First Impressions - Oslo

I did not have the best first impression of Oslo.  I was not sure what to expect.  Outside of elementary school Social Studies class and ninth grade Geography class Norway was not a place that I had thought about very often.  It certainly was not a travel destination that I had dreamed about visiting. My traveling partner at the time had a business meeting in Copenhagen he had to attend. We were looking at the map to see what other places were near by that we had not seen before.  So I found myself in Oslo.  We boarded the train from Gardermoen Airport to the city of Oslo.  We were soon put off the train in a little town called Lillestrom.  We had boarded the express train by mistake and they would not accept our non express train ticket.  Stupid tourists.

Littlesam in Lillestrom 

After our little mishap on the train we finally arrived to the train station in Oslo.  We walked out of the station to the little square in the photo at the top of this page.  I was not impressed.  The square was not very large.  There was a small unattractive tower in the corner.  And there was a man with a Middle Eastern musical instrument sitting in the square playing some very strange sounding music.  Nothing about this reminded me of anything I knew about Norway.

In spite of our little delay in Lillestrom we were still too early to go to the Bed and we had booked.  So we took some time to explore the square before looking for a taxi. The first thing we found was a large statue of a large anatomically correct tiger.  

This was not the first thing I expected to see in Oslo. So why was there a tiger in front of Central Station in Oslo?  There is a reason for it being there.  For the 1000th anniversary celebration in 2000 for the city of Oslo the city requested a bronze statue be placed in the square, Oslo's nickname is Tigerstaden or the City of the Tiger.  The name most likely came from a poem by the Norwegian poet Bjornstjerne Bjornson.  His poem "Sidste Sanq" was written in 1870 and describes a fight between a horse and a tiger.  The tiger represents the dangerous city and the horse the safe countryside. My first impression though was not a dangerous city.  It was just a small odd city and I was not sure what I really thought of it yet.  There were a few other odd statues in the square that I was finding interesting also but odd.

We finally found a taxi and gave the driver the address of the Bed and Breakfast we had booked.  Like everything in Oslo, the Bed and Breakfast was not quite what I had expected.  It was an old white clapboard house across the street from Frogner Park.  More about Froger Park a little later.  But needless to say I found it somewhat odd also.  We were a good ways out from the center of town, but fortunately there was a tram stop right in front of the house which we could use to go back into the city.  The house was clean and the owners were friendly.  But once more there was a lot of oddness around us.  We were in an upstairs bedroom without a lot of heat,  Our bathroom had a toilet and a bidet.  And oddly for some reason the owners used the bidet for a magazine rack.  It was filled with unusual Norwegian comic books.

Larry sitting outside of the Bed and Breakfast

Directly across the street from the Bed and Breakfast we wound Frogner Park.  Frogner Park is home to the world famous Vigeland Installation.  Although many times referred to as Vigeland Park, it is actually just the name of the sculptures in the park.  They were created by Gustav Vigeland between 1920 and 1943.   So what was odd about the park?  Every statue was a nude statue telling the  life cycle of man.

I have been using the term odd a lot.  I don't mean it in a bad or derogatory way.  I found Oslo any thing but unpleasant.  It's not the most beautiful European capitol I have visited.  But it's also not the least interesting.  The people of Oslo could not have been friendlier.  The owners of the Bed and Breakfast were very pleasant and made us feel very welcome.  I was growing to like Oslo more each day and finding it somewhat unusual made it all the more interesting.

So what odd things did we find in Oslo?  We found a memorial to Abraham Lincoln.  This honestly was the last thing I had expected to find in Oslo.  The memorial is located in Frogner Park.  The monument was created by Paul Fjelde from Valley City, North Dakota and was donated to the people of Oslo by North Dakota Governor Louis Hanna.

We took a brief train ride out of the city of Oslo up into the mountains to do some hiking and also to see the historic Holmenkollen Ski jump from the 1952 Olympics.  There was nothing odd about this.  This was something I had expected to see in Norway.  The train runs from Central Station in Oslo to the top of the mountain in Frognersteren.  There is a wonderful restaurant located near the Frognersteren station when I did get to sample reindeer which was something else I had expected to do in Oslo.

Larry hiking in Frognersteren

We left Frognersteren and hiked to the Olympic ski jump.  I had seen ski jumps on television watching the Olympic many times.  But that did not prepare me for what I saw.  The jump is much higher than it appears on television.  It's very overwhelming just to see the size of it.  And it wasn't just some cold looking structure.  It actually had a beauty to it's design.  I understand the original jump that I saw in 2005 no longer exists.  It was replaced in 2010 with a new and more modern jump that is considered to be one of the best in world today.  I am glad I got to see the original though.  There is something special about the history of it and also for me it was special because it dated back to the year I was born.

The original 1952 Holmenkollen Olympic Ski Jump in Oslo Norway

I left Oslo with a deep appreciation of the city and the Norwegian culture.  I had the opportunity to visit the Edvard Munch museum and to see his famous painting The Scream.  I spent time walking through the Akershus Fortress.   I meet some wonderful and kind people.  I learned to appreciate that finding something odd is a good thing.  First impressions are not always the best impressions.  It's the lasting impressions that really count.

Last impression of Oslo.  The beautiful Akershus Fortress

First Impressions - Paris

Bel Kaufman in her novel Up The Down Staircase tells the story of a young teacher's first year at an inner city school.  The novel opens with the teacher in her first day with her home room class.  She has planned to read them a brief essay she prepared on first impressions.  In the hectic and chaotic first hour of teaching with a room full of unruly students doing their best to distract the new teacher she never gets the opportunity to share with them her thoughts on first impressions.  Much like Sylvia Barrett in the novel I have unsuccessfully wanted to share a series of travel blogs on my first impressions of places I have visited.  And much like Sylvia Barrett I have found myself distracted and never had the time to finish my thoughts on first impressions.  I thought I would start out with my first travel experience in Europe, a trip to Paris.  However my introduction here of the novel and memories of reading the adventures of Sylvia Barrett have already distracted me and unless I use some discipline I will never start this series on first impressions.  I will just have to put Bel Kaufman, her creation Sylvia Barrett, the novel and the movie starring Sandy Dennis on the back burner and return to them some time in the future for another blog.  But let me start this blog on first impressions with the words of the character Sylvia Barrett from the novel.  "First impressions are very important".

This photo is the best representation of my first impression of Paris.  It was chilly, damp and rainy.  The skies were overcast for three days.  I took this photo from the top of the Arc De Triomphe.  When I returned home and back to work this photo became my background on my home and work computer.  I looked at it over and over and could never get over the thrill of seeing Paris for the first time.  I joined a web site called Virtual Tourist after the trip.  There was no Facebook at this time.  Virtual Tourist became my very first social media web experience.  This photo was my introductory photo on Virtual Tourist.  Although I have long since migrated from Virtual Tourist this photo still remains there on the first page I created.  A chilly,damp, rainy day in the city of Lights.

We booked a hotel on the internet which was a first for us.  We basically went into Yahoo and searched on hotels in Paris.  We found one that was affordable near Pere Lachaise Cemetery.  It was named "Hotel Modern".   I learned my first travel lesson with this hotel.  Don't believe the name or what they say on their web page.  If it's inexpensive there is a reason it's inexpensive.

The room was not great.  It was not even just OK.  It was pretty nasty.  But look at my face in the photo.  I was so thrilled to be in Paris.  The room did not ruin the experience.  I learned my second travel lesson also from this hotel.  You don't spend a lot of time in the room.  So don't over pay and don't fret if it's not beautiful.  The city awaits you.  Get out and experience it.

I will never forget my first impression of Paris.  It was magical and beautiful even on a rainy day.  I had my first taste of true French Vanilla Ice Cream.  It was the best ice cream I had ever tasted.  I had a scoop every day.  I had my first rump steak in peppercorn sauce, a taste I will never forget.  I knew very little about wine before going to Paris.  I drank very little wine and when I did drink wine it was usually White Zinfandel.  So you can imagine my shock and delight when I had my first true French wines.  I was surrounded with people speaking a foreign language.  I remembered from high school how  to say hello, good bye, thank you and Where is the library.  I could also say I fell down in the street.  So basically I spent four days saying hello, goodbye, or thank you as often as possible so I could feel like I was speaking the language.

Since that time I have traveled a lot.  I have learned a lot.  I now consider myself a seasoned traveler. I have been to many of the worlds great cities.  But nothing compares to that first moment in Paris.   I thought the magic might have been because it was my first trip overseas.  I returned eight years later and was a bit concerned.  I was afraid I would be let down this time.   I thought it might be different the second time around.  It might not as wonderful as my memory had made it.  But I had nothing to worry about it.  It wasn't me.  It wasn't because it was my first time to be in Europe.  It was magical because it was Paris.  I took the photo below when I returned in 2008.  It's the Eiffel Tower once again and taken from the top of the Arc de Triomphe once more.  And it was still a chilly, gray, rainy day.  And it's still Paris, my favorite city of all.

My first visit was in 2000.  I returned in 2008.  Next year is 2016.  I think it's time for another visit.