Hardangervidda 2016, Day 9, Oslo, 7th April 2016.

Time for culture! Today is the day we decided to take in some cultural aspects of Oslo and top of the list was the Edvard Munch museum and his famous painting, 'The Scream'. First things first though, we had a lot of gear to sort out and skis to store, so we made that our priority, not least for the reason we wanted to keep Hege's apartment as tidy as possible.

Once that was done, it was time to hop on to the now very familiar No.70 bus at Manglerudsveien and head back into the city centre. We got off the bus at the opera house stop and decided to first visit the opera house itself to see if there was anything going on inside.

The last time Sean and I had visited a couple of years ago, there was a live ballet rehearsal taking place in the large foyer, nothing going on today though sadly.

Next stop was a quick visit to the DNT shop in the heart of Oslo for some keepsakes. Sean and Emma had wanted some of the small, round, fabric DNT badges and I always enjoy having a look around shops selling outdoor gear. As it happened, I found a 'Bergans of Norway' jumper in a sale at half price, so we all came out happy. We then bumped into a few local characters.

As for the Munch museum, on previous visits I had always travelled by T-Bane, the Oslo metro. On this occasion though, we decided to walk the relatively short distance. The 'short distance' was to take us through the heart of Grønland and this in itself was an experience. Although having skirted this area on numerous occasions, I had never actually walked through it. It was quite a strange feeling, as though we had been lifted out of the city of Oslo and dropped off somwhere else. Pale skin and blonde haired people had been replaced predominantly by dark skin and dark hair. The high street fashion shops gave way to shops selling brightly coloured Middle Eastern fabrics, shops selling hijabs, small bazaars and kebab shops. There was also a darker side to the area and we witnessed several people obviously under the influence of one or more illegal chemicals, two of whom were entangled in a heated dispute. 

This is, after all, the area made famous by the books of Jo Nesbø and his fictional police officer, Harry Hole. We passed the Aker river and thoughts of drug dealers skulking behind street lights and in dark corners sprang to mind, again thanks to the novels of Jo Nesbø.

We eventually arrived at the Munch museum.

Here I was to experience my only real disappointment of the whole trip. As can be seen from the photograph above, the museum was hosting a visiting presentation of works by an American artist, Robert Mapplethorpe. Personally, I use the term artist loosely, but I'll elaborate further in a moment. We entered the museum, stowed our baggage in the locker room and began the tour. Large information boards were everywhere informing visitors of the similarities in style between Munch and Mapplethorpe and other aspects the two supposedly had in common. When we actually began looking at the works I was left astounded. The so called similarities consisted of such interesting facts as they had both painted/photographed a woman in a similar pose! They both created works on the male physique! They'd both done self portraits! I'm sorry, but what a lot of waffle. I may be a bit of a Philsatine when it comes to art, but please? Munch was an artist who painted/drew his subjects, Mapplethorpe was a photographer who concentrated on black and white photography. That one simple fact alone couldn't have made them any more diverse in my mind. And whilst I genuinely enjoy the works of Munch I could not see anything in the homoerotic works of Mapplethorpe that I could identify as art as opposed to pornography. Now, in this day and age, you have to be careful what you say for fear of people screaming 'homophobe', but the whole point of art is to inspire discussion surely? Even if that discussion is as to whether such pieces are art or not! The worst thing about the whole display was that many of Munch's works had been removed to make way for these photographs, exacerbated for me by the fact 'The Scream' was missing!!!! I was lost for words and felt so disappointed for Emma who had been desperate to see this world famous painting. Instead, we got to see photographs of gay men penetrating their own, and others, body orifices with items of various shapes and sizes and male genitalia too numerous too describe. I have to say, if the said photographs had involved male/female, female/female pairings or involved sole females inserting objects into their body orifices, I would have had exactly the same feelings, that they were pornographic photographs, NOT works of art! That any intelligent person could extrapolate anything but the MOST tenuous comparisons between the works of the two men left me lost for words. I sometimes wonder if some Norwegians, desperate to be seen as the socialistic, diverse and all accepting individuals they were once thought to be, try a little TOO hard to try and maintain that stereotype. We did get to see some of Munch's wonderful pieces though.

Towards the end of the exhibition I struck up a conversation with one of the guides in the museum and told him of my daughters disappointment at not seeing 'The Scream', to be told by him that the first of the paintings done by Munch, there are four 'Screams' in all, was on display at the National Gallery. That was a great piece of news and I determined that Emma was going to see 'The Scream' if it killed me. We quickly left the museum and headed for the nearby T-Bane rather than reversing the walk we had earlier taken.

It was here we encountered a small problem. As we entered the T-Bane station, I purchased an adult ticket for myself using my Visa card. I then went through the process of sorting tickets for the kids, only to have my card repeatedly rejected! Having no cash with me, and no staff around to seek help from, I decided to just take the risk and get on the metro anyway. The only other option would have been to retrace our steps and walk. We made our way down to the right track and jumped on the metro, travelling just three stops to the National Theatre before getting off, only to find a mass of guys checking tickets!!! Uh oh!!! It was pointless trying to avoid them so, feeling extremely guilty, I approached one of them and "fessed up" to my crime, expecting some horrendously high fine. "Follow me" he says, which I do, fully expecting to be taken to a small side room and 'processed'. Instead, he lead me to a ticket machine and said, "It's no problem, it happens all the time, it's a rubbish system". He then took me through the rigmarole of ordering more than one ticket on the automated system, an option which is reached through a very non-descript button hidden away in the menu entitled "multi issue". Apparently, if that option is not selected and you try to re-use a card, the system puts a block on the credit/debit card and locks you out. Anyway, panic over and off to the National Gallery. 

The gallery was a short walk from the station and, we were pleased to discover, was free entry on a Thursday. The gallery itself is not huge by any stretch of the imagination and the works enclosed therein can be easily perused in an hour and a half or so. We made a beeline for "The Scream" though, which was probably at the furthest point away from the main entrance. It was easy to find, just follow the crowds! It seemed as if the one purpose for anyone visiting the gallery was to view "The Scream". And then, there it was, in all its glory, the iconic painting by Edvard Munch itself. We dutifully joined the queue of tourists waiting to view and photograph the painting, some taking longer than others as they posed for a variety of "selfies". As each respective party stopped in front of the painting, I was aware of a small, rather bland, male sat on a low pouffe tutting loudly at every new arrival in front of the painting. As our turn came, I made some comment to the kids in English as we paused to photograph and view the painting, at which point this male uttered "Do you mind, I'm trying to look at the painting!" A bit shocked as to the bitterness in his tone, I pointed out that so was everyone else in the building. His next comment? "How rude". I couldn't believe the arrogance of the man who expected all the other visitors to the gallery to allow him total exclusivity to the one painting for as long as he saw fit. I merely pointed out to him that the painting was going nowhere so, if he sat patiently, he might get his wish.

There were other paintings by Munch on display, not to mention paintings by a host of other artists.

Once we had finished the tour of the gallery, we decided to pay a quick visit to Akerbrygge and the city hall. No sooner had we got there though that we realised how much shelter had been afforded us in the city from the elements for, as we arrived at the sea front, an icy cold southerly wind hit us full force. We stuck it just long enough to get a photo of the city hall then retreated in full haste.

Following that, it was back to the bus stop and the No.70 back to Manglerudsveien. Into the 'Jokers' shop for all we needed to make pølser for dinner, followed by a relatively early night.