soaking in oslo

Summer time is a time for most Scandinavians to take a vacation. Most... but not all. Construction workers kick into overdrive over summer, building new roads, tram tracks, and unfortunately for us, performing train track maintenance on the route from Göteborg to Oslo. After an increasingly confused 10 to 15 minutes at Göteborg Central. Wondering where in the hell train platform 54 is? We was decided that perhaps "buss" actually did mean a bus, despite our train tickets definitely saying "tåg" (train).

No problem, replacement coaches were taking us to somewhere in the country where the train would meet us. Belle and I were off to Oslo for the weekend!

We arrived in Oslo around lunch time. After checking in, we went to the restaurant next door which advertised traditional Norwegian cuisine. Whale was on the menu... and I ate it. A tough meat, I think it's kind of like kangaroo (if kangaroo was tough, which it's not), but doesn't taste as good.

After lunch we headed out to explore Oslo. It's a compact city, which makes it perfect for tourism on foot. The main street, Karl Johans gate was packed full of people and street performers. I was reminded again how much Scandinavians celebrate summer compared to Australians. Then again, Australians never have to suffer through Scandinavian winters. It does make the cities have a great vibe in summer.

We were able to check out Central Oslo's main sights in one afternoon. The old castle / fortress, Akershus Festning, provided a good vantage point to look over the city and the harbour. We also were able to get a crash course in Norwegian history.

Wandering back down the hill we visited the Nobel Peace Prize museum. It currently has a thought provoking exhibition about slums. It was a multimedia display where you could "walk into" various slum houses. These houses were projected onto blank walls. Audio recordings would play and the inhabitants would tell their stories.

It was quite interesting; some who were interviewed had always lived in the slum area, and enjoyed life there. These people were usually disappointed that their slums were always slated for demolition. Others were educated people who couldn't get jobs. They were justifiably annoyed at the prejudice against them just for where they live; it makes it harder to get a job.

In Jakarta, entire families live under bridges and have to be careful not to fall into the rivers below. These families tell their cousins in the country: don't visit me, my house is small and very far away. I'll visit you.

It was also interesting because these people don't have any property rights. While the slum areas aren't a good way for people to live, at the same time, when governments are encouraged to do something about it, it usually means ignoring the people inside the slum areas. The lack of property rights, leads to a lack of any opportunity to claim compensation for the dislocation they will endure.

The slums outside Mumbai have a gross economic output at around $1 billion a year - including an impressive plastic recycling industry. Yes, of course, it has significant water supply and public health issues too, but it will be interesting to see how the Indian government handles improving the area, as well as maintaining the industry.

Also at the Nobel Prize museum, there was a display on global warming, with an inventive way to visualise it: a model of Oslo with a melting ice block suspended above it, slowly drowning the city. It seemed only appropriate that after that, we visit Oslo's newly redeveloped docklands area, right on the water, and have a coffee - and to marvel at the price of steak in the steak houses. About $60 for the cheapest. Well over $100 for the most expensive! We finished off the day with a walk up to the Royal Palace (very nice) and cocktails and dinner down town (also... very nice).

What did the next day have in store for us? In one word: rain.

What the hell? It's summer damn it!

The rain was here to stay. Like in Copenhagen - there's no such thing as a passing shower in Scandinavia. It just kept getting heavier and heavier. Should we have brought wet weather gear? Maybe. Should we have at least bought an umbrella that morning? Definitely.

It didn't stop us though. First thing on the "Oslo Plan" for Sunday - our handwritten scrap of paper with sights to see - was a trip to Frognerseteren. Almost 500-metres above Oslo, at the end of the #1 metro line. The plan was to hike to the TV tower, and get the view from there. As you can see from the photo above, there was no good view to be seen on this day.

We abandoned that plan, and took the metro down a few stations to Holmenkollen. This is home to Oslo's most famous sight: the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. Again, it would have been a lot better with some visibility of the city below. We climbed to the top, and it's quite horrid inside. Graffitied. Rusty. Leaking.

The current jump is slated for demolition, and a newer, bigger, and hopefully nicer, one will be built in time for the world championships in a few years.

After stopping for coffee - with the wishful thought that maybe if we give it 20 minutes, it'll stop raining - we pressed on. All the way back down the mountain to Vigeland sculpture park. The brain child of Gustav Vigeland and the Oslo city council, the park is full of Vigeland's naked statues. There are people in all sorts of poses, of all sorts of ages, and of both sexes. Kind of like an older version of the Bodies exhibition. You might realise by now that the weather was oppressive, so we made a quick decision to head for cover in the near by museum dedicated to Vigeland.

The decision was a good one. I thought it was a lot more interesting to know a bit of history about the statues than to be oblivious of the stories behind them if we'd simply wandered in the park. For instance, he was well known before 1905, but when Norway gained its independence, he was in a fortunate position to be able to accept a number of grants from the newly independent government looking to establish Norwegian identity. The park itself was guaranteed after the Oslo city council wanted to demolish his house to make way for a library. He argued to have the city give him a brand new studio, and a section of Frogner park. In return, the city owns all his works, sketches, models, etc.

The sculptures are quite evocative - showing all emotions and stages of life. His most famous sculpture is one of a toddler throwing a tantrum. I'd recommend a visit if in Oslo.

We couldn't stay at the museum all day, nor could we stay in Oslo forever, so it was back into the rain for us. Jealous of umbrella carrying sensible people. Annoyed at wet feet, soaking jeans, but all in all... having a great time.

a visitor

Who's a lucky boy? Ja ha... That'd be me. I recently had a visitor drop in for a couple of weeks. My girlfriend, Belle, visited me in Göteborg.

It was time to share my knowledge of Swedish customs (lunch at 11:30am), language (tjena! hur är läget?), and food (inlagd sill). Of course it was a lot of fun showing off the city I'd been living in for the past four months, so far away from her and Melbourne.

First of all I had to serve some traditional Swedish foods. I served a mid-summer's style meal of inlagd sill, otherwise known as picked herring in English. Remember it's sill, and definitely not seal! Also served up with some fresh potatoes, boiled. Some of the herring was excellent, some of it not so.

Typically during the day we'd meet each other for lunch, as I was still working during the day. Something different in Göteborg compared to Melbourne is the ferry across the river, so typically we'd be catching that to meet in either Lindholmen or Järntorget. During the first week the weather looked pretty threatening, but usually it kept from raining too much.

It didn't stop us from checking out the sights around town, including walks along the canal, visiting the animals in Slottskogen (a large park) and going for after work drinks along über-trendy Avenyn.

Although the weather isn't always this cooperative in summer, in Sweden, luckily for us the weather did improve. The second week of Belle's stay was sunny and, would you believe it, hot!? Now it was time to get out an enjoy the best Göteborg has to offer. Personally I think the best activities are the outdoors ones too:

• cruising in the archipelago
• a picnic next at Delsjön
• outdoor dining in Haga
• drinks in the sunshine along Avenyn

We went on a cruise in the archipelago. It combined the lovely views of Göteborg's southern islands at sunset, and a wonderful summer meal: salmon, mussels, and as much shrimp as you could fit in (or be bothered shelling!). Highly recommended when in Göteborg (in summer... with good weather).

walkabout in london

As Wimbledon drew to a close for another year, I decided it was time to visit London. Touching down late on Friday night, I got the grand tour from Stansted in the North East to where Carmen lives, Wimbledon, in the South West. Similar to going from Melbourne Airport to Frankston, this took about an hour and a half.

After a justified sleep in on Saturday it was time to take "the tube" to see one of London's most famous sites: the Tower of London.

The Tower is not a single tower, rather it is a fortress (with 4 towers), surrounded by two defensive walls. The walls have many more towers.

The complex has plenty of strange, interesting and bloody-thirsty history to offer. Not only that, it also stores some impressive collections of historic weaponry: from suits of armour to bayoneted rifles.

A funny tradition at the tower, is that a minimum of six ravens need to roost in the grounds, otherwise legend has it that the tower will crumble and the monarchy will fall. Of course this is the first time I'd heard of ravens being crucial to the structural integrity of a building and the general well being of a family, but you never know I guess. Just to make sure the legend is never tested, they keep eight or nine ravens there. Not superstitious at all; just cautious. :-)

Of course to complete any self-respecting royal fortress, you require royal guards. The British have pretty distinctive royal guards too:

These lads were on their way to guard the crown jewels. And do the British royals have a lot of crown jewels? Yes.

That night it was time to change the scene a bit. From down town royal castles, to inner city Camden Town. We caught a Mexican wrestling (Lucha libre) show at the Roundhouse. Former railway shed, and then more famously, live music venue. These days it's been revamped into a theatre. The wrestling was a ridiculous, well choreographed show with oiled up men wearing masks. After the show we went back to the centre of London for a night on the turps.

We were supposed to have brunch on Sunday morning, but we scrapped that plan in favour of sleeping in again. Today was the main event: Wimbledon men's final. No, unfortunately I didn't have tickets, but being in London meant I could at least watch the final in daylight hours! True to form, it was raining by 1pm, and still raining at 2pm when the final was due to start. We headed into a sports bar, and settled for watching a very wet British Grand Prix.

Finally the weather cleared, and Federer and Nadal took the court for what was about to be an epic 5 set final. This being London on men's final Sunday, meant it wasn't going to be fine weather forever. Of course the match got interrupted again. When the weather forecaster said the delay would be at least an hour, we decided to head to Cynthia's, and watch the remainder of the final at her house. (We weren't even sure if it was going to be continued that day!)

The rest is history. The rain cleared, play continued, and Nadal broke Federer's five Wimbledon winning streak. We watched it in comfort at Cyn's place, eating some excellent sushi.

aussie rules karlstad

After the fun of a very Swedish midsummer's long weekend, the next weekend it was time to spice things up with a bit of a road trip in celebration of Australian culture. I hit the road with the Berserkers: the Göteborg Australian Rules Football Club to take on the Dragons from Karlstad.

Aussie rules has to be modified a bit to be played here. For example, we play on a rugby pitch, with nine players per side on the field. Since the pitch is fairly short, there was a one bounce limit before you had to pass.

Göteborg was boosted by a few ring-in's from Oslo: three Aussies! So the final make up of the Berserkers was 5 Aussies and 6 Swedes. It was a sunny day, with a moderate wind down the ground. We lost the toss and kicked into the wind in the first quarter. While slightly down at quarter time, a heated 2nd quarter made sure we were in front at half time by a goal. Unfortunately our ruck man was knocked out after a heavy tackle.

With the loss of the ruck man our mid-field was significantly weakened and Karlstad took full advantage kicking 6 or 7 goals in the first 10 minutes of the third quarter. It's not called the premiership quarter for nothing. From here we never recovered.

Karlstad def. Göteborg: 18.19.127 to 9.14.68.

Postscript: Mattias, the ruck who was knocked out, was at training the following Monday, suffering only a "slight" headache. Suffice to say, he opted out of the scratch match at the end.