Rasfare!

I had been in Norway for a little over two months and despite being an easy two hour train ride away from Norway's capitol city of Oslo, I still hadn't visited it.

That changed on Monday when I found the courage to wake up at 7 a.m. and catch the 7:52 train out of Bø. I had no plans in mind, just a day of wandering through Oslo to see what I might see. With a map in hand and a vague idea of the layout of the city, I set off down Oslo's main pedestrian street: Karl Johan's gata. It really wasn't anything too spectacular until the Storting parliament building and the royal palace came into view. The architecture in between these two buildings is quite varied and yet quite beaultiful; Gothic, Victorian, and even a building made out of Sandstone.

Looking down Karl Johans Gata

Hanging from these beautiful and tall buildings are large pieces of snow and ice which one would do well to keep in mind as warming temperatures help to release these dangers into freefall. All around Oslo red flags were hung outside of buildings reading RASFARE a.k.a. falling snow, ice! As I was walking and watching shovel loads of snow get tossed off of a 6 or 7 story building, I started to hear the shovel loads hit the vehicles parked beneath it. A man on the street was trying to get the attention of the shoveler. Just as it seemed the shoveling had stopped, a large and obviously ice-laiden chunk flew out from the building.

That unlucky Mercedes-Benz...

The nice, silver, older generation Benz was backed into the parking stall, facing out to the street and now no longer had a rear windshield. Well, it did have one- it was just in a million pieces of broken glass. The ice chunk smashed the rear window to pieces and stopped all pedestrians on the block in their shoes. I guess this is what happens when people don't speak up, or I don't try to help.

After this experience, the rest of my day was rather uneventful and was spent wandering through the neighborhoods of Grünløkka and Grønland. Grünløkka is a neat neighborhood, often associated with the hippies of Oslo. It's home to alot of cool looking bohemian cafes and interesting shops. Grønland on the other hand is where a majority of the immigrant population lives and therefore has quite a bit of good, spicy, and cheap food.

The two other highlights of my trip came in the form of signs. One reading, "Heffalompen Familie Barnehage" or in english, "The Heffalump Family Daycare."

Heffalompen Familie Barnehage

The second was a sign which says, "This is not a dog toilet... Don't do it here!" Unfortunately my photo skills couldn't bring out the yellow urine in the snow all around the sign. Nonetheless, a funny sight.

Dett er er ikke noe hundetoalett... Gjør det ikke her!

With a satisfied mind and body I returned to the train station and within a couple of hours, Bø.