Teen Summer in Norway - a visit to Oslo

This is the seventh in a series of articles written by a Norwegian-born teenager living in the US, returning to Norway for the first time this summer. Martha Melsom (16) continues to share her experiences ... .. ... ...

- I live in Annapolis, Maryland, USA, but I was born in Norway. I lived in Norway until I was ten, at which point my family and I moved to Annapolis. This summer I am back to Norway to reconnect with old friends and family and to explore the country.

This summer hidden amongst a lot of my other travels I’ve also been spending a lot of time in Oslo. This week, however, I went back into the city for the first time since the terror attack and shootings occurred. Previous trips into Oslo have been for a myriad of reasons including errands, meetings with friends or simply wanting to play the part of a tourist and walk around. This time was different. My friends and I returned for one reason: to pay our respects to all those affected by the tragedies. We drove with my friend Sofia’s family into Oslo and before we even neared the Oslo Domkirke (the Oslo Cathedral), we were seeing roses everywhere. No matter where you looked there was a rose – either by itself or in a pile with several others. Nearing the church, we found a place to park and solemnly continued on foot in the direction of the church. The streets were filled with people like us, carrying roses, candles and other mementos, heading towards the church. When we arrived at the church I never expected to see the amount of flowers, candles and notes that I did.

The whole scene was incredibly humbling; and being there - experiencing the overwhelming grief and support - is something I will never forget. After absorbing the scene at the church, we continued towards the site of the explosion in order to get our own impressions of what had happened. The horrible thing about catastrophes is that, even though they’re gruesome, because they are so difficult to comprehend everyone always wants to see the aftermath. Though we were not able to see much through the rose covered fence blocking of the streets, I saw enough. We walked back to the car and returned to Snarøya, still trying to grasp all that we had seen in one day.

(The rose i laid down at Oslo Domkirke)

Despite the solemn start to the week, most of the rest of the week was light hearted, filled with gorgeous sunny weather, which, the majority of the time, was actually verging on too hot since we were so acclimated to the 20 degree weather we’d been experiencing most of the of the summer.  On Snarøya, when the weather is too hot however there’s only one thing to do: go swimming. Luckily finding places to go swimming was not a problem since Snarøya is surrounded by water. In addition to the good public beaches, my friends and I also had access to one of our good friend’s “badehus” – a small bathhouse that is build over the edge of the water. Although I enjoy laying out on the pebbly sand, I am not a big fan of having to slowly wade in the water with large amounts of seaweed waving around my legs. The good thing about my friend’s bathhouse is that you completely avoid the wading into the water - once you’ve committed to going into the water there’s no chickening out because the only way in is to jump off the platform. Because we had to walk quite a distance along the shoreline path, in the seemingly oppressive heat, to get to the bathhouse, when we arrived we ran off the edge of the platform without hesitation and plunged into the refreshing water below. Surrounded by the now somewhat familiarly cold water, floating and bobbing with the buoyance from the salt, all cares seemed washed away.

Along with spending time in the water, the good weather prompted my friends and I to take another trip into Oslo – this time for simple touristy reasons. Although not quite sure of our plan as we headed into the city we quickly decided on Frogner Park (also known as Vigeland’s Park). Frogner Park is a large park in Oslo filled with a variety of statues of people, created by Gustav Vigeland. When I was younger I remember my family, friends and I often visited the park when the weather was nice and we always made a point to see one of the most famous statues from the park called Sinnataggen (the angry boy). This time, my friends and I had to find him again and take a picture for my family. 

Having found Sinnataggen, we wondered if perhaps he was so angry because he was hungry, and, realizing our own stomachs were grumbling for lunch, we started walking toward the city center in search of food. The advantage of walking around a city with someone who goes there often is that they know the best places to go - places that are not always the most advertised.  My friends took me to a small kebab restaurant in one of the quiet streets not overrun by tourists. We had the whole place to ourselves as we enjoyed our kebabs. After finishing our lunch we walked back to the park, and hung out there the rest of the day.

The rest of the week was filled with more swimming and more lazy summer activities due to the warm weather, like trips to the local grocery store to buy ice cream. Despite the tragedies, summer in Norway goes on as it should.

Contributed by Martha Melsom

(More from Martha next week)

....and if you missed the first articles, just type Teen Summer in the search window on the front page

Friday, 12 August 2011 19:16