Tag: travel

In the summer of 2023 (over a year ago now!), Micha and I spent some time exploring Norway and visiting friends. We started with a trip to Fredrikstad, where my great-grandmother grew up, and then spent a few days exploring the capital city of Oslo. When we found out two of our best friends, Diana and Sergio, had moved to Munich, we decided to expand our definition of “explore Norway” to include our friends’ new apartment. So, we caught a flight even further south from Oslo to Munich, landing there early Friday morning to spend the weekend with our friends.

Exploring Munich

Our first order of business was to purchase gifts for our friends back in Trondheim, who were diligently caring for our greyhound Navi while Micha and I traveled. Our hosts Sergio and Diana took us to a marketplace set up in a large square, where an Argentinian man was selling wine out of a big red tent. It was at this moment that I realized all my Spanish knowledge had been replaced by Norwegian. I could understand a portion of what Sergio and the Argentinian man were discussing: some of the wines were sweet, some were dry, some were a better value. But when pressed to respond, I mumbled a confusing mixture of Norwegian and English and looked helplessly at Sergio. He eventually helped us get some good wine, and we moved on.

One of the things I liked about Munich (as well as many other European cities) was how easy it was to wander around and explore the city on foot. Most of the central areas were difficult or impossible to access by car, and the streets there were paved with brick or cobblestone instead of asphalt. These features made it far easier and safer to walk around. The alleyways seemed empty when we were there, because people clung to the shade – we happened to arrive during a record-setting heat wave!

Castles!!!!!!!!

On Saturday, we drove southwest towards the border with Austria to visit the Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles. Even the drive was beautiful – bright green fields stretching across the horizon to rolling hills in the background before we reached the looming, forest-covered foothills of the Alps.

We arrived early in the morning without much of a plan, to discover that tours for Neuschwanstein are booked out months in advance, but Hohenschwangau is less popular and still had openings later in the day. I’m still not sure how, but our co-host Sergio was able to convince the person working the ticket counter to sell us day-of tour passes for both castles anyway.

The tours were fast; a blur of ostentatiousness, gold-trimmed everything, an entire room of silver, massive murals depicting scenes from the work of Richard Wagner (the castles’ resident, Ludwig II, was a big fan), a room specifically built to resemble a cave, and a massive pedestal still waiting for its throne to be completed. These castles were not designed as defensive fortifications, but as symbols of wealth and status, and as vacation homes for Ludwig II and his guests.

Surrounding the castles are a network of trails through the forest, leading to various parking lots and overlooks. One famous bridge had a line about four hours long by the time we reached it, so we skipped it, happy with the absolutely beautiful scenery we could find just off the beaten path. It was another hot day, however, so after a few hours we set off back to Munich to rest and recover out of the sun.

The Chinese Tower in the English Garden, and surfers in a landlocked city

The next day was even hotter. Our co-host Dana decided to treat us with a trip to the Chinese Tower, in the English Garden. I’m still a little confused by the cultural combinations, but der Englische Garten is Munich’s largest park, with plenty of walking trails, open fields, and a river flowing through it, and right in the middle is the Chinesischer Turm, which boasts Munich’s second largest beer garden with seating for 7,000 patrons and a brass band.

We treated ourselves to some good beer-garden food; schnitzel, pretzels, and of course one-liter steins of beer. Micha tried to order a side of spaetzle but ended up with an entire plate full of the creamy pasta dish, so we shared. Sometimes that sort of thing happens in a foreign country, and you just have to roll with it.

One of the odd things we noticed was that people were carrying surfboards. This struck me as particularly strange because we were about as far away from Germany’s coastline as we could get while still being in Germany. But it turns out, part of the river that runs through the garden is dammed in such a way that there is always a standing wave. So, German surfers will line up by the river’s edge, squeeze their way around the fences and narrow concrete borders, and take turns riding the wave on their surfboard, while dodging the people floating past them.

After watching the surfers, we wandered the park for a while, exploring the various paths and bridges over the river. And after some time in the hot sun, we decided to return to Sergio and Diana’s apartment and caught the bus back. The bus was absolutely packed with soaking-wet German teenagers. Water sloshed across the floor as the bus turned corners, and the driver seemed particularly annoyed. It was certainly one of the more unique bus experiences I’ve had.

With that, we bid goodbye to our wonderful hosts and made our way back to Trondheim, where we would spend a few days with another friend before heading north, above the Arctic Circle, to Tromsø. Hopefully I’ll finish writing that before another year goes by!

In the summer of 2023, Micha and I spent some time exploring Norway and visiting friends. This post describes the second part of our trip to the south, in which we visited the capital city of Oslo before flying to Munich to visit some friends. You can read about the first part of our trip here.

We journeyed by bus from Fredrikstad back to Oslo. The ride took about two hours and was mostly uneventful, save for a rather creative three-point turn by the bus driver to pick up a few stranded passengers from a different bus. We arrived at the Oslo bus terminal in the early afternoon, ate some sandwiches, and stashed our bags in a locker so we could do some shopping and sightseeing while waiting to check in to the Airbnb. After living in Trondheim for two years, Oslo felt like a huge, bustling city in comparison.

The highlight of the night was checking out the arcade bar Tilt, which had a wall-sized game of Pac-Man and a really fun rhythmic shooter game called Music GunGun — here’s a video of a single person easily handling the level that gave us a lot of problems together. We played a few different games, enjoyed a drink or two, and walked back to the Airbnb in the late evening sun.

Vigeland Park

The weather was beautiful and warm the following day, so we headed out in the morning for Vigeland Park, a famous park filled with statues of naked people named after the artist who sculpted them all, Gustav Vigeland. The entrance to the park is a bridge lined with statues of people in various random poses, meant to depict common emotions or activities that everyone can relate to. The statues seemed kind of funny to me at first, since I’m so used to proud, dignified poses rather than the snapshots Vigeland chose to depict. They depict lots of ordinary, everyday things, like stretching, chasing down and beating a thief, and surviving parenthood.

The bridge leads to an open courtyard, with a large fountain held up by statues of naked people, surrounded by beautiful gardens framed by statues of naked people, with a massive tower of naked people on a pedestal behind it all. It was beautiful, weird, quirky, interesting, confusing, and above all I had the sense that Vigeland had perhaps a little too much time on his hands.

The monolith was difficult for me to photograph, since it’s 50 feet tall, the sun was beating down on it, and there were (regular, clothed) people everywhere. It was impressive, and kind of eerie. Apparently Gustav Vigeland said of it, “The column is my religion,” and I’m honestly not sure what to make of that.

The National Museum of Norway

Sunny weather in Norway rarely lasts long. The following day the skies opened up, so we went to Nasjonalmuseet (The National Museum) in the morning. The first floor is dedicated to various artifacts from different times and cultures and felt sort of like a cross between an art museum and a history museum. One of my favorite exhibits was right at the beginning and showcased the various dresses that Queen Sofia and Queen Maud wore, and how the styles changed over time.

At the top of the staircase separating the two floors is a cafeteria, which served as a natural point to take a break and eat some food. I happened to be wearing the Seattle Kraken hoodie that my dad gave me. I’m not exactly a Kraken fan, but Dad thought it would be funny if I was wearing a hoodie that said “Kraken” on it in Norway, and it happens to be really comfortable and I like the blue colors. I didn’t really get the joke until a Norwegian woman stopped me in the cafeteria and told me that Kraken was a Norwegian word, and that she had a relative who lived in Seattle. She was super excited to have met an American who had been to Seattle and instantly relayed our conversation to her husband in Norwegian, who nodded confusedly and went back to sipping his coffee.

The second floor of the museum was dedicated to paintings, and in particular the work of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. I really liked his self-portrait and the way his body disappears into the shadows.

One of Munch’s most famous works, Skrik (or Scream in English), is also in this museum and drew a small crowd. I found a couple of Monet paintings as well. All in all it was a cool museum and a fun way to spend a day, but our day wasn’t over yet. We had lined up a “ghost tour” of the nearby fortress in the evening

Ghost Tour of Akershus Fortress

I’d never done a ghost tour before, but Micha loves haunted things, so we knew we had to try it while we were in town. We waited at a street corner for our tour guide to arrive and collect the members of our tour. When everyone was ready, he took us for a stroll through a few neighborhoods and down to Akershus fortress, telling stories along the way about hidden passages under banks and haunted restaurants.

Our guide walked us through the old fortress, telling various stories about cursed horses and haunted corners. One story that stuck with me was a legend about a dog that had been sealed into the fortress walls as some kind of superstition to protect the fortress. Instead, the guards were haunted by howling and barking noises, and to this day dogs will occasionally stop and stare at the wall as if they heard something.

Sunset atop the Opera House

When the tour ended, we sauntered slowly back to the train station, not wanting our last day in Oslo to come to an end. Across the fjord we noticed the Oslo Opera House, a beautiful building with big concrete ramps along its sides that allow people to climb up to a viewing area at the top. We found a spot among the scattered tourists and Norwegians enjoying the last rays of sun from a beautiful day and watched the sun tuck behind the hills.

After watching the sunset, we caught the train to Gardermoen airport, where we stayed at the airport hotel for a brief rest before an early morning flight to Munich for an entirely different part of our adventure.