Learning to Say My Name

July 1, 2012

First breakfast at the hotel in Oslo - not quite as grand as the Copenhagen offering but quite good nonetheless. I forgot to tell you last night that we had reindeer for dinner. I might not have tucked into it with such gusto had I known. I thought it was beef until I was corrected. It was fixed medium rare and was tasty but something about picturing those cute furry antlers made me leave quite a bit of it on my plate.

I am working with our Oslo guide in an attempt to properly pronounce my maiden name: Kjenstad. Caroline has become pretty good at it but I am still stymied by the placement of the first syllable in my mouth. The second syllable I had down pat - it's staa. We always pronounced it like chensted. NOT.

This is a photo of the City Hall.

We had a lecture to acquaint us with some of the history of the country and its current situation which is quite good what with its newfound wealth of oil and gas in the part of the North Sea that is owned by Norway. The politicos are at odds about how much to drill and how to spend the profits so it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

 

Lovely view of the harbor en route to the Nobel Peace Center.

Our first stop was the national museum and the highlight had to be the Edvard Munch room with one of the four "Scream" paintings. Many other Munch paintings were there also and our knowledgeable guide gave us a good biography of his life and works.

In the afternoon, we visited the Nobel Peace Center. For some reason, the Peace Prize is given out in Norway and the rest of the Nobels in Sweden which is Alfred Nobel's country of origin.

I did manage to squeeze in a little shopping although very little because Oslo is ranked as one of the most expensive cities in the world. Tokyo beat it out last year but still at number two.... Nothing is cheap here. Ron paid almost $5 for a small cup of regular coffee at the hotel.

 

The weather is clearing. Yippee!

 

After dinner tonight, we're meeting our high school friends Jane and Ron (no joke) Petrich since they are here from Minneapolis visiting their Norwegian family. Good timing.

 

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