Oslo cont. and Copenhagen

We took a ferry to Hovedøya island in the Oslofjord, which has the ruins of an old monastery on it, and lots of nice walking trails. It was so tree-ey and beautiful. I want to hide out from the world on a little island forever! Australia isn't really little enough to fit the criteria. 

After a wander through Akershus Fortress and along Aker Brygge we managed to bump into the Beer Palace, a pub Simon and I really liked last time we were in Oslo. We were quite shocked when the lady working rudely informed us that they don't sell Borg anymore. It was even more rude because it made no sense; it's the most common beer in Norway AND it's still written on their menu. Strange.. I also got to visit my favourite polar bear sculpture and give him a hug, I'll have to do a before and after comparison of the photos when I get the new one off dad's camera. Mister polar bear really missed me, it was a very emotional reunion.

In the afternoon we visited Vigelandsparken, which is a truly bizarre sculpture garden. There were hundreds of sculptures, some of them quite nice and others truly horrifying. Never ever ever did I think I'd go to a public park and see a sculpture of a naked man kicking a baby. I wouldn't believe me either, which is why I have photographic evidence.

Yep, naked man kicking baby. Not to mention throwing/punching the other three.

Oslo chose yesterday to be the one day they closed the central station and changed their ticket zoning system, so figuring out how to get to the aiport was a leetle bit more stressful than it should have been, but we made it safely and even had time to spend our last 14 krone on a packet of gum. Woo! I firmly believe that airlines should give a discount to passengers who are forced to sit in front of small children in planes. Lucky it was only a one hour flight, because my chair got kicked the whole way. I thought about kicking her back, but she was 2 and I wasn't a naked sculpture in Oslo.

Copenhagen feels so ridiculously cheap after Oslo, even though it really isn't. The illusion is nice! We went for a big walk in the city with a nice Brazilian girl from our hostel room, and I ate delicious Nutella and banana crepes. My favourite! The National Museum and the Gauguin exhibition I wanted to see are annoyingly closed tomorrow, but we're thinking about maybe cramming some stuff in on Tuesday morning before we get the train to Odense.

We went on a ferry ride to see the famous Little Mermaid statue today. Two crazy guys were videoing their accordian and guitar performance in front of her, which was a bit silly, but I got a photo of them too seeing as they were clearly in the way. There were nice walking paths through the old Copenhagen citadel, which is laid out in a very pretty non-militaryish star/flower shape. They compensated for this by having lots of rules about not walking on the grass or riding your bike on the ramparts or eating from the canteen without permission, giving them some authoritarian cred.

Delicious strawbs. I had to take a photo of them glistening in the Copenhagen sun.

The Little Mermaid and co.

Odense time tomorrow, I'm excited to be in historical Nielsen territory! My great great grandfather Anders Nielsen was a farmhand until he was 16, then an apprentice weaver until he was 18, and then got on a boat and came to Australia as an able seaman when he was around the same age I am now. I can't even imagine being so brave! It's difficult enough when you know something of what to expect on the other side! Anway thanks Anders, I'm a huge fan of being alive.

It's been reediculously warm and sunny for our whole trip so far, it's going to be such a shock to the system when I get back to Rovaniemi. I'm going to be pretty devastated if I miss the first snow, so hold out Rovaniemi skies, pretty pleease!