Oslo, Norway – 06/24

(Michelle) On Sunday, we took a quick ferry ride to Bygdoy where there were 3 museums of interest to us. The Viking ship museum houses 3 full sized actual Viking ships, as well as some other finds that were in or near them. I would have liked a little more information on the actual Viking history, but I suppose there is another museum for that. The second museum we saw was a Holocaust exhibit for the Norwegian Jewish victims during WWII. This museum had good English translations for some parts and then no translations for others, so it was difficult to get the timeline of everything that happened in Norway. I know for myself, when I thought about Jewish victims from WWII, Norway never came to my mind before, but they were occupied by the Germans just like many other countries. The last museum of interest was on Arctic explorations. Rachel and I hung out on some benches outside while Andy and TJ went in (2 is my max museum intake in one day).

For our last night in Oslo, we went to a number of different bars in the area. First we went to Andy’s pub (had to go to Andy’s pub with Andy)! Somehow, we attracted the attention of a somewhat questionable woman. We think she had a crush on Andy, or (based on what we saw after she left the bar) that she may have been a prostitute trying to sell something to Andy - she was very focused on Andy. Rachel made it clear that Andy was her man and she even tried to throw some attention onto TJ and me just for fun, but this woman would not stop with Andy. He was her “Ghetto Tiger”. It was so funny that I tried to make a video on my camera, but she was wise to my ways and she kind of scared me, so I quit trying. During this exchange, this woman noticed some “Paracet” on the table (Rachel had bought some Paracet earlier for a headache) and she offered some unsolicited advice about other pains you can use it for. Good Lord, we did not need to know that. Rachel- somehow I ended up with the Paracet. I thought about throwing it out, but it still makes me laugh.

(TJ) Andy and I went to the Fram Museum (the one Michelle and Rachel skipped) which is an exhibit on a Polar exploration boat that went on three trips for a number of years to the north and south Poles. They had the whole old boat inside a huge building. You could walk around inside the entire boat. In addition to this it has a small section on just about every polar exhibition that happened before 1940. Really it was an interesting museum that we just stumbled on.