European Adventure 2015: Sunday, March 22, 2015

Hei, god morgen (Hello, good morning in norwegian)
    Welcome to Oslo! We woke up this morning to it snowing outside! Isn't it late March? Apparently they were having beautiful weather before we arrived. Go figure!
    We enjoyed a pretty large spread for breakfast at the hotel that included pickled herring, baked beans, and norwegian waffles. Well, the waffles are good! Pickled fish is not my thing, especially first thing in the morning. I will say their scrambled eggs are delicious!
   Today, our agenda included lots of museums. We started at the Kon-Tiki museum. It is a museum dedicated to Thor Hayardahl and his sailing adventure from Peru to Easter Island on a balsa wood raft. It was pretty amazing what this team of 6 men did. The major thing about their trip was to prove that ancient civilizations could traverse the oceans and migrate.

We then went to the Fram museum. It was about the Fram ice ship. It was the first ice ship that was able to get through to the North Pole. The design of this ship was able to break through the ice and not get stuck. It was engineering ingenuity that allowed them to make it to the North Pole and explore.

    Then, we went to the Viking Ship museum. Are you starting to sense a trend? The Norwegians have been masters if the sea for a very long time. The Viking ships were amazing. The big thing about the artifacts in the museum is that they are slowly degrading. When they were found in the 1700's, they were treated with a preservative called alum. Unfortunately over time, alum turns to sulfuric acid and is now degrading all of the artifacts. There is a big push top safely clean them ams try to prevent further degradation.
   We ended our sight seeing day at the Norwegian Folk Museum. This is a large open air museum of all the farms from different time periods and from all over Norway. Most of the buildings looked the same, except the church. The church was made of carved wood and was very pretty. It was much simpler than some of the cathedrals we have seen in the past three weeks, but it was still beautiful.
   We had a lazy night and went to bed early. We found out that Netflix works in Norway and we enjoyed a little tv time. Aside from London, we have not been able to understand any of the TV shows along our trip.

Farvel og god natts (goodbye and good night)

Us and the snow

The actual Kon-Tiki. 6 men lived on this raft in the middle of the Pacific ocean foe 101 days.

The Fram. The inginuity of this ship is that the hull is more rounded and not as angled. It allows the ship to be pushed up and or of the ice rather than ferry stuck.