Oslo is Oooshloo here

We took the train from Ås, passed through Ski and arrived in Oslo in the early afternoon. Given the short days here we hurried along to get some photos before the sun set at 3:11 p.m. The train station is near the harbor and the new opera house in downtown Oslo.  The tiger statue is a gift to the city on its 1000 anniversary in the year 2000.  There is an amazing amount of construction going on in Norway, which is quite prosperous due to its North Sea oil reserves.  Unky Herb has always been sort of a tiger fancier.

This is the fancy new Opera House on the Oslo harbor.   The roof is slanted enough to allow walking up to the top, and sliding down on icy days.  Today the footing was reasonably sure and we climbed to the top for some viewing and some photos.

This is a view of Oslo harbor from the Opera House.  You may notice ducks on the part of the fjord which is iced over.  It was about 30 degrees as we viewed the sculpture in the harbor that's supposed to represent an ice berg.

After a little bag lunch at the train station, we took the subway to Frogner Park a ways away.  We passed a statue of Sonja Henie on the way.   It was cold and getting close to sunset as we arrived and began viewing the multitude of statues - mostly depicting naked human beings.  Here is the DoN at Frogner Park trying to join one of the sculptures.

A few minutes later I took this photo as the sun set on the sculptures at Frogner Park.

After sunset we stopped for tea and coffee at a warm Norwegian coffee shop. It was a welcome and welcoming spot on a cold afternoon. We ate at a Vietnamese restaurant and caught a later train back to UMB and Ås.

I am thankful for the miracle of long underwear.

A trip to the Christmas town

Drøbak, a small town on Oslo fjord a few miles from Ås, is known as the Chistmas town in Norway. Unni, Kelsey's friend and third cousin, took us there on Sunday to do some sightseeing and shopping. The fjord is long and deep and is the source for fish and recreation. We walked along the harbor where the ships are tied up in the sub-freezing, but sunlit weather.

The harbor is picturesque - filled with anchored small fishing boats and recreational boats - none of which were working on this day.  There were ducks - mallards, I think - swimming in the fjord waters.

There is a statue of mermaids gracing the shore and DoN joined the three mermaids. She was much more warmly dressed, however.

Still a couple of days from the solstice, but the daylight hours are short - nearly three hours less than the tropical St Paul. Soon the days will begin to lengthen, but it's going to be dark here for a while yet.

A tour of UMB campus in Ås, Norge

After a 16 hour journey from the Saintly City to Oslo and the University of Life Sciences (aka UMB from its Norwegian initials) and a night's rest to recover a bit from jet lag, the Daughter of Norway (DON) took Unky Herb (UH) and me for a walking tour of the UMB campus. It was after noon before we began and we needed to finish before nightfall, about 3:15, but the light was good and I took quite a few photos. It was a couple of degrees below freezing, and we were dressed for the weather, but there were some icy spots on the fairly uneven walking surfaces. The guest house where we are staying is on the campus and also houses a few grad students and other visitors to UMB. It's comfortable and contains the necessary conveniences of home.

The other members of the walking tour - an entertaining group even when jet lagged - in front of our residence.

A better view of the house for guests in which Unky Herb and I are residing. There is very little snow on the ground as you can see.

The DON by a clump of trees which are festooned with years of moss. This is about half way between her abode and our guest house.

A big old Norwegian oak tree that is icon for the UMB campus. It may be 1000 years old. I suspect it is prettier when it has leaves, but in December it's a stark outline against the horizon.

Unky Herb in the field by the iconic tree. He had just snapped off his own photo from an entirely different angle.

After a walk across campus to the buildings where many of DON's classes are held we went into a big class room building. We found the library where DON does some of her research. Here she is standing next to Unky Herb.

The DON took us towards the forest were there is an old growth of a variety of trees from around the world. On the way we saw this sight. The moss grows green on a Norsky stone.

We walked through the forest where DON runs and communes with nature. As we walked a pair of riders galloped by us on Norwegian horses.

On the way back we came across a pasture containing some of the native breed of horses. This shows a curious, very Norwegian looking horse protected from the weather by a horse blanket.

And at the end of the trek, the reward for the long walk around UMB - a Norwegian frozen pizza..

Tomorrow we're planning to do some Christmas shopping at the Christmas village nearby.

Rainy Day in December

It's an odd December. It's raining and overcast. The temperature is 37 degrees. This is not a usual December day in Minnesota, but somewhat nicer than last year at this time for anyone planning to do any traveling.  The ground looks almost like spring is about to spring.  I walked up to Grand Avenue and had to wear a rain coat to keep dry.  But who's complaining?

I played tennis for nearly the last time of the year and, although I didn't play too well, I didn't get hurt. One of the other geezers somehow injured his shoulder on an enthusiastic service return and had to retire from the match.  GOINFS.  The survivors played one on two for a while and then called it a day. There will be more tennis in the weeks ahead.

The weather in Oslo, the current residence of the Prairie Princess, is actually somewhat more wintry than Minnesota.  They are blessed with 5 hours and 52 minutes of daytime this time of year, while we get a generous 8 hours and 48 minutes.  Oslo lies at 59 degrees 57 minutes north latitude (about the same as the middle of Hudson Bay and north of Juneau, Alaska) - St Paul is 45 degrees north.

Another bench

I walked around Como Lake this afternoon, just to affirm the fact that winter and December are both very much with us. I found an empty bench along the way, and I'm adding it to the list of benches that are sometimes pictured in this space.

And, as anticipated, the lake at Como park is iced over. A clear sign of winter. And the time of not very exciting photography.

Still December

I walked around enough this morning to get a feel for winter locomotion and some of its difficulties when the temperature dips into single digits. The cold will exceed this level of chill soon, but I'm trying to acclimate as conditions change. My walk included a swing by the governor's mansion and the sculpture across Summit from it. The sculpture was carved from an elm tree that succumbed to Dutch Elm disease some years ago.  Whoever lives there and owns the figure felt sorry for its exposure to the cold and wrapped it in a warming shawl. It's a St Paul thing, I think.

There was tennis with the gang of geezers this afternoon as usual, so I was able to engage in sufficient exercise on a cold December day, waiting for Christmas.

Just walking around

It feels like winter. The temperature is expected to flirt with zero overnight for the first time this heating season.

I went for an afternoon walk to begin to acclimate to the new reality. I took my camera along to record anything that looked bloggable. I was just walking around (is there an acronym for that?). I walked by Linwood Park, up the Grotto stairs and back to Grand Avenue. Then home. I was dressed for the temp at the time - about 20 - and it was actually pretty pleasant.

The photo of the day is just trees against a blue December sky. That's how it looks in the northland in December.

I played the usual Thursday night tennis at Wooddale. It was not superb tennis, but it was competitive. One of the hard core girls couldn't make it tonight so our usual number one sub played in her stead. We finished two close sets (6-4, 7-5) and quit for the night. I skipped Yang's tonight because I had home made soup waiting for me back home - made by my own hand this afternoon with the veggies in my fridge and some of the turkey left over from the Thanksgiving feast. Yang's can wait for another night deeper into the cavern of winter.

The falls at nineteen degrees

I took an afternoon walk by Minnehaha Falls. As I left my car I noted the temperature was 19 degrees, a sign that winter is setting in earnestly. The water over the fall is just a dribble, a sign that we are experiencing a kind of cold weather drought. The icicles are forming and the water in the creek is firming up, but the dramatic ice dams of previous years have yet to form. The stairs down to the creek level are closed, but still passable, so I went down for the photo and for a walk along the creek.

There were very few people out today, just the guys from Prairie Restoration who are burning brush and cleaning up the areas that they are turning into areas with more native plants. I stopped and talked to a couple of the guys who were tending a fire down towards the big river. I asked if they knew the Prairie Princess, who had worked there about a year and a half ago, and they said they did. The guys, Nathan and John, wondered what PP was up to, and I explained her decision to go to grad school and her current location. I walked to the Mississippi and back without encountering any other "tourists." I guess it's too cold for December meandering. The sun is low in the sky and there wasn't a lot of sun in the creek valley to photograph. We are only two weeks from the winter solstice.

The leaves are gone and the form of the hill can be seen from the bottom. This is the way I chose to go back up to the top of the hill.

The sign at the top of the steps indicates premature closing of the stairs.

Winter is here.

Pie

Yes there was a pie party last night at this address, but I didn't record the event photographically. The only photos were taken by another of the family bloggers, so I'll wait for that posting, if at all. We had good food, good conversation, and good fun with a total of 13 attendees. There were some leftovers, too, which are mostly consumed. The planning for the white elephant party took place, too, actually meaning that we arrived on a date for its occurrence.

It snowed yesterday and overnight. Today was a shovel day and a chance for iChatting with the Daughter of Norway. Her computer is back in working order and she's waiting to get a new charger to keep it running. She and Herb and I chattered away for an hour or so this afternoon and all seems well in the land of winter darkness. We in Minnesota are ahead (?) of Oslo in snow depth. They are yet snowless. I have a screen shot of the chat session, which I'm posting here.

Snow accumulates. The view of my backyard this afternoon indicates that winter has begun.

Unky Herb had some downtime and is applying his gaming skill to Little Big Planet on PS3.  Note the concentration on his face.

Snow and Ice

It snowed a little tiny bit, and it was cold enough to get ice to begin to form over the lakes. The photo below is a wood duck house in Lake Como as the ice forms around it. The ice is suddenly a sure thing, because this is the coldest night of the season - already 21 degrees at 11 pm. The scenery has begun the black and white part of the year.

After my walk around the lake to get limbered up, I came home, napped for a while and then went off for an hour and a half of tennis at Wooddale. Thursday nights are Jerry and the hardcore girls and tonight was the usual struggle to win a set. It was a fun night.

I almost didn't blog, because I just came through the never ending blog every day month of November and I thought I'd need a rest. The momentum carried through and here I am, blogging.  I wonder what the theme was for today, December's theme day.  I hope it was ice and snow.  Or maybe wood duck houses.