Oslo; A city rich in history, culture and hookers

For Easter break I went to Oslo. I booked a room within walking distance from the train station and spent the week seeing the sights there. There are quite a few museums and art galleries that are free and my room included breakfast, waffles in the afternoon and lots of oranges. The National Gallery has quite a few of Edvard Munch's works on display including "The Scream." They also had works by Degas, Monet, Manet, Renoir and Van Gogh. I really like impressionists I guess. I also went to see the Vigeland Sculpture Park which is very popular and really amazing. It consists of around 212 sculptures of human figures depicted in various stages of life carved from granite or cast in bronze. At the center of the park is a monolith 46 feet high comprising 121 human figures. It was carved from a single piece of granite weighing 220 tons and took three craftsmen 14 years to complete. The park is really beautiful and I would like to see it in the summer when the fountains are flowing and all is green. On my first night there I walked over to one of the main shopping streets in search of dinner. I ended up at a Mac Donald's where I paid $16 for a combo meal (Oslo is not cheap). I was really surprised how many of the golden arches there were in the city; I feel kind of bad that my country was responsible for unleashing such an unnecessary plague upon the world. After finishing my uber-processed meal I walked down the street toward the Royal Palace. Most of the shops were closed but window shopping is fun and the architecture is amazing (plus I didn't really have anything better to do). On my way back I was stopped by a woman who, in my naivety, I thought wanted directions. It quickly became clear that she knew exactly where she wanted to go. I told her I wasn't interested and walked away shaking my head in disbelief and mumbling to myself. By the time the fifth one approached me I was really annoyed. I firmly explained that she was the fifth one to corner me in the span of one block and that I didn't want any. She instantly got uppity and said she didn't speak English anyway. I wanted to point out that she was speaking English but I wanted to get out of there more. It turns out that what they do is not against the law. There has been talk of making a law but the Scandinavian people are very much about taking care of others and they might not be cared for as far as health care and other benefits. To that end they are talking of making it illegal to buy but not sell. With that said I never felt like I was in danger walking around the city (even at night) and this is a nice place that I would want to visit again.

Mush or ... something...

We had a really great opportunity to go dog sledding. One of the men in the church heard that we didn't get to go dog sledding while we were in Ilulissat. He says "you haven't been to Greenland unless you have been dog sledding." So he arranged for someone to take us out. The day of the trip was absolutely perfect. No wind and absolutely crisp. It is the kind of clarity the you can only find at high altitude or in an arctic environment. Every detail of the landscape is razor sharp. As we waited for our driver some of my friends engaged in extreme disking to keep warm. This involves taking a snow saucer down a hill so steep that the slope its self is not visible until you are on the edge. You defiantly don't need a saucer but they used them. They even went off a cornice with a 15 foot drop on to a slope like that.
Our diver eventually showed up (wearing polar bear pants as all respectable drivers do) with a team of 12 dogs. They came running up with slobber-sickles hanging off their jowls super excited to be pulling a sled. Going downhill I thought we were going to overtake the dogs and going uphill the driver jumped off and the dogs chugged along. If there was a dog that was slacking the driver used his long whip to give the dog a tap on the butt. Occasionally a dog would glance back as if to ask "am I doing ok?" Sliding across the snow in near silence it seemed a very practical way to go out hunting in the old days.