Click on images below to enlarge:
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| Oslo
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| Oslo Cathedral (Oslo Domkirke).
| I liked the look of the Basarhallene, the adjacent colonnaded market,
much better than the cathedral.
| Buses with two bends!
Okay, they're actually trams. (They run on
tracks; otherwise, I don't see how one could maintain control.)
Most overground public transit I saw in Oslo were ordinary buses; these
trams were rare.
| A cute building on Karl Johans Gate, Oslo's main pedestrianized shopping
street.
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| Stortinget, the Norwegian Parliament building
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| The Norwegian Parliament building (Stortinget). I took a tour.
| Parliament hall ("house of commons").
| The other chamber.
| Another view of Karl Johans Gate street, from a window in the Norwegian
parliament. The royal palace is in the distance at left.
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| More Oslo
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| Oslo has a few of the human statues I saw in Barcelona (e.g., these).
| They're happy to interact with you if you give them money.
| A park between the Parliament and the National Theater.
| The first statue of an armadillo I've ever seen.
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| The neoclassical National Theater.
| A cool fountain next to the theater.
| The University of Oslo's central building, across from the theater.
| The Royal Palace (Det Kongelige Slott).
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| Tree-lined paths on Karl Johans Gate approaching the palace. Across the street are many al fresco restaurants.
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| Lunch at Kaffistova
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Kaffistova, the Norwegian food cafeteria-style joint where I had lunch.
The furniture inside is the same as that outside.
| The part of the menu I ordered from.
| The classic Norwegian meatballs, kjøttkaker (kjottkaker), along with
boiled, skinned potatoes with gravy and mashed peas. The outside skin
of the meatballs was crispy, possibly fried. I also liked that the tender
meat tastes like, well, meat. I was also surprised to find the coarsely
mashed peas were decent.
It's homey cooking. I left satisfied.
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| Afternoon Oslo
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| The park surrounding the Royal Palace, dotted with sculptures, reminds
me of the park surrounding the Texas state
capitol in Austin.
| This park, however, had ponds.
| Excellent.
| Sorry the flowers are blurry. It's the wind.
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| Rådhuset (Radhuset), Oslo City Hall
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| Rådhuset (Radhuset), Oslo's City Hall, like most government buildings in
Oslo, is none too impressive.
| A 360-degree panoramic movie of the city hall's grand function room,
where Nobel Peace Prizes get awarded. It's loaded with frescoes.
| Zoom in to read one of the many signs explaining the meaning of the
frescoes. They're chock full of significance.
| Ditto (more explanation of the frescoes' contents, meaning, and symbolism).
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| In the banquet hall, the two left-most paintings of monarch make them
look like they're ghouls.
| Many other rooms had similarly significant wall-to-wall frescoes.
Here's a description of one room's.
| The view of the plaza and waterfront from Oslo's City Hall.
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| Evening Oslo
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| The building embedded within the marble ramp is Oslo's newly-built opera
house.
| Aker Brygge, the redeveloped mixed residential (note the luxury apartments)
commercial zone on the waterfront. There's lots of restaurants and
shops here.
| Eataly, the Italian chain restaurant where I had dinner.
| My respectable margherita pizza.
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