Norway by the Numbers

I thought I would conclude this series of posts on traveling in Norway with the notes I took on my phone as the trip wrapped up.

4 cars: 2 cars to airport, 2 cars home
5 planes: 2 planes from Pittsburgh to Oslo, 1 from Bergen, 2 home
6 trains: 1 train from Oslo Airport, 1 to Myrdal, 1 to Flåm, 1 to Bergen, 1 train from Oslo Airport to town, 1 train to hostel, and 1 back to Oslo airport
3 trams: 1 to Geilo (odd for a long-distance route), 1 to university, 1 to museum
5 subways (T-Metro): 1 to university, 1 to dinner, 1 to hostel, 1 to university, 1 toward airport
1 ferry boat
2 buses at Reykjavik Airport, 1 bus to Voss, 1 to dinner and 1 to drinks in Oslo
1 gondola
1 funicular
1 taxi to the Bergen Airport after we missed the bus
2 walks, 1 hike
Countless waterfalls for me, +1 for E.R. (took a walk while I read a book by the lake in Voss)
4 museums (3 art, 1 history)
2 saunas
3 cups hot chocolate
2 scoops gelato, 1 scoop ice cream
1 huldra
0 trolls
1 pat down in the Reykjavik airport

Lost items: 1 sleep mask (E.R.'s)
Left items: 1 blouse (in the Pittsburgh Airport because the armpit seam had torn), 1 umbrella (in Oslo when it was needed in Bergen), 1 large bottle of shampoo (in Bergen Airport because it couldn't come through airport security), 1 pair of khakis (at my Oslo AirBnB because they were at the end of their life)

Gained items: second-hand Norwegian sweater, new Norwegian gloves, 3 kinds of dried sausage (whale, reindeer, moose), 2 jars cloudberry jam, 2 magnets, 1 postcard

Useful purchases: waterproof jacket to go with the waterproof ski pants I already owned, fast track at the Bergen Airport to get through security

Tried for the first time: Norwegian brown cheese, Bergen soup, reindeer and whale meat, whale/reindeer/moose sausage, cloudberry jam, lefsa, Norwegian pancakes, Dubai chocolate, Tupla chocolate bar (Finnish), ayran (Turkish milk drink), honey mead, and pretty much all of this Iceland Air lunch box

Friday in Oslo: the MUNCH Museum

Having spent the better part of a week in transit from my home in Pittsburgh to Oslo, and from Oslo to Bergen and back, I took advantage of having the AirBnB to myself Friday morning to lie in bed on my phone for an exorbitant amount of time before getting up for breakfast (above: leftover toast that RE couldn't eat, passionfruit-flavored Skyr [eh], and an entire box of Johannisbeeren [red currants]). I worked a little on my computer in the living room getting ready for the conference that was the whole reason for my trip to Norway before my hostess returned from her doctor's appointment and we said our good-byes. I hopped onto a tram into the center of the city, where I stored my luggage at the main train station for the day and then sat in front of this phallic monument to "the family" to eat a lunch I had packed from the grocery store trip the day before.

Then it was on to the main attraction: MUNCH, the museum dedicated to Edvard Munch (1863-1944).

The first museum dedicated to his work opened for the centennial of his birth in 1963 in a different part of Oslo. When the city decided to revitalize its inner harbor, Spanish architect Juan Herrero won the design competition with his 13-story-tall rectangle that from certain angles gives the impression of a top hat that is leaning slightly. (A Norwegian critic apparently derided it as the world's largest collection of guard rails!) Here are views of the Ferris wheel from below and above (opera house to the right, below). 

The top two floors are a restaurant and bar, and I figured I had a basic grasp of the European art history that would be presented on the 11th floor, so I started on 10 with what was supposed to be a family-friendly art exhibit, "You are what you is" by Japanese-Brazilian textile artist Kiyoshi Yamamoto, now based out of Bergen. The colorful fabric panels strung up on wires "danced" back and forth, and the gray "hillside" allowed visitors to sit higher to appreciate the large-scale work.

I was feeling kind of silly, but I also found the dissonant soundtrack irritating. Then it was on down to floor 9 for "METAATEM" by German artist Kerstin Brätsch (1979- ), a much edgier installation.

Above: a series of Rorschach-like prints sometimes looked like aliens or monsters. Below: the bench and several large free-standing walls were constructed of cardboard and paint. I sat to flip through the booklet and watch a photo montage she made with another artist the involved using paint and tape to appear to alter the shape or contour of their faces and bodies into different characters.

"Atem" is the German word for "breath." These paintings on large translucent panels wafted slowly in a breezeway from one room to the next, where I found this pond with glass eyes.

On the 7th floor, a neat 3-dimensional exhibit called "Edvard Munch Shadows" describes the artist's life through objects and images displayed around a mock-up of his home. Some of the details needed to be repaired or updated, but I liked the idea. I skipped his "monumental" paintings on 6 and the museum offices on 5 for "Munch Infinite" on the 4th floor, a large exhibit of many rooms organized by themes such as family or gender or landscapes. I hadn't realized he was such a prolific drawer and painter.

He often depicted the same subject multiple times (see below).

Of course you can see "The Scream" on display, but did you know that there is no definitive version? He never made an oil painting of "The Scream"; instead, it's a series of drawings or prints. At any one time, there are 3 versions hanging up in a small, 4-sided tabernacle, with text on the 4th wall. However, due to the degrading effects of light, only 1 is ever uncovered at a time; every 30 minutes, little doors automatically open / shut to reveal 1 of them, except the printed version(s) are shown twice as often, because the charcoal drawings are more fragile.

I was really sorry that my visit was mistimed for the opening of a new exhibit, "Lifeblood" on the 3rd floor. It examines the intersections of Munch's life and work with contemporary medicine (his mother kept his vaccination records!), and  I was even sorrier that the conference I attended didn't do a better job of advertising the lunchtime talks, because I caught only the last 10-15 minutes of a presentation on the development of the exhibit. However, the website is very good, so I was able to get a lot of the content now that I missed then. Munch's father was a physician, and his brother studied to be one before dying of pneumonia. Munch himself was often ill (mentally, physically, from overwork and too much drinking), and his mother and sister both died of tuberculosis.

I thought "The Sick Child" might make a good teaching piece, but despite being one of his repeated motifs (as he processed the death of his sister when she was 15 and he was 13), there was no postcard of it was available in the gift shop. At this point it was time to walk to the immigrant neighborhood where I had spent my first night in Oslo to begin the European Conference on Social Medicine.

Thursday in Oslo, Part II: City of History

 After I looked through the Vigeland statuary, I treated myself to some local history, since the Bymuseet [City Museum] is open late on Thursdays.

Getting lost on my way to the Oslo Museum, I found a bridge over the lake covered in padlocks. Couples do this on Pittsburgh bridges as well.

Because I was trying to avoid a handful of larger groups touring in Norwegian, I chose to walk the museum backwards, starting with an architectural history of the city of Oslo (the tryptic below depicts the last of many catastrophic medieval or early modern fires, in 1624), then Norwegian culture in the roaring 1920s, historical kitchens (naturally my favorite!), followed by an exhibit on life during the Nazi occupation in the 1940s, and finally a history of the people who have lived in Oslo through the centuries, going back to the 1000s.

Oslo was large enough to be considered a city from ~1000 CE and peaked ~1300 when Hakon Magnusson was the first king crowned there.* However, for most of the medieval and early modern period, when Norway was part of Denmark, Bergen and Trondheim were bigger. (*His son became king of Norway-Sweden, which were together until 1905).

After the 1624 fire, the city was relocated across the river Alna and rebuilt around the Akershus fortress.

My, how it has grown! When Norway achieved independence, Oslo was named its capital in 1814.

Did you know Oslo was called Christiania from 1625-1876, and Kristiania from 1877-1925?

Almost forgot they had a theater exhibit as well with newer (above) and older (below) imaginings of Renaissance clothing.

Singer Anne Brown (1912-2009) grew up in Baltimore, MD, and moved to Oslo in 1947. She married ski jumper and journalist Thorleif Schjeldrup.

This "remembrance room" has furniture and objects from the 1950s-1908s to help people with dementia.

At the end the exhibits pay more attention to current demographics. Like post-war Germany, Norway solved its labor shortage in the 1960s with guest workers from Pakistan, Morocco, India, and Turkey. Immigration was halted in 1975 except for family reunification, refugees, and asylum seekers. In 2014, 31% of Oslo's inhabitants were from outside Norway (9.6% from Europe and 21.5% from non-European countries). The next day, I visited a clinic that serves undocumented individuals who have fallen through the cracks in the system.

This was the view from my window as I went to bed at 10 o'clock at night! The black-out curtains came in handy.

Friday: more art in Oslo

Thursday in Oslo, Part I: Garden Art

 

Thursday morning I landed at the Oslo Airport, took the train to the main station, changed to a tram out to the university, and met with a colleague in history of medicine. He let me have lunch with his department, I admired his new book on the history of tuberculosis in Tanzania that had just arrived, and then I set out for my Air BnB in the Majorstuen neighborhood. For the 24 hours until my conference started, I had rented a bedroom with a full bathroom in an apartment in an old building from the turn of the previous century, with use of the kitchen and living room. She even let me wash a load of laundry.

My goal for the afternoon was the Vigelandsparken at the center of Frognerparken. This is a large, open-air sculpture park with more than 200 pieces set among flower beds and water features. It was the brainchild and life's work of Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943), who spent four decades creating a variety of mostly life-sized, unclothed human forms alone and in family groups. After entering through a semi-circular gate, you walk down a long, tree-lined alley to the bridge lined with 58 bronze figures.

Beyond the bridge is a rose garden.

Next comes the Fountain with its life cycle.

More gardens before the very phallic "Monolith" at the top of the hill.

Around its column of striving bodies are granite couples and families.

Beyond another set of gardens and a grassy slope is "The Wheel of Life."

Above: peeking over the last wall, a fountain greets park-goers from the north.

Below: looking south back down the slope toward the monolith.

Next: Thursday in Oslo, part II