Tenth Post From Türkiye: Norway

So to continue my new tradition of listening to music from the country I visited to prepare to write about it I spent some time with a-ha. Basically I watched the video for Take On Me on youtube. And may I just say, that is a most excellent video! You should watch it immediately after you finish reading this blog.

 Anyway, we went to Norway.

Oslo!

I really liked Oslo! It just seemed to be fun and kind of laid back. There were lots of street performers and art and people out and about enjoying their city.

We stayed in this Pension in a great neighborhood.
 Really close to the Royal Palace.

We started out at City Hall. They hold the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony there & it is a really interesting building with a lot of great art.

We continued our walking tour at the harbor.

 Down Karl Johansgate (pedestrian street). Where we kept seeing youngsters dressed up 50's style. Not sure why but I liked it!  

 Passed through a flower market.

 Tried to visit the Oslo Cathedral, but it was closed every time we went by, so we contented ourselves by visiting the Bazaar behind the cathedral.

 Took in the Opera House. So gorgeous.

There is Jack and Truman's hand at the very top!

Then we walked up to the fortress to explore...

 and enjoy the veiw!

 We took the tram from there out to Frogner Park

It is an amazing park filled with the sculpture of Gustav Vigeland. It was so cool!

Here is Truman with his favorite sculpture, a man being attacked by babies.

And Jack with the famous "Angry Baby" statue.

At this point it was getting seriously dark and not to be too wimpy but we decided to call it a day.

The next day we got up early to catch a ferry.

It was a gorgeous morning!

We took the ferry out to visit the Viking Museum

Loving it! Feeling their Viking Roots!

 

and the Norsk Folk Museum. The folk museum is a large park with preserved buildings and cultural exhibits (You could sign up to pick potatoes the day we were there. Yikes! I have done that enough in my life and I didn't sign up for the privilege!) as well as some excellent museums.

We took the ferry back over to downtown, it was another beautiful trip!

Then we toured The National Gallery.

 Mostly so Trum could see The Scream in person.

 Then we kind of wandered around and stopped in at this flea market. Full of fun junk!

The next day we headed out to see more of Norway.

The countryside,

 the fjordes,

 Stave Churches,

 rivers & towns!

We had booked a night in a traditional sod roofed cabin and we just couldn't find the place. Finally we called and we were told we would be met by a guy who would take us to the cabin. We found him and started following him up the mountain. We kept going up and up and I started to get a little creeped, I told Jack the guy was probably leading us to his murdering spot. But instead he led us to an awesome cabin. We want one for our very own some day (without the the creeped out, murdering spot bit before hand)!

Our cabin, nestled in amongst the rocks and trees of Norway!

 

The next day we continued on our road trip through such beautiful country.

We went up in the Jotunheimen Mountains and it was COLD!

We stopped to hike to the Nigardsbreen arm of the large Jostedalsbreen glacier. The hike was long, but beautiful and totally worth it. The glacier was amazing.

The parking lot were we started the hike.

 

 The next day we headed to Bergen. It is a beautiful town with a great historic harbor.

Burgers in the rain!

Old German section with restored wooden buildings and narrow walkways.

Perhaps the most charming McDonald's of all time.

 From Bergen we left Norway via an overnight ferry to...Denmark!

Random Stuff from around Norway:

Guy with homemade cotton candy machine, selling enormous balls of candy floss.

Not to be a creep always taking pictures of other people's houses, but I had to, this is an awesome Norwegian house!

Stuffed Reindeer at an exhibit about the Sami People.

Ninth Post From Türkiye: Sweden

The first two weeks in October we took a little trip to and around Scandinavia. It was fun, beautiful, expensive, interesting, exciting & exhausting. We had a great time! So, as to not create the world's longest post, I am going to break it up into 3 posts, one for each country we visited. First off, we visited SWEDEN.

 (I have spent the last hour watching ABBA videos on youtube to prepare myself to write about Sweden. I think I am ready.)

We flew into Copenhagen, rented a car and drove into Sweden.

Right away Sweden was full of delights!

 We stopped for snacks and discovered that even the gas stations in Sweden are charming!

FINALLY! Lemon Fanta! It is my all time fav and I haven't been able to find it in Turkey.(You know they use actual juice to flavor their Fanta on this side of the Atlantic? You can pretend you are being healthy when you drink it!)

As we drove along, I just kept thinking, I could take a picture of that & that & that....everything was so picturesque. I finally did make Jack stop so I could take this picture.

Our first stop was on the Island of Öland. There are all of these old windmills scattered all over the Island and we stopped at an Iron-age graveyard with stone circles.

Next we headed into Kalmar. It was getting dark but we still toured around at the castle.

The next morning we wandered around the old town. I was taking pictures of this street and people were staring at me like I was a weirdo. I guess when you are surrounded by quaint streets like this everyday of your life you think it's weird to take pictures of it.

From Kalmar we headed to Stockholm.

We toured Stockhom City Hall.  

 Mosaic Mural (with real gold in the tiles) letting all visitors & natives know that Stockholm is the center of the world (I thought it was Idaho, until I saw this).

This is the hall where they hold the Nobel Prize banquet.

Then we headed out for a walking tour of the city.

Royal Palace

 

Trum's favorite sign.

 

 Iron Boy statue. 

Rune stone and cannon.

I like that my ZERO TOLERANCE stance is made clear in this photo.

 

Then we headed inside to tour the Royal Armory.

It had some truly terrific exhibits. We, of course, only took pictures of the dress-up section.

Wizard's Robes

 

More walking/touring around.

For day two we headed out, fortified with cinnamon rolls, to visit the Church of St. Nicholas to see the statue of Saint George.

Then we took the ferry to Skansen. Skansen is an open air museum and zoo. There are a lot of traditional buildings that have been moved to the island from all over Sweden. And you can see people dong traditional crafts like baking, glass blowing, pottery and what-not. We also had some Swedish meatballs for lunch!

Wow! Look at that, a picture of Jack with a normal face!

Why do I allow myself to be talked into this nonsense? I look ridiculous, and that horse was wet so I had wet pants afterwards!

  

Then we headed over the The Vasa Museum.

The warship Vasa sank on her maiden voyage in Stockholm 1628 and was salvaged in 1961. It was almost perfectly preserved underwater that whole time. The museum was great, so interesting and lots of interactive exhibits.

Replica of what it would have looked like, when it was built.

 

  

That evening we took the opportunity to go the the Temple. For sure, a highlight of Stockholm for us.

  The next day we drove on to Norway.

Here are some random pictures from around Sweden.

Unpleasant public art.

Museum Chickens

Possibly the most charming house in the world.

Enormous troll on top of a shopping center.

Abba Museum, that Jack did NOT let me tour.