One Day in Oslo: Vigeland, the Vikings, and Me

OSLO, NORWAY -- June 15, 2006

It was after midnight as I walked back to my hostel from the Internet cafe where I had just shelled out nearly $25... entirely too much, but considering I was smack-dab in the middle of the world's most expensive city, everything is relative, I suppose.


The sky was still glowing a deep blue -- not the dark of night, mind you, but a dimmer shade of electric blue which fooled my body's circadian rhythms into a false sense of sleeplessness. As I tiptoed into the dorm room I shared with five other girls, I heard their snores and realized that somehow, despite the glow emanating from the curtained window, they had managed to find sleep. Trying to keep my movements to a minimum, I settled into my silk sheets and tried to focus my energy -- without focusing too hard, since that would probably defeat the purpose anyway -- on relaxing my muscles and drifting off to sleep. It was hard work.

I thought back over my too-short day in Oslo, a city that, I had determined, was by all accounts I had read in my glossy-covered travel books, decidedly underrated. Yes, my wallet seemed to get lighter with each passing minute. Nothing comes cheap around here. And yet, between the silhouettes of tallships docked along the harbor, the buzz and chatter of funloving locals spilling out into the sunsplotched tables of outdoor cafes, the hypnotizing granite forms in Frogner Park, Oslo was a happening, and heartily happy, place to be.

Earlier in the day, I had paraded down Karl Johans Gate, the pedestrian thoroughfare leading from the train station to the palace. Fashion-forward boutiques and umbrella-lined cafes flanked the walkway, luring passersby to stay and look and chat away the afternoon. In a gazebo to my left, near a bubbling fountain, a military band blew brassy tunes into the breeze, sweeping dozens of listeners in with their well-time rhythms and harmonies.

As I approached the palace grounds, I looked into the faces of the young guards standing at attention, rifles positioned with precision. Behind them, several hundred uniformed soldiers stood in formation, marching in unison as the tune to a familiar song wafted through the air. I recognized it immediately, and had to double-check that it wasn't an American flag flapping from the pole. The tune of "My Country 'Tis of Thee" brought back a flood of patriotic memories, and I listened for a few moments, imagining the same marching drill to the same music, taking place on another continent not too far away.

I continued on to Frogner Park, determined to see the 200 marble and granite sculptures carved by Norwegian master Vigeland that draw so many crowds to this far-flung pocket of the city. I strolled down the shady pathway leading across a shallow lake, suddenly aware that on this sunny Friday evening, I wasn't the only one who had envisioned Frogner Park as the place to kill a little time. Picnic blankets studded the manicured lawns, and I watched as couples and families and groups of friends bathed in the golden sunshine meanwhile cooking up a barbecue on the cake-pan-size charcoal boxes they had picked up at the nearest market.

Everyone seemed so happy, so carefree, and seemed to just... belong there with one another. And it suddenly donned on me that as beautiful a day as this had been, I was without someone to belong to. I felt the discomforting void in my gut rising, that awareness of being alone that came and went every so often. Today, for some reason -- right now -- it seemed incredibly strong. I was here, surrounded by people, and yet feeling terribly disconnected to everyone around me.

I busied myself studying the range of emotion carved in solid mass, the life-size sculptures placed in a concentric circle around a tall, phallic-looking sculpture which stood dead-center. Vigeland, the Rodin of Neanderthal, captured with stunning realism a vast range of human emotions, embodied in the young and old -- a father with children, two lovers intertwined, a mother with child, the wrinkled faces of a couple passing decades of time together.

On my way back that evening, I stopped briefly at Aker Brygge, near the south end of Oslo, where the boats ferry passengers across to touristy Bygdøy Island. It was after 9 PM, and the sun was burning low and intensely warm in the sky, the light of a perfect Nordic summer evening flashing across the harbor and hillside. I was mesmerized by the pungent smell of fish and salt and sea water rising off the shore. A sailboat arrived at port, its sails deflating as it coasted to a stop and set anchor. In the distance, I could hear the cheers and whoops and hollers of the hundreds of locals gathered like penned animals in the roped-off park along the hillside near Akerhus Festning (fortress).

Traipsing up to the fence, I peeked in at the crowds, their eyes riveted to the theater-size screen where the Swedish team was apparently kicking tail against their assigned World Cup opponents. The smell of stale beer hung in the air as I walked along the fringes of the park past centuries-old buildings. I chuckled as I thought of myself walking among modern-day Vikings. And truly, they seemed to somehow still play the part, to some degree. I had seen a fair share of burly, grisly men with long hair and prickly beards, as well as beautiful madiens with blonde hair and slender, nymph-like bodies, almost all of which, it seemed, had a hefty appetite for hearty laughter and strong drink.
And then I was back, ruffling in my bedsheets, struggling against the still-setting sun for the rest that my body didn't realize it needed. Oslo had surprised me with my own range of emotions. Perhaps Vigeland and I shared something in common after all.

~Melanie