July 29: The Smallest Waterfall

On Tuesday I visited two of the city's museums: the historical art museum (highlights were Edvard Munch's 'Scream' and the landscape painter Johna Christian Dahl), and a museum of cultural history (where I discovered that the 5-kroner coin has only been designed with a hole in the center for the past century; we'd been assuming it was some interesting historical relic, but they had coins going back centuries earlier that were all solid). Like our hotel there was no air conditioning, so the buildings were actually rather stuffy during the heat wave. When I got back to our hotel I noticed a couple of small fans at the front desk and was able to borrow one for our room. If only I'd had this bright idea earlier, before sleeping through two nights of stifling heat...

Mark and I had a nice picnic out on the grounds of Akershus Fortress, where we sat near the smallest waterfall ever (the tiny stream was dammed up by a couple of boards to form a fish pond) and Mark tried to lure some of the friendly fish close enough for a good photo. I really enjoyed the grounds of the fortress - lush green grass, interesting historical buildings, and there's something strangely fun about seeing full-size trees growing up on top of tall earth and stone walls. We walked through the Aker Harbour area afterwards, enjoying the lively atmosphere. There is a really great variety of interesting new condo architecture there build around canals for recreational boats - a far cry from Toronto's monolithic condo clones alongside the lake.

Photos: Akershus Fortress, Mark goes fishing, the cool green grounds inside the fortress, Aker Harbour, the smallest waterfall