Summer Celebrations




The Summer Solstice, June 21, is a spectacular day for people who spend the months of November, December, January and February longing for the sun. Today, as we headed to the center of Oslo, the Summer Solstice sun was high in a azure sky! Many people were traveling on the bus and tram we took to the center!

(I noticed that in the journal I kept when I first came to Oslo in 1999, I used the same word to describe the sky. The special light of this place fascinated me right from the beginning. I wrote “The light is so clear; the sky and the fjord are azure blue and the sun sparkles on the sea.”)

We started the day taking the bus to Vigeland Park. It is the park in which the sculptures of Gustov Vigeland. He is revered in Norway for the granite images of the human story, the narrative of birth to death, striving for the light. And his sculptures are enormous and totally naked. Kaelen was a bit taken aback by the public show of so many people-parts. It was a “teachable moment” as it were, remarking on the Puritan past that shapes our US ideas of who we are and that three letter word…s-e-x. There are different ideas out in the world, indeed.

(At one point in the stroll about the park, among the sculptures I saw a woman in the full jibab of a  Muslim woman passing by. The diversity of cultural expression so clear to be seen.)

Kaelen did enjoy the lunch at the outdoor café in the park…wonderful sandwiches on crusty bread!

After lunch we took the tram through the elegant Frogner neighborhood to the Aker Brigge. Since it was a Friday and the Summer Solstice, there were incredible crowds awaiting the various events scheduled for the evening. A rock band practiced on an elaborate stage, an event honoring police was going on at City Hall (the Rad Hus) , the outdoor cafes were packed. Kaelen ordered a helping of churro in Nutella from a food truck and we sat on a bench along the waterfront taking in the crowds, the color, the sounds. And overlooking all this activity of the harbor, as it has for many centuries, was the noble Akerhus fortress.

We rode back to the flat on a tram that went all along the waterfront. There were so many marinas along the route, each with so many boats moored at docks. Sailboats, motor boats, cabin cruisers, of all sizes and descriptions. This is a nation that delights in being on the sea.


Comments

  1. lvbAugust 12, 2019 at 5:16 PM

    It sounds like you two had an eventful food-filled day-just as i like my own days!

    ReplyDelete

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