Sights and sounds in Norway’s capital
Years ago, I routinely asked, “Do you speak English?” I asked this in stores and so on. I did not want to assume. I don’t want to go around the world assuming everyone speaks my native language, merely because it is the lingua franca. But I stopped asking the question — stopped asking it here in Oslo (at least Central Oslo). I found out it was like asking, “Do you eat lunch?”
People not only speak English, they speak it in American fashion, usually. A lady explains: “We watch American movies and television shows, and they’re not dubbed — they’re subtitled. So we hear American English, as we’re growing up. My daughter can imitate several characters from her favorite American TV shows.”
Overhearing Norwegian conversations, I sometimes hear bits of English — even of American slang. For example, a man speaking to his friend in Norwegian suddenly says, “I’m down with that” (i.e., “I’m agreeable to it”).
An ice-cream company is named, straightforwardly, “Large Ice Cream Co.” Customers order a variety of flavors — in Norwegian. One flavor, they order in English: “rainbow.”
• Over the years, I’ve traveled a bit in Norway and Sweden. I can understand why Scandinavians gravitated to the Upper Midwest — in America, I mean. Or I think I can understand it. I am reminded of the Upper Midwest, when I am in Scandinavia. Even the air smells the same, sometimes.
(I grew up in the Upper Midwest, I should say.)
• I am in Oslo on D-Day (the anniversary of — June 6). Norwegians took part in that invasion. Here is a monument:
• Isn’t the Storting — the Norwegian parliament — handsome?
Have another view, at a different time of day:
(Proud flag, right?)
• The royal palace is — royal; palatial. Neat how that works.
• On the grounds of the palace is a statue of Märtha — Crown Princess Märtha, who lived from 1901 to 1954. In this pose, she always seems to me so gay — “gay” in the old sense. Sometimes the mot juste is passé. But you use it anyway.
• As in other European countries, many immigrants can be found working in service jobs (and other jobs, to be sure). There are something like 25,000 Filipinos in Norway. I happen upon a particular celebration:
Here’s a glimpse of the festivities:
I’m reminded of the various ethnic-pride days in New York.
• I meet a woman — a service worker — from Nepal. (I’ve met my share of Nepalese in New York too.) Before, she was working in Portugal. Now she is in Norway. Millions of people have to bounce around, to keep body and soul together. She tells me that her brother has made a documentary about Everest — this one.
• In a free country, you see something like this . . .
. . . cheek by jowl with this:
In unfree countries, you see nothing of the kind. (Note the bridal-looking Filipina in each photo. She is fresh from the Independence Day festivities, I think.)
I always see Jehovah’s Witnesses on the streets of Oslo. I am reminded of how they are arrested, imprisoned, and tortured in Russia, as they must be in other dictatorships, too.
• After a long, cold winter, it must be nice to jump into the water:
• You might even jump for joy:
• I swear, I’ll always be nine years old, in some respects:
• In Frogner Park, I see hot games of bocci. Or maybe I should call it “bowling,” simply — or something else. I don’t know. This is a foreign game to me.
• In various parts of the world, I have seen Lincoln monuments and memorials. I am very fond of the one in Frogner Park. There are two plaques on either side. The one on the left reads, “Presented to Norway by the People of North Dakota, U.S.A., July 4th, 1914.” (What were we saying about the Upper Midwest?) The one on the right reads, “Government of the People, by the People, for the People, Shall Not Perish from the Earth.”
• Frogner is replete with sculptures by Gustav Vigeland — so much so that, by tourists, Frogner is often known as “the Vigeland Sculpture Park.” Behold a portion:
• I have been coming to this city, and this park, for 15 years. This kid is never happy, I can tell you — always pitching a fit:
• I don’t recall seeing pay toilets in America (maybe I’m forgetting). I’ve been seeing them — and using them — in Europe since the ’80s. You know what is new? The possibility to use a credit card. You used to search frantically for change (in a currency not your own). What a blessed development . . .
• Hello, Sonja!
(A great figure skater — three-time Olympic champion — who was also a movie star.)
• Y’all, I do believe that the Freia sign is my favorite sign — favorite company sign, or advertisement — in all the world:
Freia is a chocolate company, which makes matters even sweeter. And you know the clock works? An amazing bonus.
• The opera house, with its extraordinary geometry:
• Does that sign seem . . . screaming to you?
• I don’t envy the Norwegians much — but I do envy their having Pepsi Max, lime-flavored. We don’t have that, do we?
• An orchestra concert in a gazebo (unless that structure is too grand to be called a “gazebo”):
• This tree can’t make up its mind. What color is it going to be? I like the indecision, the flexibility, the versatility:
• I know that Oslo has its problems. Every city does. Every human habitation does. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be human, right? So, I am neither naïve nor romantic. Nonetheless, it seems to me that Oslo breathes peace and order.
• What’s more, you can open the hotel windows! In the U.S. and the U.K. (where I have been recently), you usually cannot. Something about insurance. Something about liability. So, when it’s a lovely, breezy 62 outside, you have to turn on the air conditioning, because otherwise your room would be too stuffy.
Maddening. Dumb. (I could rant, but I’ll contain myself, in the interest of a friendly travel journal.)
• Speaking of hotels: This thing is in my room. I don’t mean to insult it by calling it a “thing.” But I don’t know what to call it. Neither does the hotel staff. They don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it is. It is a curiosity.
Modern art?
• Yo-Yo Ma, when he travels, buys an extra seat for his cello — first-class, I believe. I don’t think these flowers have their own ticket. But they have their own seat, and are nicely belted in.
Thank you for coming along with me today, my friends. Have a good weekend.
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