National Theater Student's grove

I went into the center of Oslo today, my last day in town. It was a beautiful day with temps finally at 32F and full sun. The sidewalks are clearing and drying out such that I can go back to bigger steps instead of the little baby steps I was using on the ice. It seemed like everyone was out enjoying the weather as well. I wonder what will become of me in Phoenix when 32F feels warm to me now? I don't think it has been this warm for a couple of weeks now. But, tomorrow I head back to Phoenix and to instant Spring. I'm sure I will sit in the warm sun a long time this weekend and enjoy seeing my Arizona friends and saying hello again to Gila and Corazon.

the fate of snowmen in Oslo

Last Sunday the neighbor and his two children made a fine snowman, complete with legs that formed a tunnel. Now it's Friday and the sun has been out all day. I walked home to find the snowman was now leaning with his head up to the sun as if he was as glad as me at the sun being out and was basking in the glow and working on a suntan. Not long after I took this second photo, his head just plopped off backwards and there is little left of the elegant man. Still, I was very glad for the sun and no more snow. I have fallen enough!

botanical gardens

Saturday, and I decided that regardless of the excess of snow, I would go sight seeing. I have never seen the Munch museet, but Cecilia had been and told me how much she enjoyed it, so I figured out which bus and where to catch it and took off. Now, that is so much better than personally driving in this snow! The museum was great. His art shows such incredible emotion for being a flat surface. Even the amount of paint he used seems thin and stretched with personal pain.

Across the street from the museum is the main campus for the University of Oslo. There were several museums, but what I wanted to do was to go to the greenhouse in the Botanical Gardens. Unfortunately, they were closed. Here is a photo of the gardens. What you can't see is the amount of snow that was falling! But, the trees in garden had such beautiful colors and were covered in such great amounts of snow. I really enjoyed looking at the trees and thinking of painting.

University of Oslo, Blindern

Here is the campus of University of Oslo at Blindern, which is where Biology is located. The building on the right is the library, and on the left, the low building is the student union. It was snowing again, but the sidewalks had been cleared. Probably was because of some heating under the path. Otherwise, all the sidewalks are really either slushy, icy, or packed snow. And, it was snowing hard the day I took this photo, and even more today. Everyone in the City is beginning to say there is TOO much snow (I thought that many weeks ago). It would seem that the snow is not making for good skiing conditions. It certainly doesn't stop anyone from getting out.

Oslo winters

Here is the same location that I started off the blog with, except now the water in the fjord is now frozen. Birds walk on the surface rather than swim, although I saw a little open water that was filled with ducks and swans near the tidal river. Further out there are still large ships passing, but close by it appears to be thick ice, and now covered in snow. After 3 days of sun and -14C weather, it is again snowing. It snowed most of yesterday, all of today, and is forecast for the remainder of the week. I will be in total shock returning to spring in Arizona. Still, I find that I am wearing less layers than when I first arrived, so I am no longer the novice. I have learned that I am much warmer if I wear gloves and a hat than an extra shirt, which I find an interesting bit of info. The days are now quite a bit longer. This photo, while it is snowing and hard to tell, is taken at 3:30pm, the same time I took the one in January, except then the sun was setting. Now the sun set around 5pm and is up at 8am. It is almost a 3 hour increase in just one month.

skiing

For reasons as yet unknown to myself, I took up the call for cross-country skiing, joining all of Oslo on the trail. After so much snow, it seemed as if the entire town was out for a weekend ski. To get to the cross country trails, all you have to do is catch the T-bane (tram) that goes up. Now, that should have been a warning to me that the tram went UP. I thought cross country skiing meant a flat trail, but not here. The first 10 meters were downhill and I fell at least 6 time in that 10 meters. We eventually went 6 km, but I admit to falling more than skiing. Sometimes, it was more like face-planting. So, while that photo of me looks like I am really moving, I am a complete poser. But, the trail was incredibly beautiful and I am glad I went, even if I couldn't lift my legs the next day.

Back to the River

I am back in Oslo now, and back to even more snow than before. Here is what the little river near the house looks like now. There are still at least 5 different species of birds living in Oslo during the winter, often looking more like like balls of fluff than birds in an attempt to keep warm.

But, the best is that the sun is quickly increasing it's daylight hours. Now, the sun comes up around 8am and sets closer to 6 than 3pm. Much better for returning home from work.

last post for France

One last post for my trip to France. It is the front of a house in a little village near Rasigueres. Perhaps if you enlarge it you can see the real charm, but the walls are covered in ceramic pieces that have been glued and then painted around to make into pictures of the area. It is the most unique house I think I have ever seen.

The trip back to Oslo was completely cloudy, and it has snowed continually since I returned here. Today the sky and the snow covered roofs were one and the same shade of white. I am to go out with a friend to try cross country skiing tomorrow. We will see how THAT goes!

Be sure to look at all the France posts... Obviously there are many more photos and some fine, fine memories. Wish you had been here with us to soak it all in. I hope and trust in time.

As you see, the hills are covered in grape vines. People were out every day pruning the vines.

grapes

beautiful old vines...

Rasigueres hermitage

The lonely hermitage tower on the hill above Rasigueres. Someday I will manage to climb all the way up.

the tower

Rasigueres is a small village surrounded by grape vines, but there are a couple of fallen down hermitages that fascinate me. I don't know much about their history or age, but they certainly add some character to the area. Here is a photo of the town, with Tom's house at the edge of town, in almost the middle of the screen-- the house with two windows on the second floor and located in front of the large vineyard. The town has about 100 residents (I have seen 10 perhaps), 2 wine stores, and one ceramic shop. The bread truck comes by each morning and a grocery store on wheels comes by once a week.

Rasigueres

The area around Rasigueres is the old Carthar region. We did more driving around to see the area than we have ever done and we found some great ruins. Our favorite was at Lapradelle-Puilaurens and was an old castle built right into the top of a white rock mountain, such that it looked like a giant dragon perched on the edge. The castle was begun around 980, but there have been humans living there since at least 12,000 years ago.

Nice Roman ruins

Here is a photo of the Roman ruins. I took Latin in high school from a nun who loved to talk about archeology and seeing the baths really was enjoyable to see in real life.

Matisse museum

There is a Matisse museum in Nice and it is located right next to the ruins of a Roman bath house. It took me two trips there to actually get inside, but it was well worth the effort. They had many of his works on display and the cutouts remain my favorites. But, it was also fun to see the actual chairs, rugs, and vases he enjoyed having in his paintings...particularly that wonderful low overstuffed chair. The museum was housed in an old Villa with the most incredible view of Nice. It looked like the city was a big bowl and the sea was about to come pouring in. Again, another photo that didn't work because of the sun. But, after so much darkness in Oslo, I would not complain about Nice sun.

more on Nice

The meeting was interesting, but I also enjoyed wandering around the old city of Nice. The streets are narrow and just about everywhere there are the most wonderful places to eat. I can't remember being in a city with such good food and wine.

I walked down to the harbor and saw some huge private yachts, but no photo would do them justice. It was staggering to imagine the life of the wealthy...

out of the snow of Oslo and into the sun (rain) of France

I have been gone from Oslo for 10 days, visiting France. First I went to a conference in Nice, then rented a car and drove down the coast to Rasigueres in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France, where Tom shares a house with friends. The flight from Oslo to Nice was a pure pleasure. The day was clear and we flew over the Alps. It was an incredible sight. I never realized how close Nice was to the Alps, but we came down out of snow capped mountains just in time to see the Mediterranian and Monaco, Nice and Cannes sitting right there on the French Riviera. The plane followed the coast line for quite a ways, and it was solid building as far as I could see. We landed and it looked so tropical with many palms and blooming plants, that I felt a long way from the winter of Oslo. I walked down from the hotel to the water and found a beach of a great many rocks from fist size down. The sound of the waves coming in and moving the rocks was so wonderful that I took a video just to remember it. But, here is a photo.

Real Snow

I have learned that there is snow, and then there is real snow. We are in the middle of real snow--must be 2 feet of it out there, but more is falling and the forecast calls for more all this week. I have enjoyed walking in it, but people would really have to love skiing to get into it longer than a day. Still, it is beautiful from the window of the living room...
Here is a photo of the river as of yesterday, after the first big snowfall.

the other end of the river

Today I walked along the river as it flows downhill. The river has a series of locks to allow fish to swim up to spawn. Next to the lock is an old water mill.

I took a photo from the bridge looking down at the locks and then from across a snow covered pool behind the waterfall, looking out toward the ocean to the south.

Snow falling

The snow has been falling for three days now, and right now, outside the kitchen window, it is falling heavily. I keep hearing about springtime in Tempe, but it's a long way from here.

We went to see the Oslo Opera house yesterday. It sits on the water in the center of town and is a low slung white marble building filled with the warmth of wood on the inside.

Frozen waterfall

Today's walk took me down to a river that flows into the Oslo fjord. I have often walked the lower section, but today I went upstream. Not far up is a wonderful waterfall, now mostly frozen, but with a lot of green algal laden ice.

more info on Vigeland

seems my link didn't work for the wikipedia site, so I will try it again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigeland_Sculpture_Park
If that line is blank, you'll need to go to wikipedia on your own and look up Vigeland_Sculpure_Park. It is worth reading about.

overview

And, here is the overlook of the park, in the 3:00 shadow. This is almost the top terrace. Below is a water fountain held up by some amazingly strong stone men, and past that is the bridge, lined with bronze men, women, and children.

While at the park, I realized that the ratio of children to dogs was 1:1. Soon I will have to put in a photo of the bundled up babies in the prams. They are quite amazingly wrapped up and so obviously happy to be warmly rolled around.

a walk in the park

The afternoon was completely cloudless and beautiful, so I walked from the University down to Vigeland Park. It is a beautiful park that contains many bronze and granite statues made by G. Vigeland. He tried to capture every human emotion, and I have yet to find one he missed. It's an amazing park and I have enjoyed visiting it many times before. But, it was difficult to take photos, since I kept going back to the statues that I have already photographed before. I was looking for one photo that might give you an idea of the park, but never quite found it. But, I did see a statue that I had not noticed before--a woman in the arms of a dragon. And, I walked up toward the top and took a photo of the overview. It is winter, but so much less harsh than I expected. It has been right at or a little above freezing, with no rain/snow yet. I'm sure that will change.

Here is the Wikipedia site with more photos and a good description of the park.

an attempt to work

although I went into the University, I didn't get much done. At some point I looked out the window and saw the sun after a day of heavy clouds and I ended up taking a photo from my office and then heading out for a long walk.

I stopped by the grocery on the way home. bell peppers were $6 each...ah, gotta love shopping in Oslo.

Although much of the day was spent working on editing a proposal from Yang and Jim, we did manage to get a walk in while the sun was up. We walked thru the neighborhood. The day was warm enough that all the snow had melted, but the wind had picked up, leaving my face frozen. We saw several old houses and barns from the time when this part of Oslo was countryside and the farmers lived here. But, the one thing I took a photo of was this wonderful train sign. Now, when would we ever have such a cute sign in the USA?

9 Jan 2009

The first day in Oslo was almost sunny with a little frosting of snow on the ground. I put on all the clothes I brought and walked down to the water. Oslo doesn't actually sit at open ocean but is at the end of the Oslo fjord, a large channel cut by a long ago glacier on the way to the ocean. Here are a couple of photos of the fjord. One looks northeast toward the city, the other southwest toward the mouth of the fjord.