ISPINNER NAM!

I am visiting Oslo and this is one of my first, but possibly most important lessons in Norwegian: ICE LOLLIES YUM! Sometimes nothing gets lost in translation

University Library Oslo, otherwise known to insiders as the "Black Temple"with its imposing facade and giant columns clad in black granite:  once inside though, you will discover the interior is oddly tilted at a 45 degree angle. How do those academics get any work done?

Oslo is surprisingly hilly, here an unexpected view across allotments to a corn silo converted into housing 

Cafe Kasbar is an oasis in this expensive city. Their motto is, "Make Hummus, not Walls." You can't move for motivational messages stuck up around the place, but its shabby and slightly cluttered chic and home made ice tea is as refreshing as its prices.

I don't think I have ever seen such an unfair distribution of balconies. On the expat website I read that people may not judge you by your income or job, but they do judge you on the area you live in. 

Grunnform: primary form  Vekst: Growth  Hastighet: Velocity, speed.  Norwegian is a Germanic language, so luckily I already can decipher a few words on these blocks seen in an architects/artists studio.

Thinking about that expat site again and how will I be judged for living in a wooden house in this part of town.
Not to worry, as I probably won't be able to afford it anyway.

I visited  the FRAM museum which documents Polar exploration. On these fridge magnets available in the shop is a photo of polar explorer Roald Amundsen planting the Norwegian flat at the South Pole in 1911. The museum stresses how the Innuit people helped him to learn the arctic survival skills he needed. He lived with the Innuit people for a year, learning their language, respected their culture and built a relationship with them that was mutually beneficial, whereas before that time explorers had regarded the Innuit as inferior. Their ignorance would cost them their lives.

 Oslo holocaust Memorial. Cast iron empty chairs by British artist Anthony Gormley. They are located on the South side of the Oslo Fjord in front of the old fort near where the ships carrying 750 of Norway's Jews to Stettin and then Auschwitz departed from.

The Oslofjord  with sailing boats, motor boats and ferries going to Kiel and Copenhagen. Here though,  I was trying to make the l in Oslo. 

Patience. Trying to watch an outdoor screening when it doesn't get dark until midnight

If you move the decimal point one place to the left then you will see the price of wine per glass and per bottle, and weep

Oslo's Patron Saint, St Hallvard with his attributes, the millstone and arrows, oh and a naked woman at his feet.