Day #6: Oslo

First off, I'm goign to have to apologize for not having any pictures. The internet cafe I'm in has all of their hard drives locked away, so I canæt upload anything.

The day started off with a bang, wake-up call over the intercom by the captain at 8am. After a shower and a continental breakfast buffet, I disembarked into Oslo. After a quick stop at the tourist information center, I headed out to the Bygødy penisula. Most accessible by ferry boat across the harbor, Bygødy is home to several different interesting museums.

I started off at the Norwegian Folk Museum. My guide book describes this kinf od folk museum as culture on a lazy susan, which proved to be a pretty accurate description. The Folk Museum was a big park with different types of buildings representing different parts of Norwegian culture. From ane arly sod and wood house to a modern day example of a Pakistani immigrant apartment, this place had it all.

The next stop was the Viking Ship Museum. Scientists were excavating a burial mound in Norway when they came across a local chieftain buried in his warship. On different digs, they found two additional boats. All three are in the museum and constitute the best preserved Viking boats in existence today. The ships were almost perfectly preserved. Its amazing to think that the boats I saw were once used to terrorize othe rparts of Europe!

After a little hike, it was on to the Kon-Tiki museum! This museum was on my must-see list since I had read Thor Heyerdahl's book about the Kon-Tiki in high school. The background for those who donæt know is that Norwegian THor Heyerdahl, while studying in the South Pacific and South America, was struck by some of the sanme themes and symbols he kept seeing in both places. He developed a theory that ancient Peruvians floated across the South pacific to colonize some of the islands.

The main scientific objection to his theory was that it was implausible: the Peruvians were not technologically advanced enough to make such a voyage. So to prove them wrong, Thor built a ship, using techniques and materials the ancient Peruvians would have known, and set sail across the Pacific. 101 days later, he and his crew landed on a south pacific island, proving his theory plausible. It was pretty interesting seeing the ship I had already read about!

The final museu, pf tje day was the fram museum, showing a ship the Norwegians had specially designed to be used in icy waters. The Fram has the distinction of the ship being the farthest north (it was purposefully trapped in an Arctic ice flow for three years) and the farthest south (Roald Amundsen used the ship when he became the first person to make it to the South Pole).

After a full day of sightseeing, I went to my hostel and went to bed early. I had to get up early for Day #7's trip to the Norwegian fjords!