Oslo Welcome

Oslo weather is much like New England's -- just wait half an hour and it will change.

For our first full day in Norway the weather went from intense sun prompting the shedding of outer garments down to your t-shirt, with glare reflected by Oslo's alabaster opera house, to downpours causing one to run for cover  to a tented, heated outdoor cafe by the harbor.

Jean Sue, fatigued by the previous night's travels (and dinner with Oslo friends - more on that below) avoided the fickle weather entirely with eyes glued to our hotel room's television, watching the royal wedding in Sweden.

Bob took his chances (and his rain jacket) to enjoy central Oslo, starting out with a visit to the Radhuset, the city hall where the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is held. The focus of this modernist block of a building is it's grand hall with its grand murals. Throughout the building, including smaller ceremonial chambers and meeting rooms, tapestries and murals offer an idealized version of Norwegian civilization, from fishermen and farmers to families nude at the waterside (and an interesting derivative of Monet's Bathers).

After a brief stop at downtown Oslo's only decent cigar store (close by to the royal residence: only a prince can afford the prices of those Cuban stogies) he took the tram over to the central railway station and, from there, the footbridge over the highway to the new opera house, every bit as much a civic monument as the Radhuset, but where the latter anchors the harbor as a massive red brick presence, the opera tries to float with white stone, glass, and ramps leading from water to edifice.

The angular opera house hardly soars like Sydney's, but its harborside placement inevitably will draw comparisons. Both houses appear to draw more attention for their architecture than the vocal doings inside the edifices.

The art extends to the harbor immediately offshore, where the inventive wreck pictured below provides contrast to the Oslo-Copenhagen liner. The metallic construction seems to be a gleaming, more intricate variation on the girder work of Mark di Suvero.

Dinner with Friends

Friday evening we dined with Dag and Synnøve Hoelseth. Jean Sue met Dag  few years ago through their common internet interest in all things royal, and we first got together in-person in March 2009 during our "long weekend" trip to Oslo.

Professionally, Dag keeps track of Norwegian legislation for this nation's equivalent of LexisNexis; his passions, however, are genealogy and the history of U.S. Presidents. One of his blogs is devoted to Brooklyn's Greenwood Cemetary, another to Grant's Tomb.

Synnøve is an educator, about to become a full-time mom next month. One of the advantages of the Norwegian social system is that the state enforces -- without the need to nudge too much -- extensive paid leaves for new parents. Both Dag and Synnøve look forward to time with their daughter: name decided, but not to be announced until birth.

We met at a high-end Chinese restaurant in downtown Oslo, Tabibito, convenient to our hotel, Dag's office and the T-bane (subway) station, lingering for nearly 2-1/2 hours catching up and enjoying the well-executed dishes. My lamb with cumin and Szechuan peppers was excellent, but Jean Sues Kung Pao chicken was exceptional: highly seasoned with just enough sweetness to tame the flame. Desserts were even better, something I do not expect at a Chinese restaurant.