Tuesday morning - last full day

I am exhausted this morning.  The busy-ness of the past several days and the emotional drain has caught up with me.  Today is a wonderfully empty day.  I have nothing I have to do and no one I have to see.  I will wander around Oslo, drinking coffee, going in and out of shops, taking pictures.  I may wander down to the train station to get a ticket for morning to the airport.

There were two main activities on Monday.   The first was stopping at Vigeland Sculpture Park.  It is a most amazing collection of nude statues.  Here's a link to read more: http://www.gonorway.no/norway/sidevisning.php?id=150   Please do read that link, it's fascinating.   Nothing like this park could ever exist in the States.  And it was constructed 90 years ago!

A second high point was gathering at the home of the first out priest in the Church of Norway.  He is one of the heroes.  He is a quiet, scholarly man, whose home is a reflection of him.   Wonderful kitchen with some antique cooking tools as decorations, an open fireplace, a room with his mother's loom upon which he also weaves, books everywhere.  It was a small gathering because people were so tired: Maxim, Karen, Rostek, Gunnar, a priest from Spain, Roman, and I.  We spoke for a few hours and then left to come back to the hotel by bus.  At each bus stop, there's a list of buses that  stop there and an electronic indicator of how many minutes till it arrives.  The buses are clean and new.  There's a streetcar line right outside my hotel.

When I returned from our gathering, Leah stopped down to chat.  She hadn't come with us to the gathering but, by chance, she had met an old friend and spent the evening seeing our neighborhood.  After she left, I read a little and dropped off to sleep.  My room phone rang at 4:45a.m. and jolted me out of sleep.  I didn't know what the sound was.  It was Roman who wanted to come down to chat before he left for the airport.  So we had coffee and chatted.   I then went down to the lobby to say goodbye to him and Leah.  When I returned to my room, breakfast had arrived.  This hotel provided bagged breakfast.  It was great and very European.  A sandwich: whole wheat, cheese, salami, lettuce and cucumber, plus a box of apple juice and an apple.   I ate and went back to bed until 9a.m.

I'm going wandering now, in search of a triple cappuccino!  and maybe a pastry.

Here's a link to yesterday photos:  http://picasaweb.google.com/nundabud/20101116?authkey=Gv1sRgCPiv59Os8p3JIg#

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http://picasaweb.google.com/nundabud/20101116?authkey=Gv1sRgCPiv59Os8p3JIg