art architecture boats architecture art

Gustav Vigeland was a Norwegian sculptor during the first half of the twentieth century. In the 1920’s the Norwegian government built him a studio and house in exchange for the sculptures donated to the Vigeland sculpture garden. The park is larger then the procession of sculptures, but it is the sculptures that attract tourists. They depict various states of the human condition from birth to death, love, aggression, happiness, and indifference. When I was here before I wasn’t that impressed. I preferred Carls Mills mythology to Vigeland’s. This time, wandering through the park, I was struck by the sculptures. I decided that there is a particular Norwegian sentiment in these depictions of the human.



Norsk Folkemuseum is a collection of traditional buildings from around the country brought to Oslo and arranged to recreate the setting of the original architecture. This was the beginning of my studies. The first stop on a journey into the ideas and principles that led to creating architecture not from the minds of individuals, but from the hands of a culture. There are a number of farms here that date from as far back as the 15th century and come from all over the country. They also have a transplanted stave church. It’s like a little sampler of different techniques and ideas pulled out of time and space and set down for all to enjoy.



The Viking Museum is a collection of three Viking ships that were used in the burials of Viking kings. The ships were discovered at the end of the 19th century. They were excavated along with the remaining grave goods and brought to Oslo. It’s a great museum; the three main wings are devoted to each of the ships. The most interesting thing about the Viking ship is that the structure actually comes from the skin. The strakes, or planks, are overlapped and held together with iron nails. The gap would have been filled with wool and tar to make the ship waterproof. The nature of the construction was such that the boats were flexible yet solid. This made them incredibly sea worthy and is what allowed the Vikings to sail as far west as Greenland for sure and possibly North America.




Norwegian Museum of architecture: This is what I did today. I was stoked. I figured there would be a wealth of information that I could use here and I was eager to scope it out. I walked downtown and found the building it was suppose to be in but it wasn’t there. I walked a little further and found a building under construction. I read the sign, “New Architecture Museum” it read in Norwegian. Below that it read “Architect: Sverre Fehn.” I was so proud. I had found one of the fabled current projects of Fehn. And it was the new architecture museum. I immediately went to the fence and took pictures of the building being built. Not for you all, but this was pretty exciting. These pictures are some of the first published of a new building by one of the greatest Norwegian architects ever. And as exciting as that was, and still is, I was unable to find the architecture museum’s collection. I went instead to the museum of contemporary art across the street.



The museum of contemporary art was disappointing. The main exhibit was a Norwegian fashion designer who made it big in Paris in the 70’s, Per Spooks. I didn’t read too much about him, mostly because I found the whole thing incredibly boring. Upstairs they had the permanent collection, which was also, largely, boring. There were a few interesting things. Three paintings by Per Kleiva Blad fra imperialistens dagbok I-III. This is I:



A few other things, but over all disappointing. The whole experience was made worse by the fact that the souls of my shoes squeaked the entire time I was in there. Each step an echoing screeches of dying mice. Finally I just left.

I’m trying to decide if I should move or not. There is student housing closer into town and practically right next to the architecture school. It’s also on the river park, which runs all the way up to where I am now along the Akerselva river which runs down into Oslo Center. I walk this everyday, it’s quite lovely and there are some cool buildings along it, old industrial buildings from the 19th and early 20th century. Anyway, it would be nice to live closer to the city, but at the same time it would be a little more money each month. The student housing is in old grain silos, which would be interesting. I’d have a more interesting view. But at the same time, i could use the money in my pocket. Well, I’m just mulling it over. We’ll see what happens.

and i say eat, that you may live

Because eating is so important to life I’d like to take a moment to describe the way I eat here. One word. Rice. A lot of rice. I like rice, but that’s not the primary reason for the choice. It mostly has to do with economics. In a few places I’ve mentioned the cost of living being almost criminal. And it is. So I went into the store and tried to figure out how I was going to eat without going broke. Cause you can easily go broke trying to eat in this country. Economic Example: the exchange rate is currently 6.3 Norwegian Kroner to the Dollar. Great. In a vacuum, that’s a fantastic deal. in the gravity of reality, it is only marginal. Because at the store, when I want to buy .5 liters of water (like 12oz) I have to lay down 25kroner. That is roughly $4.00 a bottle. I buy them, I open them I start to drink them and then I do the math and my stomach tightens. “How can I drink this? If I drink on of these a day I’ll spend more then a thousand dollars on water alone. Maybe I should buy something with taste at least.” I knew before I came that it was expensive. And I’m not complaining, I’m just talking about how to deal with it. So meat is off the menu for the most part. Meat is relegated to luxury. One meal in ten, say. Eggs, I thought eggs would be a good value and source of protein, but not at $6 a dozen. Now I love a good piece of cooked flesh, don’t get me wrong. But Rice is simply more economical. Rice and vegetables. Rice is $4 for a bag. Good substance. Fill you up. Add some vegetables, which are pricey in their own right, but there is economy of nutrition that makes it worth it. Add some protein in the form of salami slices. I can make a meal for $5 total. That’s good value. At the same time I feel that it will be important to eat out in the world every now and then. A meal at a restaurant will make me feel good every once in a while. And that’s the plan. Here is what I ate tonight:

Rice. Peas. Salami sandwich. Tap water.

The Mad Men of Immigration were mostly Beautiful Norwegian Women

I was up at 4:30 in the ah em this morning. It seems my mind and body are locked in a battle over what the appropriate times for sleeping and waking are. Currently my body is winning because having spent a lot of time with my mind I know for a fact there is no way on God’s green acre that he’d want to get up at 4:30am, ever.

Yesterday was Immigration day! That is the day I checked in with the feds and let them know where I was at and such. It was three hours of standing around for a sticker in my passport. But now I have it. So I’m legal for nine months.


The foreign delegate

After this was over I walked down to the Rådhus to take those photos I missed the other day. Here are a few of them:



And this is the Oslo Fjord:


I then walked part way to the Vigelands Sculpture Park. However, after a beautiful morning, the rain came in again, just as hard and the day before. So I headed back home instead. Vigelands for another day. I found a park along the way home to walk through. There are actually parks all over so this isn’t really surprising. This one is called St. Handhaugen. But here’s the thing, I am walking through this park, it’s pleasant, on a granite ridge and I spy up ahead a fenced off play are with a building, something like a daycare. And as I get closer I notice that there is a host of baby carriages in the yard. Like twenty, twenty-five baby carriages all parked under the trees. Then I notice that there are bunches parked under a small shed. And one of these baby carriages has a child standing up in it. He had pushed himself up through the plastic rain protection and was just, you know, doing some child investigation of the world. I’m walking past the place now and I see that the at least two other carriages contain babies; I can hear them and see their feet kicking at the sides of the prisons. And the thing of it is, there were no adults around, none. 25 baby carriages filled with babies sitting under the trees in the rain and no adults around at all. It was disturbing because where were all the mothers? Who was in charge? Certainly not the one brilliant barn that had crawled out or his confinement, smart as he obviously was. I took up station by a tree and watched. I stood there fifteen twenty minutes. The little tyke just looking around, playing some unfathomable game with the zipper on his buggy. But no one came, no mother, no trouble. I left. The strangeness of it suggested everything was fine. If it had been one or two buggies’s parked haphazardly I’d have been more worried. But twenty-five suggest an operation of some sort. Strange.

The excursions.

#1: Tuesday 20 June
So there I was, 6am yesterday morning and me having already done everything I could actually do in this small room in the proceeding 6 hours. So I up and left. My first actual exploration of the city began at 6am June 20th. I had no real plan, I figured I’d walk into town, get the lay of the land, and assess my proximity to all things Oslo. The walk was pleasant. I wondered in the general direction of the Rådhus, or City Hall as we say back home. Even at that early hour Oslo is a pretty dirty town. Last time I was in this part of the world with a bunch of people everyone was really down on Oslo. It rained the whole time we were here, true. But Oslo is not like the other Scandinavian capitals. There is an edge, a grit that defines it as a true city. Stockholm was all façade, prettied up and freshly painted but substanceless, like royalty n name only. Copenhagen was like an aging hippy who came into money. Helsinki was like business executive on vacation. But Oslo, Oslo was blue collar. It was tough. Things might happen here and there is no telling what the outcome would be. And now here I am again. And Oslo is still tough. Even at 6am.
The walk was pleasant enough. I’m just shy of 2 miles out from city center. [I just figured that out with a map, an engineers scale and math. It’s an approximation.] I walked aimlessly, plotting my course by memory and a general sense of direction. I noticed two things besides the grit, One, graffiti and sticker culture in Oslo is sophomoric and disappointing so far. [Stockholm had great stickers, as did Copenhagen. Here, not so much.] And two, as I got into the city proper there were people everywhere and a lot of them were incredibly beautiful Norwegian women. The gene pool here is fantastic that way. But also the people on the street, people walking, markets being set up, conversation and it lasted all day. Crowds of people occupying the city in a different way from how they do in Seattle.
After getting lost for a little while I found the Rådhus and sat by the water for a while. It was 8:30. I took a picture of Oslo Fjord and that’s when the first setback occurred. Memory Card Error. Damn it. The card just broke. It just up and broke. No explanation. No goodbye. Just nose thumb and an AMFYOYO and then it was gone. So no pictures. Not of the Fjord, not of the Rådhus, not of the trippy ufo play toy thing I found all graffiti’d out. Nothing. To bad for you.
Putting that aside I decided I should go to Ikea, because Ikea is where you go if you want the good things that make life worth living. And although I am traveling, I am also sad just now and I could use some good things that make life worth living. Like a plate and fork. A pillow. And a pan for cooking. Not so much in the states, but here in this part of the world, Ikea runs a bus service from the city, in this case Oslo, to it’s far removed front door (two towns over, a suburb really called Slependen). I had a recollection of this bus pulling up while we were standing somewhere 2 years ago and someone (Laura Lenss?) exclaiming “Ikea has a bus!” Well I knew I could ride that bus for free if I could just find it. And so I stood around where I thought we were when that was said. But no big blue Ikea bus. I waited. Nothing. I sat and watched people at a bus station, but no Ikea. After awhile I gave up and went to a book store to get envelope. While there I paid $13 for a paperback book. Yeah for weak dollars!
I then went to find the police station and that took a while because it’s on a road that’s underground. So I walked passed it several times. I have to go there to have my passport checked and stamped with a visa. When I finally found the place the line was too much. It was eleven by this time, and I’d been up for a long time and I was tired and didn’t feel like waiting, so I marked the fact that the station was on another road that is actually above ground and made my way home.

#2 Wednesday 21 June
Today’s adventure started out with a trip to the Police station. Again for the passport thing. I left about 10am. Took a different route into the city. Found a nice park with ducks and seagulls and big fields. Walked along a river. It was nice. I was glad to be out. I almost didn’t leave the room. When I woke up it was raining, hard. Now I love the rain. I love it when it’s raining. I love being in the rain, watching the rain, waiting for it rain. I like also staying inside when it’s raining with the window open and reading a book. It’s peaceful for me. At 9:30 I crawled back into bed and intended to sleep a little more, read some, and basically kill a day. But then I started thinking about all the stuff that needed to get done. And the rain had stopped. And so I got up and left. [Yes, I dressed first, which would implied I spent the morning in my underwear. Fair enough.] When I got to the Police station I was told I needed to go to a different police station around the corner, but they were closed at 11:30. All right, something to do tomorrow. I left and decided to find that Ikea bus come hell or high water, as I really needed that fork and plate.
Circling I eventually found it and road the half hour to Ikea. This in itself was pretty uneventful. It’s the same set up as any other Ikea. You walk around and find everything in a sleek modern Scandinavian fashion. I got two bags worth of good stuff to make life worth living, like a wok and cups and all the other stuff and a reading lamp. On the bus ride back it started raining and when we got off the bus it was coming down like the business end of a giant water hose or something. But I walk in the rain all the time. so whatever. I went five blocks and the rain was so heavy that I had to actually stop and wait it out. I don’t usually do that kind of thing. I mean I was already wet, why not keep going, but seriously, I couldn’t. And as I was standing under the canopy, I contemplated hailing a cab. Hailing a cab? I even counted up my money to make sure I’d have enough for the trip. Then I remembered I’m not a crybaby and sucked it up. When I finally started walking the rain let up. And then it was gone. So there I was, carrying sixty pounds of goods things to make life worth living, drenched, walking home, and still no picture. But the river was swollen from the rain and the waterfall was mighty and strong. And when I got home I cooked some stuff with pans and ate them with my fork and plate.

So far that’s it. Two excursions, no pictures and a bunch of good things to make life worth living.

the first day or so

It has been 32 hours since I've been in county. In that time I wrote a really long love letter while sitting in the airport for nine hours. I checked into my monk's quarters, a room 12x22 that includes a kitchenette and a bathroom (below are some photos of the place). I slept for 12 hours, from noon to midnight. And now I am beginning my documentation of the tour.

I have another blog documenting the thesis research. It's called tun and you can find it here http://tun23.blogspot.com/. Check it out. Moldegata 25 will be for stories and adventures; strange facts and photos; ramblings and musings. All are free to comment on either site.




If you look close you'll see a $6 loaf of bread.





As you can see I've only unpacked. There has been little attempt at organizing things yet.





The canal I overlook.