oslo
my first taste of scandinavia...i arrived in the evening at torp to realize i had once again fallen in a ryanair trap, landing 2 hours away from my final destination. the same had happened while flying to barcelona (girona, also an hour and a half away from the city.) needless to say, i am now wary of parentheticals when buying ryanair flights, i.e. destination: oslo (torp), barcelona (girona) etc. also, oslo is definitively THE most expensive city, which was exacerbated by the fact that the exchange rate was 1 EURO to 8.5 KRONER, making me feel like i was spending hundreds on everything. i will say no more.

promptly upon arrival (to the actual city), i bought a falafel from an iraqi man at habibi cafe. little did i know that i'd be eating there every day, since norwegians love to stock their grocery stores with mostly cheese and bread and fish and sausages. i wandered the city under fading light and also discovered that it never gets fully dark in oslo, since the city is so close to the north pole. to me, it was 9PM all night until morning.

i stumbled upon some sort of pakistani pride celebration in the town square. pakistanis were dancing, shouting for their friends to join them, waving their green and white flag, drumming.. the funniest part was when a gaggle of old norwegian women were shoved into the dancing mass and the crowd cheered. i took pictures and watched- later i read that there is a huge population of pakistani immigrants in oslo, and there has been tension between pakistanis and norwegians who are putting a cap on the influx and simultaneously trying not to appear racist.


i tried to hit as many sights as i could, the most interesting of which were vigeland sculpture park inside frogner park, the new oslo opera house, the oslo national gallery, and the museum of design and architecture. vigeland park was created by gustav vigeland, one of norway's most famous artists. he created the sculpture wonderland with human forms depicting the most common of human expressions and conditions. an interesting quote from him: "when it comes to inspiration for sculpture, the time between feeling and execution should be as short as possible."


the oslo national gallery had an impressive and extensive collection of edvard munch, and i had no need to trek to the outskirts of the city to the edvard munch museum (which i suspected was over-priced tourist fodder); the national gallery had the scream. they also had an inspiring collection of norwegian art. i was particularly impressed with j.c. dahl, lars hertervig, harold sohlberg... i loved dahl's devotion to the norwegian landscape and the space/importance he gave to the sky.. the human figures in his paintings were dwarfed in comparison to the majesty of the mountains, rivers, and clouds. his most famous painting, fra stalheim, has a rainbow streaking across the landscape, "indicating this is god's work." could've stared at it for hours, but i had such little time.

the museum of architecture and design had an exhibit on the international architectural collective snhetta. genius, genius, genius. one of the best interactive exhibits i've ever seen. there were touch screen stations where actual members of snhetta coached you through designing your own building (maritime museum, library, apartment complex, etc.) plus, i was so grateful to be introduced to the work of snhetta, who after winning an international design competition to restore the ancient library of alexandria in egypt, have contracts to build all over the world. their work is visionary, and i was happy to see there are such forward-thinking minds in the world.. their process emphasizes context and landscape, leading to harmony between architecture and its surroundings. eco-friendly, sustainable, and high-quality architecture.


i saw a an interesting documentary in the modern art portion of the museum, it was called "12 studies on shit." i learned more about human shit than i ever knew possible. the most interesting parts mentioned that tomato seeds survive the digestive operations of the human body, so tomato plants sprout and flourish over dumping grounds covered in human feces. i also learn that there is an intricate maze of waste tunnels located directly under vigeland sculpture park and that kids are more interested in shit and human orifices than adults because they have not yet entered the "genital phase." these are only a few of the 12 studies.. i highly recommend this film. 
