Discovering Oslo

Sophia at the dock with
downtown Oslo in background

The final leg of our sailing journey (see www.sophiagoestonorway.blogspot.com) landed us in Oslo on Sunday, 15 August, our exact planned arrival date.  No bad for sailing about 8,500 miles over 5 months! It is with some amount of sadness that we tied up Sophia to the dock; an end to a remarkable journey to Norway.

We also have said goodbye to Phil and Jeffrey, who have each returned to Seattle. We're empty nesters now. It seems so quiet on Sophia.  We also noticed she's sitting higher on her waterline than we've seen in months :-) They were eager to get back home (see the photos of them running to get away from the boat...) and enjoy the lovely late summer in Washington.

Phil dashing off Sophia

And then Jeffrey too

The last few days have been filled with settling into life in Oslo. Practical things -- like getting my resident permit, getting a personnumber (like a SSN), setting up a bank account, a post office box, internet service, and mobile phones -- are all slightly different such that each seems to involve several hours scratching our heads at google translated websites. Suffice to say that of the above 'to do' items, only two are now done. Sometimes the processes are maddeningly circular -- I can't get my personnumber without an address; I can't get an address (at least a P.O. Box) without a personnumber. Oye!

In the midst of all the housekeeping, we've also seen a bit of the sites around town. Yesterday, while Jeffrey was still here, we went to the University of Oslo, where I was able to get keys to my new office (see photo: not a bad view!).

View from my UiO office

We then walked to Frogner Park and Vigeland's sculpture park. The sculptures were evocative, depicting the range of human emotions. The design of the sculpture park itself (also the work of Vigeland) was stunning. The symmetry was striking, and the pairings of sculptures offered additional insight into the works. The sculptures also inspired re-enactments by the public, which were often comedic and brought additional delight that these creative works inspired people to physically engage with the pieces.

Vigeland's column of intertwined people

Spontaneous Re-enactments

We've also been trying Norwegian foods. Apparently tube food is all the rage (or so we've been told). It is unbelievable what you can buy in a tube (like a toothpaste tube): makeral, caviar paste, bacon-flavored cheese, shrimp-flavored cheese, lobster-flavored cheese (are you seeing a pattern here?), all-of-the-above-flavored mayonnaise. And the tube food sometimes has nifty patterned holes so one can squeeze the contents out in various designs. We opted for tube makeral and tube peppered mayonnaise to make Norwegian-style open faced sandwiches. They were quite delicious! And after a 5-month self-enforced banana-free boat (sailors are after all highly superstitious), we could delight in eating bananas.

Mackerel in a Tube

You can just imagine Karl's delight!!

First bite of the long-awaited banana

I have been mostly surprised by the proximity of locales. Oslo is a very walkable city. At least now while the sun is still shining. All too soon it will be a skiable city! We look forward to that as well.  For now we are enjoying the lovely late summer. We went sailing with our new friends, Hanne (Hannah) and Leif, for their weekly sailing club regatta. It was fun racing, and we got first place even though Leif and Hanne modestly claimed that they don't win often. (We met Hanne and Leif as we were sailing up the southwest coast of Norway, and they kindly showed us to a lovely anchorage which we shared with them for the night.)

So our first few days have been full and fun.