Norway Calling

 It is fair to say that I am struggling to maintain motivation to write these blog posts. It is not that I do not want to, it is just that the faffing about to add pictures is getting me down a bit. I have lots of pictures that I would like to share with my avid reader (you know who you are) but it is such a pain having to upload them first from my phone to drive then download to the laptop then upload again to the blog. Faff, faff, faff. So much faffing I am completely faffed out. However, I will endeavour to at least post something from time to time.

So to our trip to Oslo. If you recall we had found a parking spot on a peninsula across the bay from Oslo and decided to stay there and take a ferry into Oslo for the day. Great idea. It worked out splendidly. We purchased our ferry tickets from the little shop in the ferry terminal and we were ready to go. Next morning the weather was like a typical Scottish summer day. Difficult to say how it would pan out, might be glorious sunshine, might be chucking it down, will probably be both. The ferry only takes about 16 minutes to cross and we were in Oslo.

The National Theatre 

Now the first thing to note about Oslo is that there are only three things to be seen. Some fairly fancy buildings, places to eat and POPs. remember POPs? People on plinths. If you enjoy seeing people on plinths then Oslo is a people on plinths paradise. There are people on plinths everywhere you look. There are even POHOPs. People on horses on plinths and there is an entire park dedicated to POPOPs, people on people on plinths. Some "artist" has made literally hundreds of, frankly grotesque statues of naked people doing all sorts of activities (now now, not those sort of activities) but activities none-the-less. Here is a slelection of POPs for you.

Guy on a plinth
Another guy on another plinth

A guy on a horse on a plinth

We walked and walked and eventually arrived at the said park of the POP statues. We like walking and when we left the very town centre to head to the park I saw a couple about 100 yards ahead of us. I jokingly said to Sheila, we'll follow them, they look like us and will probably be heading to the park too. Well as it turned out, I was absolutley correct. They were and we did follow them all the way to the park and then saw them at practically every attraction, if attraction is the correct term.

Some of the naked people on a plinth taken from such an angle as to avoid their dangly bits being visible. Children might be reading this blog.

The big pillar is carved out of a sea of naked bodies intertwined. It was horrible.
We visited the King's palace and saw some people on plinths. There were real live guards there too. They looked about 12 years old but the machine guns they carried looked a little more menacing so I decided not to make any kind of a fool of them (or me) and decided they looked rather smart in their uniforms. The palace is pretty splendid looking and it was actually open for viewing around. Well open to those who were comfortable with performing open wallet surgery in broad daylight. You know us only too well. It was enough for us to see the outside.

King's Palace
After we'd enjoyed our lunch (rolls and crisps taken with us to avoid the exhorbitant prices) we walked back into town and explored. We at one point found ourselves in an area where it seemed that we might be invited into a food kitchen for some food and judging by some of the characters around us we decided it was time to exit stage left. We were looking for the Oslo Opera House which, similar to Sydney Opera house, is by the harbour. It is a little less spectacular but you can walk right up the sloping building and onto the roof where there is a bit of a view of Oslo.

The Opera House from the bottom

And from the roof looking back over Oslo (just to prove we climbed it!)
Here is a selection of other POPs and buildings we stumbled upon along the way.

The Concert House (note the obligatory gathering of people on a plinth)
Yet another guy on a plinth
Mountie Jack with the guy on a plinth in the background
We even found Winston Churchill on a plinth!
OK so I hope you will agree that I have excelled myself in the upload of pictures from Oslo and since we are now back in Sweden there'll be no more Norwegian POPs (unless I unearth some more in my archive)

You can however look forward to some more POPs because I am sure that Stockholm (Thursday) and Helsinki (next week) will not disappoint.

Take care for now,

D, S and MJ


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