Julie was keeping the journal day-to-day, so it's told from her perspective. Pictures from this part of the trip can be found in the gallery.

Tuesday, June 7

The end of the expedition! It's been a learning experience, but I'm ready for it to be over. I suspect the others feel the same way. We had eggs & toast for breakfast, then packed and cleaned the cabins with Windex (to prevent mold). We both signed their book and received our certificates of completion. These last days of a group trip are always a little awkward. We said our goodbyes about 11am, and split up. John & Amanda let us keep our luggage on he boat since we were leaving that day and didn't have a hotel. I think all the others are leaving tomorrow,

We wandered around downtown and had lunch at Emma's which Michael had suggested for dinner the previous night. Ken had a burger and I had baked cod, and both were delicious! We visited the Art Museum of Northern Norway (free, small, good), Polaria (films & aquarium), and the Perspektivet Museum on photography, and visited the Hurtigruten in port. Polaria was underwhelming for the price, but it had its high moments. I really liked the video about Svalbard, showing much of the different scenery and wildlife. There are mountains that looked like the Grand Canyon but next to the sea. Mahina is going to Svalbard next. I think I'm glad we aren't sailing that far north — we weren't properly dressed for it, and have been cold enough of the trip! Polaria had a smallish but good aquarium. The most interesting feature was that they had lots of cutouts where you could stick your head in from the side or underneath the aquarium & watch the fish up close. They also had 3 seals.

The Hurtigruten ship was cool. The highlight was a great cup of hot chocolate on the 7th floor cafe. It looked like a work of art, and the barista said it was her favorite to make. We went to the photography museum, too. Unfortunately, we arrived 15 minutes before closing, but since it was free we had a peek around. They had some great exhibitions on refuges, religious experiences, and Tromsø people. I liked reading the bios of 6 people with different religious experiences, including an atheist woman who converted to Islam after visiting Morocco and tried wearing a niqab, a Catholic nun, and a gay Christian man. We could have stayed longer but at least we could skim through it.

Now, we had 30 minutes to kill before meeting John & Amanda at the boat. We had enough time to go back to the church near Emma's which was closed at lunchtime. It was the Lutheran Cathedral built in 1861, Norway's only wooden cathedral and one of its biggest wooden churches. The architecture was simple but elegant inside and out. They had some recorded music playing so we sat and listed for a few minutes. They played a song I recognized from the Basilica but can't remember the title or composer. Boo.

We met John & Amanda at 4:30pm, and Ken took pictures of them driving the boat around the harbor. They wanted to use the old buildings as a backdrop. I was amazed at how smoothly John & Amanda docked the boat, considering it was almost always a near disaster with all of us. I wasn't "that" surprised — they know the boat and their jobs quite well.

We walked to the local hotel and waited about 20 minutes for the airport bus. The trip to the airport was short but fun, because we got to see something we had heard about from friends Jack & Sandy — not only are tunnels common in Norway, but sometimes you find a roundabout connecting two tunnels in the middle of a mountain. We had not one but two of these on our short trip to the aiport. Neat!

The airport was uneventful, although I was surprised nobody checked my ID prior to the domestic flight. We bought some salads and baguette for dinner — surprisingly decent for airport food. Unfortunately, we couldn't choose seats ahead of time, so by the time we checked in, all we could get were 2 middle seats. Oh well. I spent most of the flight catching up on the journal. The captain announced the current temp was 18 degrees C (64 degrees F). Hallelujah! Maybe I won't be cold in Oslo!

We had an easy ride on the Flytoget train to the Oslo Central station, stopped at the grocery store in the station to buy bars and ice cream, then took a cab to our hotel. Since we arrived at 9:30pm, that seemed like the simplest way. We got to the hotel, spread out our damp stuff, then went to bed. The Cochs Pensonjat hotel is a little noisy from the ouside, but otherwise it's decent. For approximately $100 per night (cheap for Oslo), you can't complain.

Wednesday, June 8

Got up about 8am, ate our gluten free bars for breakfast, then tidied up the room. We left before 9am and bought a 2-day Oslo pass (includes a lot of museums and free transit, well worth it). We walked to the marina to pick up the tourist boat. Luckily, I navigated fairly well and got us to the boat dock with a few minutes to spare, which is good because it took us a few minutes to find the boat. We took the tourist boat to the Bygdøy peninsula which has a lot of museums.

We started at the Viking Ship museum. It had 4 funeral boats, some of which were remarkably well preserved. The funeral boats contained these beautiful sledges, textiles, and other goods. The sledges had been painted, but the preservation process destroyed the pigments. The textile fabric was imported from Byzantium and Persia. After 1200 years, the colors had faded where it was difficult to identify the original pattern, so a textile artist studied the weaving patterns in an attempt to recreate the textile.

Next, we went down the street to the Folk Museum. We were hungry, so we stopped at the museum cafe for lunch right after it opened at 10:30am. The Folk Museum was very good but overwhelming. We saw their original Storting (Parliament) chamber, folk dress, 1800s housing items, an old town, a stave church, and a number of old villages relocated here. The oldest wooden building was from 1250 AD! We learned why we had seen so many grass roofs during the trip. It was used as a form of roof insulation — layers of birch bark and turf which could last 15-25 years.

We left the folk museum about 1:30pm and walked for 10-15 minutes to the other trio of museums. We were most intersted in the Fram museum, so we started there. The museum was also very good but overwhelming. It focused on Norwegian contributions to polar exploration (primarily Nanesen and Amundsen) plus a special exhibit about Shackleton. We got to see the Gjoa (the ship Amundsen sailed through the Northwest Passage for the first time), and Fram (used in Arctic and Antarctic by Nansen and Amundsen). We probably could have spent the whole day here. In the Shackleton section, they did an 800 mile passage to South Georgia Island in a 23 foot boat and had gale conditions for much of it. One moment, Shackleton thought he saw a break in the sky, then realized it was an enormous 50 foot wave. It swamped the boat, and it took an hour of bailing before they were confident they wouldn't sink. The Norwegians also learned survival skills from the Inuit, including using dogs and sleds.

We next went to the Kon-Tiki Museum. Thor Heyerdahl was convinced that South Americans could have colonized Polynesia, but nobody believed him. So, he made a balsa wood raft and sailed it himself from Peru. Oh, and, he didn't know how to sail or swim. Everyone was convinced he was crazy, but he did it anyway. They eventually made it to Polynesia but ran aground on a reef. They boat wasn't very steerable but could do about 50 miles/day due to favorable currents and tradewinds. Later, Thor attempted to sail from Africa to the Carribbean. His first attempted failed with a 650 mile rescue from the Barbados. The 2nd attempt was successful. Thor also conducted archaeology on Easter Island and elsewhere. The museum felt biased (it as run by the explorer and an ex-mate for many years) but still interesting.

We looked around the Maritime Musem before it closed. It was mostly models of different ships and maritime paintings. Our favorite was from the late 1800s with a well-placed navigation mark.

Finally, we took the boat back to the mainland. We wandered into the Karl Johans Gate area for something to eat, and we went to the Kaffistova cafeteria. We showed up at the same times as a horde of Chinese tourists, but fortunately there was enough room for us. We had meatcakes, potatoes, and some kind of chickpea & lentil mush. Pretty filling if not fancy. We went back to the hotel, asked about a grocery store, and went breakfast shopping. Since we had a fridge and small stove in the room, we planned to have breakfast in the room the next couple days. None of the restaurant breakfast options were gluten free, so we made our own: 6 eggs which we hardboiled in the room, some Norwegian brown cheese (which we had tried on the boat), some salami, Greek yogurt, and 2 bananas. Easy and satisfying.

Thursday, June 9

Our final day touristing in Oslo. We got up at 9am. Since most museums were open at 10am, the original plan was to take the tram to the Vigeland Parkand and wander there before oging to the city center. However, I misread the tram map and the tram turned around 1 stop before the park, and by the time we figured it out, it was too late to go back. So, we rode it past the hotel and into the city center. We were planning to get off at the main train station, but I think we got off 1 stop earlier. We did the Rick Steves Oslo walk from the Oslo Cathedral, went past the Parliament building, and went through City Hall. City Hall was quite beautiful, with wooden friezes from Norse mythology outside and depictions of Norwegian everyday life inside. We had to push around another horde of Chinese tourists, but oh well.

Afterwards, we went to the harbor area and the Akerhus fortress area to visit the Norwegian Resistance Museum about WWII. Norway was of strategic importance to the Germans because it could be used as ports for U-boats, much like Scapa Flow in the Orkneys for the Allies. The museum gave a good sense about life under German occupation — something Americans have never had to contend with. I was impressed that 5000 people were participants creating and distribution newspapers, 1000 were caught, and 200 were killed. It was a big David & Goliath, cat & mouse story between the Norwegians and Germans. The teachers and clergy went on strike so they wouldn't have to teach Nazi values. When the Allies wanted to open a second front, they considered northern Norway but decided on north Africa. Hitler was convinced that the Allies would invade through Norway and ensured the country was well defended. One of the Allies' strategies late in the war was to blow up Norwegian transport systems so that the experienced German soldiers would be stuck in Norway.

After the musem, we tried unsuccessfully to find a Rick Steves recommended restaurant near the fortress. Eventually we gave up and walked to the Karl Johans Gate and ate at a deli. (Note: I looked up the restaurant later, and the Rick Steves map was wrong).

After lunch, we went to the Norwegian National Gallery of Art. They had an entire room dedicated to Edvard Munch, who seemed to be a tortured soul. It was a relatively small art museum but of good quality. Small meant that we could see the whole museum instead of having to pick-and-choose what we had time to see.

We wanted to see the Holmenkollen ski jump and museum, so we next took the subway maybe 20 minutes out of town, then a 15 minute steep walk up the hill. We got some great views of the city. I was glad that it wasn't too hot so we didn't get too sweaty. When we arrived at the museum, we started with the ski jump tower. We came out about where the jumpers launch themselves. The starting ramp was shorter than I expected, and it was scary that you couldn't see the landing hill. You could also go higher and see the whole area. The group behind us in line were all doing the zip line from the top of the ski jump. We watched several people do it upside down — yikes! The museum had a lot of vintage skis, including some from Viking times. Skiing became more popular in the second half of the 1800s. The oldest skis sometimes had fur on the bottom to help grip the snow. Highlights included autographed skis from Aksel Lund Svindal, one of our favorite current skiers, a 9-month-old baby skiing, and King Olav taking the train to go skiing on a Sunday during the oil crisis when cars were banned.

On the way back, we went to the Holmenkollen restaurant for a snack. We had a cheese platter and creme brule with raspberry sorbet. Both were excellent. If it had been a little later, we would have stayed for dinner.

We took the train back to the station from this morning, then walked to the Vigeland Park. It was a beautiful urban park with lots of sculptures, 2 different bands, and a youth violin group that reminded me of my childhood. We might have stayed longer, except it started drizzling. We went to the Curry & Ketchup Indian restaurant for dinner where we had some excellent Indian tea with milk and cardamon that tasted like dessert, and several dishes for dinner. We couldn't totally read the menu, but we've had enough Indian food that we could make good guesses. Best of all, this restaurant was cheaper than many we've visited in Norway!

After dinner, we weren't ready to go back to the hotel, so instead we took the tram to the harbor and wandered around the Akers Brygge district. This was a shipyard that closed in 1986 and was recently redeveloped into condos and fancy restaurants. It was good people watching. We also walked around the marina. Unlike most marinas, the docks were open to the public. There were an unbelievable number of boats in the marina — so many that it woudl be impossible for many of them to get out. We heard that there was a sailboat race the next day. That explained it. A number of boats looked like bonafide racing boats. We were impressed by a small (J-70?) boat without motor that came into the marina looking for a place to dock. We walked to the end of the point, went one block inland, and started walking back. The condos looked really nice but we suspect, really expensive. We stopped at a grocery store to buy chocolates for Julie's coworkers, and then walked the 20 minutes back to the hotel. We repacked our bags then went to bed.

Friday, June 10

Finally, time to go home ... we've been gone long enough that it doesn't really dawn on me until late in the day that we're really going home. We got up about 7:30am and were out of the room a little after 8am. We walked the 10-15 minutes to the National Theater station and caught the Flytoget train. The bags were heavy, and I was glad to get a break from carrying them while sitting on the train. At the airport, as usual, the KLM check-in process sucked. We checked in at the kiosk and learned that finally KLM machines can check us in all of the way through to MSP. We still had to see a person to drop off the bags, though. It was probably 15 minutes even though there were only a few people ahead of us in line. An Indian guy spent probably 5 minutes repacking his big suitcase while at the desk, laughing and joking, while the line behind grew and everyone was seething. And, the gate agent let him lollygag around! It feels like KLM (or European airlines in general) don't value efficiency in a way that American carriers do. Maybe Americans are less patient in general?

We decided to buy some lunch in Oslo since our flight was 11:50am. We walked most of the international section looking for gluten free options. We found one place with salads, and one with sushi. The sushi looked better — not fantastic, but satisfying enough. I went on a quest to spend my remaining 24 kroner ($3) and got some yogurt. I was hoping for chocolate but it cost too much.

The flights plus transfer through Amsterdam were uneventful. We got some ice cream at Burger King in Amsterdam so our bellies weren't empty on the plane. We watched movies, read books, and tried to get some sleep on the plane. It was almost 90 degrees when we landed in Minneapolis — I can't remember what it's like to feel that warm! Ken left to get the car while I declared my Norwegian chocolate in customs. I waited in line for 10 minutes, even though there was only 1 person ahead of me! Sheesh. That completely negates the advantage of the Global Entry program if I have to declare all food I bring home with me. We got home around 7pm and managed to stay awake until 9:30pm.