Max & Anna again in Oslo

Oh, that was soooo long ago that my brother Max had come to Oslo to visit me together with his girlfriend Anna! The last time was in June 2009, basically when I had just moved to Norway. But studies parallel to a full-time job, Norway being a pretty expensive country plus no possibility to host them, made it quite difficult for Max and Anna to come here.
Surely, Norway's price level hasn't decreased. However, now Marco and I have moved into our own flat - small, but nevertheless able to accommodate two visitors - and Max and Anna have just finished their studies. So they have immediately booked their flight to come over for a long weekend from Thursday 18th until Sunday 21st of April :-)
I was really looking forward!

The arrived on Thursday late. And already when picking them up at Oslo train station I realised that they had muuuuuch more luggage with them than what they would need for those 3 days. And indeed: a lot of stuff was for me :-)
Yes, I made a list of good, nice, useful and yummy things to bring from home, but they brought much more along than what I expected.
Upon arrival the unpacking of the extremely securely packed items started...

 ...and I was really positively surprised by all the many nice things my mum got packed for me!

Especially the large set of nice wine-, sparkling- and water-glasses for our new flat :-)
And this one merits a biiiiig thank you to my brother! This lovely 5-litres barrel of "Kölsch" (typical beer from my home area) made it on his own initiative all the way up to Oslo :-)

So thank a lot for all those many things!

We started the next day very relaxed. Outside it was pretty shitty weather and the forecast didn't promise anything better than rain. Perfect for a nice breakfast at home.

Later on we went down to the harbour to visit Akershus Fortress...

 

...Aker Brygge...

...and its new extension, the area of Tjuvholmen with the new Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art.

Our intention was to escape the bad weather and to enter some museum, a museum that didn't ask for a fortune as entrance fees. Unfortunately the museum of Contemporary Art was basically closed due to rearranging expositions. Alternatively we decided to go to the National Gallery whose expositions were also reduced to a ridiculous minimum. Major changes in the exhibitions are ongoing as part of the preparations for the 150th anniversary of Munch being celebrated this summer in Oslo. The only thing we managed to see were one room with Munch's "Scream" and "Madonna" plus some other of his paintings, as well as a room full of Dutch renaissance pieces.

Quite disappointed we headed home - taking the way along the river.

Later on in the evening we went out for dinner - typically Norwegian at Olympen restaurant in Grønland.

Saturday started much better off: blue sky and sunshine :-)
We left the house towards the river around the corner...

...and went up the colourful street of Telthusbakken with some of the oldest houses in Oslo.

 

After that we took the local train from the city centre up to the Holmenkollen to the ski jump which is well worth a visit.

 

At one level up, only Marco and I visited the Ski(jump) museum.

The visit gave also access to the top level of the ski jump tower from where the courageous ski jumpers fly down into the crowd...

 ...and offered of course a fantastic view over Oslo and its fjord.

In the early afternoon we returned home. Anna still wanted to do some shopping and I had to prepare a quiche to bring along that night to Audrey's birthday dinner.

We were all 4 invited to a marvellous dinner at Audrey's place in the evening, followed by gorgeous cakes:

We ended the day with two hours bowling. Such a pity that this is soooo damn expensive! But well, we had fun!

Sunday was already Max and Anna's last day. That day Oslo had organised its "Tourist in your own city"-initiative, where people could visit for free the museums of Oslo. One only needed to pick up a free "Oslo Pass" at the Oslo City Hall.

The event was of course pretty popular which made it impossible to catch a boat (which was also free of charge that day) crossing the Oslofjord to the peninsula of Bygdøy with its many museums.

The queue for the boat was simply too long. We took the bus instead as we had planned to visit two museums in particular.

The first one was the one of the polar ship Fram, a ship that was used in expeditions of the Arctic and Antarctic regions by the Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup and Roald Amundsen between 1893 and 1912. The Fram is said to have sailed farther north and farther south than any other wooden ship.

 

  

Right next to the Fram museum lies the Kon-Tiki museum which is home of the raft used by the Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time.

 

The "Ra II" - a copy of one of the two papyrus boats with which Thor Heyerdahl tried to cross the Atlantic from east to west in 1969.

After the two visits we unfortunately didn't have enought time left to pass by Bygdøy's beach as Max and Anna had to catch their flight later on in the evening and we didn't know how crowded public transport would be to bring us back to the centre.

Close to home we strolled over the little antique market and then wanted to sit down at a cosy café called "Cacao" for some hot chocolate and cake.

Unfortunately they were a little understaffed there so that we had to leave unserved after some 15 minutes. We had to leave as Max and Anna had to pick up their luggage. We brought them to the central station where we waived them goodbye.

I hope they had a good time here in Oslo. I really enjoyed having them over! Thanks for coming, Max and Anna :-)