Chelsia takes in Olso Harbour.
It arrived - the sun, that is! What a completely different city Oslo is! People are cheerful, everyone wants to help a lone traveller and even the woman in the tourist office manages a smile. The London Bobbies on bicycles, two-by-two, have metamorphosed in Johanne Dybwads plass and the street artists are out, begging hats to hand - all the usual suspects, including a digeridoo player I swear was on the Victoria tube station a couple of weeks ago. The Australian one-man-band on Karl Johansgate draws the crowds and the notes - of denominations monetary and music - but has to fend off a young boy, infected by helpfulness, who wants to count it all for him.
Today's travels take me across the Oslo fjord to an island dedicated to the memories of Norway's maritime ventures. They're all there, the western passage expedition and the polar expedition, but it is the Kon Tiki which attracts me, bottle-fed, as I was, on the stories of that expedition by my mother - so Mum, this one's for you! But having seen the bundles of straw on which they crossed the Pacific, I'm sure even you would prefer the armchair version.
Back on dry land I take in the Ibsen museum (amazing, but I develop sudden constipation in the toilet which is covered, walls, floor and ceiling, in tiles of old newspaper reviews and cast lists of all his productions across the world) and stroll through the gardens of Slotsparken, where people are sunning themselves and sipping beer (yes, sipping). Very polite, these Norwegians are, and so well behaved they stand and wait for the green man at crossings even if there isn't a car in sight!
But then its time for a different Oslo, away from American tourists with pouches and loud voices and their Japanese companions with soft smiles and cameras who have kept me company today. I wait for tram 13 and head off up the hill to the Sofienberg area. This is where real people live, and I find some of them in quaint wooden houses painted yellows and reds with geraniums hanging from balconies. The chatter and the clink of glasses sounds so friendly I almost wander in. But wouldn't you know it - the curse of Oslo had struck again, and there is graffiti everywhere (memo to self: introduce the mayor of Oslo to Fulham's graffiti-busting team).
Not put off, I brave the park, dodging out of the way of the skateboarders and bladers, and narrowly missing a baptism from boys at the water fountain, and head for "alternative" Oslo - this is where the cool people hang out. Thorvald Meyersgate is the capital, and it does have some pretty good shops including an bookshop (in Norwegian) called Ark, which it is anything but! But I really want to check out a restaurant called Sult - Norwegian for hunger, I'm reliably informed, which is a shibboleth for real Oslo people. Such a pity I have to dash off to catch my midnight express before I can let you know what I think. Oh well, we should always leave something to come back to, and I still haven't had those prawns at the harbour cafe!
