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.