Do I sound like a horrible person if I say Oslo is kind of boring? Maybe it's just the contrast of coming from Stockholm, but for a major Scandinavian capital, it feels as if the city is...unfinished. Another reason is that I arrived on a Sunday and everything was closed; not even reduced hours, but entirely closed. However, Sunday also means free admission to select museums.
So I checked out The National Gallery where the highlights were paintings by Edvard Munch, including "The Scream" and "Madonna." There is also a separate Munch Museum since Munch is arguably Norway's most famous artist. Okay, I say "arguably" because that's what the literature says, but I tend to lean towards "definitely." To be honest, I didn't even know Munch was Norwegian until yesterday.
Then I walked all over the city...to the Parliament, Royal Residence, City Hall, National Library, etc...and they're all historic monuments built in a certain style. The city hall is, in my opinion, an ugly monstrosity. Then I get to the waterfront with its Opera House and a small peninsula they've started developing with an anticipated completion date of 2014. It's a complete 180 and feels as if I've stepped into the future. There's concrete, glass, marble, wood, and everything is modern and streamlined and Scandinavian. The skyline is dotted with cranes and roads are torn up throughout the city. There's a song lyric that goes, "They build towers to the sky, it hurts sometimes to watch them try." This is the second time I've been reminded of the song on this trip - the first was in Dubai.
So I checked out The National Gallery where the highlights were paintings by Edvard Munch, including "The Scream" and "Madonna." There is also a separate Munch Museum since Munch is arguably Norway's most famous artist. Okay, I say "arguably" because that's what the literature says, but I tend to lean towards "definitely." To be honest, I didn't even know Munch was Norwegian until yesterday.
Then I walked all over the city...to the Parliament, Royal Residence, City Hall, National Library, etc...and they're all historic monuments built in a certain style. The city hall is, in my opinion, an ugly monstrosity. Then I get to the waterfront with its Opera House and a small peninsula they've started developing with an anticipated completion date of 2014. It's a complete 180 and feels as if I've stepped into the future. There's concrete, glass, marble, wood, and everything is modern and streamlined and Scandinavian. The skyline is dotted with cranes and roads are torn up throughout the city. There's a song lyric that goes, "They build towers to the sky, it hurts sometimes to watch them try." This is the second time I've been reminded of the song on this trip - the first was in Dubai.
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