Wrong!

Even though Oslo has become a huge tourist centre and everywhere you go people talk to you in English, they still don't open their shops on Sunday. I had thought they had shorter trading hours, but after we caught the tram out to a shopping area I realised that I was wrong. So what to do???? In the end we caught the tram back up to the Vigeland Park to go to the museum (I'd seen that it was open on Sunday). I'm really glad we did this, and even though we didn't go back up to the statues (it was PACKED!) we had a lovely wander through the park.More statues for Ella to climb on, this one outside central station.

The gorgeous wonderful Polar Bear. Recently I read a children's book retelling of East of the sun and West of the moon, called "East". Where the girl is captured by a polar bear who is really a prince who has been tricked by a girl troll. The girl rides on the back of the polar bear, just like this.

The Vigeland museum is well worth the trip. It was just amazing to see all the original plaster sculptures, especially this one of the fountain in full size. The water obscures a lot of the detail...you certainly can't see their faces underneath like this...

The girl on the back of a bear is obviously a motif that appealed to Vigeland. Here is is as a full sized statue (I'm not sure if there has been one made into bronze or granite) and as part of the relief that surrounds the fountain.

I love this one "three boys watching a bird". Ella says it is her brothers. If you click on it to make it larger, you can see that it's covered in little pencil marks. These were the marks made by the granite sculptors who had to reproduce the granite peices from these plaster sculptures.

And here is the monolith as it was cast in 3 sections. This too was covered in tiny pencil marks. It is remarkable that this was carved from one piece...imagine if you made a mistake. I actually think that the original is more beautiful...lighter somehow and more delicate. Once again, it was fanastic to be able to get closer to these.

After the museum we went back out in the sun to walk around the park a bit more...to see some sculptures we hadn't before and some from different angles...

Then an icecream sandwich.

Ella was dying to go back to the big playground, but when we got there it was so full of people that she didn't even want to go in. She was very aware that she didn't speak the same language. She was even making up Norwegian sounding words and asking me if they meant anything. Everywhere we went people thought that we were Norwegian...it must have been her hair.

Then we went back to Akker Brygge near the hotel and found a different playground for her...this one was like a boat with a crows nest that wobbled around. She was so proud of her self for climbing up there.

It had started to get colder then, so we went back to the hotel for a nap before our last dinner out. We sat right on the water for dinner. Ella started off in a t-shirt as I let her play in the playground again for about an hour, but ended up with all her clothes on.


Cold girl!

And one of me.

It was a fantastic trip. I wish I'd taken more photos. I wish I'd taken photos out the window of the plane as we flew into Reykjavik yesterday. Amazing. We even flew over the Faroe Islands and Hudson bay with all it's icebergs.

I loved the fact that by Sunday I was thinking in Norwegian again...that even though I said things in English there was a Norwegian echo in my head. Unfortunately the plane from Iceland was full of Americans, and that voice started to receed and has kept going into the recesses of my mind. But it's good to know it's there. I think it was a fantastic trip for Ella and I hope she's old enough to keep the memories from it. It was so funny to see her and Kit together this morning...I could hear them talking in their room from 6 am. 2 peas in a pod.

So back to warm American Spring, back to life, back to reality (eh? Hilde!)