This entry was posted on 8/21/2007 6:52 AM and is filed under uncategorized.
WELCOME TO OSLO!
Tuesday August 14 2007
So, what's the
first thing you do when you arrive in Oslo, Norway? Go sailing, of
course! After Kjersti and her husband Per Christian picked me up at the
train station, we went straight to the marina where their 35' sailboat,
Mar (means sea in Portuguese – they spent 2 years in Brazil), was
moored. Kjersti made us dinner on the boat, then we unhitched the ropes
(that is not nautical terms), motored out of the marina into the bay,
raised the sails, and, the Raven II and I were sailing on Oslo Fjorden
!
We had wind for only 15 minutes, so we did more motoring than sailing
today, but it was great to be out on the water (in Norway!) and not on
a tour boat. And while out on the fjord we ran into (not literally)
their friends Eli and Hans Jacob – the only ones they know in Oslo so
far – just returning on their boat from their 6-week summer sailing
holiday!
Kjersti and Per Christian have had a sailboat for the
last 10 years, and just the week before I arrived, they'd moved here to
Oslo from Tromsø in the north of Norway – a 4-week sailing trip along
the west coast. (They'd done the trip from Oslo to Tromsø a few years
ago, also.) I later saw some pictures Hans Jacob took of their sailing
trip down along the northwest coast of Norway, which were just
stunning. Per Christian is maybe what you'd call obsessed with sailing
– something I can relate to, since I'm a bit obsessed with endurance
riding. Kjersti likes many outdoor sports – sailing, hiking, skiing,
and you can do all of those in Norway, though your summer sports up
north are a bit short-seasoned.
The next day I hoofed it around
Oslo. The city, and the area, reminds me much of Seattle, and Puget
Sound: rain rain rain, green, wet, cloudy, gray, the green islands in
the gray water, boats, hills and forests, more rain, fresh moist air,
slugs, crows – it kind of made me homesick!
Oslo, according to
Norse legends, was established around 1049. The meaning of the name
Oslo, from Old Norse, might be 'the meadow beneath the ridge' or 'the
meadow of the gods'.
Maritime history is an important part of
Oslo and Norway. During the Viking age, from the 8th to 11th centuries,
Norwegians founded settlements on Iceland, the Faroe Islands,
Greenland, Britain and Ireland, and they reached Newfoundland, Canada.
Today Oslo is home to some of the world's largest shipping companies
and shipbrokers.
Norway's produced some of the world's greatest
explorers and adventurers, including Polar explorer Roald Amundsen, the
first man to reach the South Pole. There's several museums dedicated to
maritime history and treasures, including the Fram museum, where you
can actually board the “world's strongest ship,” the Fram (means
“Forward” in Norwegian), built in 1892 and used for 3 great polar
expeditions. I mean, you can walk on and around the very ship that
sailed the furthest North, and the furthest South of any ship, a ship
that was icelocked for years at a time. The Fram was built with a
special egg-shaped hull built to rise above the crushing pressure of
the ice for when the ship would become icebound at the Poles. (If
you've never read Alfred Lansing's “Endurance” for a vivid account of a
Polar exploration, and ships caught in ice, you're missing out.)
Outside is parked and preserved the ship Gjoa, which was the first ship
to sail the Northwest Passage. You can also see, at another museum, the
best preserved Viking Ships ever found, buried over 1100 years ago in 3
royal burial grounds by the Oslo fjord, to carry their royal owners “to
the other side.”
One evening we hiked up a nearby local hill
with Hans Jacob and Eli. (The Raven came along). Hans carried up a
watermelon and we sat up top overlooking Oslo and the Oslofjord under
gray cloudy skies and a brisk (autumn already?!) wind.
Currently
on exhibition outdoors by the waterfront in Oslo is the wildlife
photography of Steve Bloom: Spirit of the Wild. Large, stunning images
of wildlife – makes you think you might as well pack away your camera,
he's so good – that serve to remind man of “the fragility of the world,
and our need to respet protect, and preserve it.” (I mean, really! How
does he get some of these photographs!?) (see
uk.co-life.net/ )
Some interesting thought-provoking facts presented by the exhibit:
It now takes 6 weeks to consumer the same amount of oil that took one year to consume in 1950.
Bottled water costs 1000 times the price of tap water.
The
average consumption of water per day by humans: a Madagascan farmer
uses 10 liters a day, a European uses 250-350 liters a day, an American
uses 600 liters a day.
Public transport consumes 5 times less energy than a private car.
The world population count: 1800 – 1 billion people. 1960 – 3 billion people. 2000 – 6 billion people.
Since 1950, 30% of the planet's resources have been lost.
40% of sea life has been destroyed in the last 25 years by pollution
Gas
consumed per inhabitant per year: Sub-Saharan Africa – 31 liters per
year. Asia – 50 liters per year. Western Europe – 427 liters per year.
North America – 1637 liters per year.
Other facts about Norway:
it's the most peaceful country in the world, and Oslo is one of the
most expensive cities in the world. And, Oslo has DR PEPPERS!!
http://www.endurance.net/merri/stories/2007/08/oslo.html
