Oslo Day 2

Kristin again (Justin had started all of these days and I can't change the name on it, and I am too lazy to go and make new pages).

On Day 2 we got up and headed to Stortinget, the Norweigian Parliment building, for a tour. We always like guided tours of government, but I think this was my favourite one. Our guide was excellent, I really liked the building, and there is a bunch of fascinating stuff about their government that has had me on Wikipedia for weeks!

Norway was part of Denmark for years, then at some point entered into a joint agreement with Sweden to be one kingdom. The government relies on the people to pass a lot of laws through referendums, and in 1905 the Norweigian people voted to be their own independent country. The people were then asked if they still wanted a king or monarch to be the head of state, and they voted yes. However, they didn't have any of their own royal families, so they had to get creative!

I love this - they asked the younger prince of Denmark (Prince Carl) if he would please be their king. This was because of the close ties between the two countries, and also because his wife was a British princess, thus strengthening ties with another country at the same time. Pretty sweet deal for Carl! He gets to be a King, which would not have happened otherwise except through tragedy, and doesn't have to see his parents or older brother die (and in fact came to power before his father or older brother did in Denmark). As our guide said, however, Carl 'with a C' isn't a very Norweigian name, so to endear himself to his new subjects, he changed it... to Haakon the 7th (carrying on from Viking kings of old) and his son's name to Olaf. They came over to Oslo and were very popular.  Haakon refused to step down when the Nazis invaded Norway, and ran a government in exile from the UK throughout WWII. In general, the King (or Queen) of Norway is a figurehead, much like the Queen of England - nearly all of the governing is done by elected officials for 4 year terms.

Stortinget. It's not my fault, it's built on a hill!

This is the hall where ministers speak to the press

The 'House of Commons' equivalent. I like this layout - each chair is for the geographical riding, so the party members don't sit together, and you don't end up with cheering/jeering groupthink situations. I wish our HoC made this small change for the sake of civil discourse. Also those monitors are hilariously old-looking.

Reception room. Luckily although the Shorting was taken over by Nazis, they didn't damage the building and the government had just enough time to evacuate and remove some of the more irreplaceable treasures.

This used to be the equivalent of their Senate chamber. When the government was elected, 66% of the MP's sat in the  'House of Commons' (red room) and 33% sat in the Senate (green room). In 2009 the Lagting (Senate) was abolished since it was found that in the vast majority of cases they merely rubber-stamped the decisions of the Odelsting (House of Commons)

Unsurprisingly, Norway is really progressive. They have had proportional representation for years, and rarely have governments serve less than their full four year term (they aren't allowed to dissolve government to call an early election - they can only be brought down by a vote of no confidence). Even then, the other parties have to try and make the government work. Their first female member of the Storting (MP) was in 1911 (1921 in Canada), and women received limited suffrage in 1907 and universal suffrage in 1913 (1916 for women in the Prairie provinces, 1918 for all of Canada).

So all in all, great tour! Lots more interesting stuff that I didn't get into because I don't want this to turn into just a history lesson - but seriously, if you liked any of that stuff check out some articles on Wikipedia about the royal family, the Norweigian Parliament, or anything else that caught your fancy!

The next place we visited was Akershus Fortress, which sits right on the shore on a cliff overlooking downtown. It used to be the home of the ruling Viking kings - these days it is a combination of open park for residents, historical buildings to be toured, and an active part of the royal family's life (Haakon and his wife, and his son Olaf and his wife are all buried in the crypts there, and the chapel in the fortress was visited by Pope John Paul II. It was amazing how elegant this place was, considering it dates back to the 1290s!

From the bay

Check out this floor! Sometimes there are state dinners held in this hall

More buildings within the Fortress walls

I don't have a lot of pictures, but I loved the Resistance Museum. This is another piece of history that I honestly did not know until our trip. The Nazis occupied Norway for over 5 years, beginning in April 1940. The attack was a complete surprise, and the only reason the King and government were not captured was because one of the fortresses in the fjord heading towards Oslo (Oscarborg), despite being manned almost entirely by trainees and not technically allowed to engage the enemy, held off the invasion force for a day and actually sank a state-of-the-art battleship carrying the men specifically trained and designated to take over the government. However that was pretty much the end of Norway's ability to fight off the Germans (the entire country fell within weeks), so while the King and Government never abdicated or surrendered, the government was run for the rest of World War II by Nazis and one Norweigian man who helped them (Quisling), a man so thoroughly hated by the rest of his countrymen that his name to this day is a synonym for traitor. Norway had been a neutral country, and its location actually made it very important for naval warfare and supplying ore for the war effort. Hitler was convinced that the Allies would try to take back Norway as a major goal, and in fact one of the misdirections leading up to D-Day was to suggest that such a plan was imminent.

There was a small resistance in Norway through the entire war, and some of the technology and ideas they used were mind-boggling to me. Radios were banned, but many citizens had them drilled into sofa legs and other places. War secrets were smuggled out of the country in loaves of bread, soles of shoes, in necklaces, and on microdots - thousands of newspaper-page sized pages shrunk down to the size of a head of a pin.

Hidden radios

On our way through town, we stopped by a central park hoping to do some ice skating. Since it had been raining and sleeting all day, the ice surface was... not ice. What a shame, since the rink was otherwise pretty cool!

This was a 'public art' thing that I did not get. I assumed this person hated the French. Why else would you build port-a-potties in the colours of the French flag, and using their motto? The artist insists it was meant to show solidarity with Franch after the recent bombings and terrorist attacks. I just think this is an even worse way to show support than making one's Facebook profile picture have a French flag filter (and don't get me wrong, I didn't like that one either).

When we heard that a visit to Oslo is not complete without seeing City Hall, we were pretty confused. Most city halls are pretty utilitarian, or not open to the public, or both. Not this one! Literally every room and facade is a work of art (and a collaboration from hundreds of different artists) and each area had tons of meaning and local culture. I wish we had allotted more than a few minutes to seeing this place!

Cheater picture, taken two days later when the weather was nicer, but I thought I should start with the front facade (facing the harbour and Akershus Fortress). Pretty, no?

This is the back entrance and faces towards the downtown and Stortinget

Oh hello, cavernous beautiful lobby. This is where the building really knocked our socks off

Each room was done by a different artist and had a different theme - I just loved the symbolism of a tree trunk matching a church's rose window

We waited as long as we could for these people to start dancing. Sadly, they were there for a non-religious naming ceremony. Cool traditional costumes, but I still don't think a dance would have killed them!

We then jumped over to the National Gallery. This was mostly to see Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream (because you can't turn around in Oslo without Munch being mentioned), but it actually turned out to not be my favourite painting. However, I liked plenty of other ones!

I liked this Munch painting much more - it seemed very Group of Seven to me (and I miss winter!)

Here is The Scream, if it pleases you

I also enjoyed these two paintings, showing the same buildings in the winter and summer

I think I basically like paintings that look like they might be photographs. Abstract or doodly stuff just doesn't do it for me

Although we both snickered at this centuries-old painting of Harry Potter!

These guys built snow castles for money, we saw them multiple times. I was impressed (much more so than for the Picassos we saw... perhaps I am a philistine)

As the sun set, we headed up the hill towards the Royal Palace (for those that like geography, the front of the Stortinget faces towards the front of the palace, and the main downtown core, including the skating-pool, was in between). I like how open to the public it is - no fence at all, and lots of places these days are banning tobaganning due to the risk of lawsuits, not allowing a truly kind of hazardous ice-hill to be built on their sovereign's front lawn!

View from the top of the ice-hill, before we slid down on our feet like stupid half-penguins

Realizing that the weather was holding off for a really pretty sunset, we quickly made our way over to the Opera House. Another awesome thing Oslo has! It is built so that you can walk from the street right up to the roof, and look out over the harbour. There are even summer concerts on a barge in the bay and thousands of people sit on the opera house and watch!

Oh, you thought I was exaggerating?

Back to our sunset!

All in all it was a pretty magical end to a great day! Our feet were sore after this one, I think Justin regrets not Mapping his Fitness and getting the step count!