Never Ordinary, Never Boring
I want to take you on a strange journey.
After weeks of seemingly endless rain, we finally had a day of sun. Temperature was about 15~20C, which is okay, but not exactly summer-y enough for me. Either way, I dressed up for summer and decided to tourist around Oslo for a while. I ended up strolling around Oslo's westside, the posh side of town. It's a rather strange place - the architecture and parks are fantastic, but the people and atmosphere rather smothering. It's like a different culture I'll never be a part of, a culture I don't really want to be a part of. But the buildings are pretty.
I started out with a rather luxurious breakfast at a newly opened coffee house close to our apartment. It's one of those chain places, but they've set up inside an old fire station, and it feels quite quaint to enjoy your breakfast next to a fireman's pole.
Grønland, entry point to the eastside of town. The eastside of Oslo has more or less always been the poor side of town, it used to be the worker's district - now it's usually portrayed either as an immigrant ghetto, or an exciting place with lots of potential. There are three mosques and a bazaar here, it seems posh people find this very exotic. This has been my home since 2006.
They recently opened up the government quarter for pedestrian traffic. Some areas are still blocked off, and buildings are still in various states of disrepair after last year's bombing. It's weird to think that it's been nearly a whole year since it happened.
The district courthouse is back to normal, the trial is over (for now). All the police officers, crowd control barriers and flowers are gone.
One of the first things I stumbled across during my travels into the westside of town was a pet store that had a bunch of various birds flying around in their shop window. Two birds lay dead on the floor.
I rounded a corner and happened upon a flea market. It's one of the strangest flea markets I've ever been to. All the clothes racks featured fur coats and designer skirts or dresses, people sold silverware and old antiques. I overheard one guy praising the flea market for its excellent choice of location (he used the English word "location" for extra emphasis) - he was glad it was in a location that "would keep the pigs out". I can only assume he was referring to undesirable people. Not quite sure who that would be, but I have a feeling it would be the people who don't find Grønland's mosques and bazaars exotic. A woman selling items from her old wardrobe, told another woman she wanted 200kr for an old skirt, and it was time for me to move on.
I'm not quite sure what this street artist wanted to convey by stencilling Obama as a jew with the words "No Change" underneath. It strikes me as completely irrelevant. I can only assume the artist is more engaged in American politics than in Norwegian politics. It doesn't really surprise me, I've always had this impression that people from the westside of town wished they lived in the US. Their typical political party of choice certainly seems to think they do.
Frognerparken with the beautiful sculpture park Vigelandsparken is placed smack dab in the middle of the westside of town. It's one of very few things in Oslo that is completely free to enjoy. No entrance fee, no nothing. I'm honestly amazed we've managed to keep it free and open for anyone to enjoy. But I'm so, so happy it is.
The park features the largest phallic statue I've ever seen. I've had this idea for a long time now that they should make adult toys based on it. I'm sure it would have been a big hit.
Like I said, the buildings are pretty.
"NORDIC - PRIVATE".
THAT'S RACIST. Or so I thought, until I eventually found a weathered and nearly unreadable sign that mentioned the fact that the building (which looked like a castle, complete with gargoyles shaped like lions, and everything) belonged to the nordic shipowners association - which for some bizarre reason is just called "Nordisk". Huh. Who knew?
I think this is the first time I've ever seen street art in nynorsk. Norway has two written languages, bokmål (the most commonly used written language - based on Danish), and nynorsk (the result of one man collecting various Norwegian dialects during the mid 19th century - combining them to create a unified written language so that we could have a written language of our own). The sentence reads "Try to imagine how elephants perceive time".
It turns out this was a good day for interesting street art/stencilling. Making my way back towards Grønland, I stumbled across this
Oh, that silly Jafar.
After weeks of seemingly endless rain, we finally had a day of sun. Temperature was about 15~20C, which is okay, but not exactly summer-y enough for me. Either way, I dressed up for summer and decided to tourist around Oslo for a while. I ended up strolling around Oslo's westside, the posh side of town. It's a rather strange place - the architecture and parks are fantastic, but the people and atmosphere rather smothering. It's like a different culture I'll never be a part of, a culture I don't really want to be a part of. But the buildings are pretty.
I started out with a rather luxurious breakfast at a newly opened coffee house close to our apartment. It's one of those chain places, but they've set up inside an old fire station, and it feels quite quaint to enjoy your breakfast next to a fireman's pole.
Grønland, entry point to the eastside of town. The eastside of Oslo has more or less always been the poor side of town, it used to be the worker's district - now it's usually portrayed either as an immigrant ghetto, or an exciting place with lots of potential. There are three mosques and a bazaar here, it seems posh people find this very exotic. This has been my home since 2006.
They recently opened up the government quarter for pedestrian traffic. Some areas are still blocked off, and buildings are still in various states of disrepair after last year's bombing. It's weird to think that it's been nearly a whole year since it happened.
The district courthouse is back to normal, the trial is over (for now). All the police officers, crowd control barriers and flowers are gone.
One of the first things I stumbled across during my travels into the westside of town was a pet store that had a bunch of various birds flying around in their shop window. Two birds lay dead on the floor.
I rounded a corner and happened upon a flea market. It's one of the strangest flea markets I've ever been to. All the clothes racks featured fur coats and designer skirts or dresses, people sold silverware and old antiques. I overheard one guy praising the flea market for its excellent choice of location (he used the English word "location" for extra emphasis) - he was glad it was in a location that "would keep the pigs out". I can only assume he was referring to undesirable people. Not quite sure who that would be, but I have a feeling it would be the people who don't find Grønland's mosques and bazaars exotic. A woman selling items from her old wardrobe, told another woman she wanted 200kr for an old skirt, and it was time for me to move on.
I'm not quite sure what this street artist wanted to convey by stencilling Obama as a jew with the words "No Change" underneath. It strikes me as completely irrelevant. I can only assume the artist is more engaged in American politics than in Norwegian politics. It doesn't really surprise me, I've always had this impression that people from the westside of town wished they lived in the US. Their typical political party of choice certainly seems to think they do.
Frognerparken with the beautiful sculpture park Vigelandsparken is placed smack dab in the middle of the westside of town. It's one of very few things in Oslo that is completely free to enjoy. No entrance fee, no nothing. I'm honestly amazed we've managed to keep it free and open for anyone to enjoy. But I'm so, so happy it is.
The park features the largest phallic statue I've ever seen. I've had this idea for a long time now that they should make adult toys based on it. I'm sure it would have been a big hit.
Like I said, the buildings are pretty.
"NORDIC - PRIVATE".
THAT'S RACIST. Or so I thought, until I eventually found a weathered and nearly unreadable sign that mentioned the fact that the building (which looked like a castle, complete with gargoyles shaped like lions, and everything) belonged to the nordic shipowners association - which for some bizarre reason is just called "Nordisk". Huh. Who knew?
I think this is the first time I've ever seen street art in nynorsk. Norway has two written languages, bokmål (the most commonly used written language - based on Danish), and nynorsk (the result of one man collecting various Norwegian dialects during the mid 19th century - combining them to create a unified written language so that we could have a written language of our own). The sentence reads "Try to imagine how elephants perceive time".
It turns out this was a good day for interesting street art/stencilling. Making my way back towards Grønland, I stumbled across this
Oh, that silly Jafar.