July 31: Summer Fun

The heat wave continued through our last full day in Oslo. You could see that the Norwegians take full advantage of the sun when they have it - many people were in bikinis, sunbathing in the parks. I spent part of the day running errands (figuring out where to store our suitcases while we went hiking, doublechecking bus schedules at the information booth). I also went to the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, which had exhibitions of medieval tapestries (which showed the stylistic evolution of certain themes through the centuries) and extensive examples of clothing, housewares and furniture from the past centure. As with the other national museums, it was a beautiful old building, with elaborate marble stairways.

At the end of the day Mark and I took the subway up to the Vigeland Sculpture Park, which is one of the city's major attractions. The park has 212 sculptures by the artist Gustav Vigeland - nude sculptures of people from all ages of life, in a tremendous variety of poses and expressing diverse emotions. The park itself was also designed by Vigeland, and is very imposing - huge expanses of formally landscaped grounds, with fountains, terraces and bridges over the river.

On our way back to the hotel we walked through less touristy areas than we had so far in our trip. We stopped in at a Mexican restaurant for supper, where they seemed a bit surprised to be serving someone other than locals - there were no English menus (which was pretty unusual for Norway, as there are almost always English translations). But Mexican food in Norwegian reads pretty much the same as Mexican food in Canada, so we had no problems ordering. My only problem was finishing dinner - it was the biggest burrito I have seen in my entire life, practically the size of a loaf of bread!

Photos: Vigeland Park - baby in a tree, towering stone sculptures, man shaking off babies