters  in the country there are quite a few and there are a lot of people who are involved with these theaters in some sort of capacity. So they continued to build it anyway. Magnus said that the location was part of the planning as well because before it was a sort of ugly industrial area and now it is a beautiful tourist spot.

The Opera House from the second sort of
section of the roof

The inside of the Opera house

An incredible sculpture that is outside of the opera house in the
water, from this side it is a boat from the others it is
just an abstract sculpture

After seeing the church and going on an intense Inger walk we got to the Supreme Court building. The building is rather a lot like the old government buildings that I have seen in the States, big impressive and full of intimidating statues. We were given a tour and a small lecture by one of the clerks. The building has an extensive history and they have worked hard to keep it as original as possible. This includes the tea room were the justices have their half hour lunch break everyday and they are served tea, no coffee. The supreme court system has some similarities to the US system, however a lot of things are different it was interesting to hear about how their system works.

Lion Statue in the Supreme Court Building

The Tea Room

We also went to the Parliament building. The building was under renovation however Inger convinced the guards to let us in to have a look around. It was beautiful as well, though in a more modern way. 2% of all money spent on a government funded buildings has to go into art which means everything is beautiful. 

Inger chatting with the guards 

Then we took the tram to Vigeland Park which is this a super cool and huge sculpture garden. I would love to post some pictures from the park because it was beautiful and the sculptures were great. However, my camera died :( 

Then we jog/walked to the University of Oslo, it was crazy Inger is a FASSSSST walker. and one point I was running to keep up. We were going to go to a lecture at the University, however, it was packed and we just decided to leave and head to dinner. 

We went and found dinner at a 7/11 and ate it on the steps of the palace, which was really cool . The view of the city was sweet and the palace was really awesome looking. We saw the guards marching around while we were sitting there. Then we found a pub to go sit and relax in and Danny's friend met us there. It was nice and relaxing. 

Then Katie, Hailey, Catherine and I headed to the hostel which was a lot nearer to the pub than we thought it was. The people working the desk were great and the hostel was super full, so we stayed in an 8 bed dorm with four guys from around the world. The bathroom was rather gross so we all just didn't shower the whole time we were there. 

Well that is it for the first day and night we were there

TO BE CONTINUED.....

3 Observations from Today

1. Oslo is smaller than Columbus

2. Apparently batteries are not a common item in Norwegian stores 

3. Sing-Song talking is always better