On the Bottom Half

Oslo Wandering...

By late Saturday, everyone's brains were smoking and the brannmelder (smoke alarms) were going off all the time. The evacuations were starting to frustrate everyone, so the conference organisers called for Sunday to be a rest day. Henning, Michiel, and I formed an ad hoc Monash gathering and wandered the rain all day checking out the sights of Oslo. We toured around the centre of town, then walked to Akershus Fortress, a ~700 year old Norsk structure built on Oslo Fjord. From there we wound our way to the Henrik Ibsen Museum, which is devoted to the life and works of Norway's greatest playwright, Henrik Ibsen. He was a fierce looking man and wrote prolifically until the late 1800s when he shuffled off this mortal coil. Famous man in these parts, very famous. Following this, we went around to find a warm and dry place for coffees.

Post drink we found our way to a sculpture park where there are over 200 bronze, naked sculptures of humans. It was really quite profound. The sculptor was able to detail the musculature of the human form so convincingly that you'd swear some of the forms were simply bronzed humans. Marvellous. My favourite, a man holding a baby, is below. The picture, unfortunately, doesn't do it justice.After that we ended up back at the hostel and cooked dinner. Conferencing followed on Monday and carried on apace. Tomorrow I'm doing a lightning trip to two fjords in western Norway, which means I have to hit the train at 0635. Hopefully some stunning pictures from that... afterall, next to presenting at the conference, my goal was to see a fjord. I want to see what Slartibartfast was so proud of.

posted by Kyle @ 13:39