hello norway!

after some twenty odd hours of fairly uneventful flying and a snowy layover in amsterdam we arrived in oslo monday afternoon to clear, crisp skies. owen power slept his way through dinner then we all enjoyed little einsteins at about 2 am when he woke up ready for the day.

and it was a beautiful day at that! we rode trains and trams and busses (oh my) and on the way up from the blue subway train owen turned around and said: "bye bye blue train--choo choo soul!"

we spent the morning at the vigelandsparken--a huge park with a beautiful statue garden by sculptor gustav vigeland and a massive (and very crowded) playground embracing the entrance. it was a lovely intro to the norwegians as a culture that values family and life at all stages. owen is the little figure on the far right in the picture --the typical tot wear consists of full-body padding complete with hat and boots. so you can see why owen pointed to the little boy in blue and said "mommy, blue people" and then turned to the little girl in red and said "red people." which makes perfect sense.
after a few rounds on the slide we joined the other families for a stroll--mothers with grandmothers, fathers with babies, groups of mothers and prams (on a tuesday afternoon--family is always first. on a surprisingly warm and clear day it isn't uncommon for mums and dads to call in sick to the office). owen is walking down the path and you can get a little sense of the bridge lined with statues which then leads up to an amazing people tower. the photo above is owen posing with a little boy and below is michael and owen with one of my favorites of a father and son. each statue really is a celebration of humanity and emphasizes the connections among old and young.

and then we went to the munch museet and were exposed to edvard munch's mantra--which goes something along the lines of all art is of humanity therefore all art is about suffering. his mother died to tb when he was five or so then his sister died of the same disease and i think his father died by the time he was sixteen. he's famous, of course for the scream which unfortunately was not on display. (we learned from the museum curator that it was still under repair after its theft and damage several years ago--security, by the way was noticeably tight.) however, we did manage to catch a rendition of the iconic work on our way back to the hotel. but michael and i still found the museum highly enjoyable--especially since owen decided it was a good time to take a nap (the picture of owen is notably under a painting of train smoke). so for at least an hour and a half michael and i wandered the small museum like schoolkids and discussed everything from the bleeding of people into landscape and the comparisons to van gogh (munch has his own starry night) and egon schiele (whose works will be displayed at the museum in may). owen awoke in the museum tea shop in time to have the last bite of chocolate cake and then we packed up and took the blue train back to our hotel. not a bad way to spend our first day in norway. . .