World Cruise Day 144/152 Viking Homelands - Oslo, Norway Day 2 - And you thought the Greeks and Romans liked nudity...

Cruise day: 144/152

Ports days: 74
Sea days: 70
Countries: 23
Continents: 5
Ports: 54

It's day #2 in Oslo and day #2 of Arlona's isolation. (Tip: this isn't the nudity part...) We did video chat for a bit this morning and she popped outside so I could see her in person, albeit at quite a distance.  I'm on deck 5 aft and she is on deck 3 forward.  At least we're both on the port side.  We aren't the Star's full 748 feet bow to stern away from each other, but it feels farther.

Nice to see that face 😍

She is still tired with a bit of a sore throat and cough.  She doesn't seem to have a fever but she is taking Tylenol and that also helps with the slight headache.

Oslo is a busy port with ships coming and going all the time - the Oceania Insignia arrived this morning

I didn't notice this yesterday, but there is a teeny tiny island in the harbor with what appears to be a teeny tiny church on it - not sure who attends, but it can't be very many

My excursion today was called, Oslo Highlights & Vigeland Park.  Vigeland Park is a sculpture installation inside a larger public park called Frogner Park.  To get there, we boarded bus #12 and headed out for a drive.  That drive went past many of the places I walked to yesterday, so I won't double up photos of those.

We did drive by the Opera House. It was interesting to look at but I couldn't get a good photo from the moving bus.

This sculpture is in the water in front of the Opera House

Swans were swimming

After seeing downtown Oslo, we stopped at Frogner Park and the Vigeland Park installation.

Gustav Vigeland was a Norwegian sculptor. This installation is his most famous work, consisting of over 200 individual sculptures in bronze and granite.  He also designed the Nobel Peace Prize medal.

Again, I don't want a statue of me made - I don't want to wear bird poop in perpetuity

Vigeland sculpted the human condition.  Adults, children, love, anger, conflict, joy, struggle, life, death, and more - it's all there.  One thing that isn't is clothing. (Tip: this is the nudity part...) This first part is a series of sculptures that line a bridge in the park.  The ends of the bridge feature a granite pillar on each corner topped with a person struggling with a dragon.  Along the bridge are individual bronze sculptures.  Enjoy.

When you enter the park, you stroll along a large grassy area to get to the bridge

You can see the sculptures along the bridge on the lower left and right - the granite sculptures and monolith are in the distance

This is the beginning of the bridge crossing with the two granite pillars on each end at the corners and the bronze statues all the way along both sides.

I'm not sure this lady will be happy if she sees this...

One of Vigeland's most famous individual sculptures - Angry Baby

Looking back down the bridge

At the end of the bridge, another installation depicts all stages of life from birth to death around a center square.  Trees are used as a symbol of life and each individual sculpture features a tree.  The entire installation surrounds a larger main sculpture of really large men holding a cauldron.  I have no idea what that means.

Birth and growth

Maturing

Relationships and romance

Daily struggle, boredom, and challenges

Clinging to life

And ultimately death

Smaller sculptures like this lined the wall of the structure all the way around

As I mentioned, this is part of the larger Frogner Park.  There is a lot of green space with flowers all around.

Continuing ahead, we approached the granite installation.  This is another full circle installation showing all aspects of life from young to old - this time in granite rather than bronze.  Its main feature is a 56-foot monolith.  I'll let you just look at that and figure it out for yourself.  Our guide said that Vigeland did not provide an interpretation and left it up to the viewer.

We continued our walk to the end of the park and boarded our waiting bus.

A sundial with the signs of the zodiac carved around the base

We headed further west and up, up, up to the Holmenkollbakken ski jump.  It features a very modern-looking structure with spectacular views of the area, including the water entry to Oslo.

The ski jump is located in what amounts to an essentially residential area

Nope

Nope, nope

Oh, heck no

That rectangular box with the window is the lift that takes you up to the top - we did not get a chance to do that

This 22-foot tall guy is on a hill directly across the street from the hill - he faces the jump and is known as the Kollentrollet

After wrapping up our time at Holmenkollbakken, our bus returned to the ship.

My takeaways are that Oslo is a very nice, walkable, clean city.  It has interesting architecture and wonderful views. Oh, it also has lots of taller blonde people.  If you look at both yesterday's and today's posts, it also has tons of sculptures and very little sculpted clothing.

I headed up to the aquavit deck on deck #7 aft for the sail away.  What to do, what to do.  I did this.  Several times.

I video-chatted with Arlona tonight. She's doing as well as can be expected.  Essentially, she feels like she has a head cold.  Blowing her nose a lot, congested, a slight cough - that kind of stuff.  She did take time to paint today.  

Here's what I sent her - a bit of a challenge, in my opinion

Here is her interpretation - I'm pretty impressed since I intentionally chose something with multiple shading issues and subtle hue changes - I think she nailed it - color me impressed

We sailed away from Oslo, on the way to Aalborg, Denmark

As the sun was setting (on the other side of the ship, since we were sailing south), the sky was picking up all the sunset colors.  The water was like glass and it was beautiful.

For what it is worth, I tested negative once again today.  Assuming I get another negative tomorrow, I'll feel pretty confident that I am in the clear.  I'm hoping Arlona goes negative quickly, but, once you've had COVID, it is possible to test positive for up to six months.  If that's the case, she'll have to ride out the full ten days, and that means she misses the rest of this cruise.  Here's hoping for a quick couple of negative tests.

We should arrive in Aalborg around noon tomorrow.  I have a walking tour so we'll see what sights I will be able to share with you all tomorrow.