Day 8: Oslo

Wednesday, August 21

I spent the whole morning and further into the afternoon than i'd have liked sitting in the common room, using my laptop to plan out a schedule for which days i intend to be in which cities, up through Paris in mid-September. You know, the thing i refused to do before.
    I signed up for Trustroots, BeWelcome, and Couchers, three more couch-sharing sites. I figured out how to create a public trip, so people can see where i'm going, and set it to "looking for hosts" so that hosts can contact me if they'd like to have me. I'm not holding my breath on that one, but it's out there.
    With dates more or less solidified, i started pulling profiles on all four sites for Stockholm and Helsinki, and sending out a bunch of messages.
    What a giant fucking waste of time.
    I got the first rejection within 12 minutes. They just kept coming. Around 2pm, i finally decided to just get up and go do some Oslo. After the second stop of the day, the last rejection came in. Every single one of my requests had been denied, again.
    I think i just need to suck it up and accept that Couchsurfing is not going to work for me. Maybe my profile isn't appealing enough, maybe i'm not representing myself well, or maybe i am just too boring. Most likely, though, it's because i'm a new profile with no references who has never hosted before. Or maybe everyone really is just full and/or busy all of the dates that i've requested.
    I'm sure, i'm positive, that this whole thing is a numbers game. Most things are. You just need to keep at it, just going and going and going, until enough people say yes. The success rate will be 10%, or 5%, or 1%. This is true of basically anything in life that you want.
    But i don't have the time for that right now. You gotta sift through all the search results for each city, go through profiles, find people that would fit, write personalized messages to each of them, wait for their responses. It's just so much time. This is why i was supposed to be working on this for the three months before i left.
    So it's gonna be hostels and hotels the rest of the trip. They're nice, they're secure, they're available. It's just gonna blow a huge hole in the budget is all. This trip was ill-advised in the first place, this is not helping.
    I am really happy with the hostel that i'm at in Oslo, though. This is unquestionably the nicest hostel i've ever stayed at, and it's not even the most expensive. Bunks at Rode has been fantastic. I feel like this place is what 807, Artist Housing, the place i lived in downtown LA, wanted to be, or thought it was, or could have been and should have been. I haven't really talked to anyone here, because i am shy, but i feel comfortable here. It's only been one night.
    I was hoping that this trip would force me to break out of my shell and become more social again. The stakes couldn't be lower; i will never see any of these people ever again.
    And yet.
    Audible sigh. Give it time. It's only been two days since i left the security of a family home. I'll get there. Maybe.
    First things first: it was after 2:30 by the time i left the hostel, and i had not eaten yet. I searched for "Norwegian Food," hoping to find something authentic nearby, and ended up at Bønder I Byen, practically across the street from the pizza place i ate at yesterday. I wanted to try something i haven't had before, something uniquely Norwegian, and i landed on Roastbiff av elg fra Sørlandet.
    It is not roast beef.
    It's moose.
    "Braised moose roast, small potatoes in chive mayonnaise, pickled shiitake, pickled red onion, artichoke chips and Holfjell."
    I didn't know it was a smørrebrød when i ordered it, but there was indeed a sturdy piece of bread under that mountain of food. I do not know how i could be expected to eat it as a sandwich, though, without unhinging my entire jaw like a Xenomorph. I had to do the whole thing with a fork and knife.
    It was. God damn. Incredible.
    Like, it would have been incredible without the moose, too. Honestly the meat is the weakest link here, but i mean, me saying that doesn't mean much, i rarely crave meat anymore.  But everything else was already a smorgasbord of delight. The moose really does taste a bit like roast beef, though.
    Moving on, one big thing i wanted to see today was Gol Stave Church, an 800-year-old hand-carved wooden church. The trouble is, it's part of a whole open-air museum. The museum itself closes at 5:00pm. And while the open-air stuff is available until 8, i didn't get any indication from the web site of what buildings might still be open at that time, plus if i'm gonna go, i'd like to see the museum itself, too. It was way too late in the day for that to happen, even if i was close, but it's a 45 minute bus ride.
    So i did decide to take the bus today, rather than walk all the way across Oslo like i did yesterday. I knew that bus tickets needed to be purchased before boarding, and that the easiest way to do that was with an app, but i couldn't remember which app the hostel had suggested. They have it on a poster taped to the front door of the building, but i had forgotten to scan the QR code before leaving, even though i was thinking about it as i descended the stairs from my second-floor dorm.
    Searching for "Oslo bus app" yielded multiple results, and i thought i had picked the wrong one first. So i thought, i could fuck around with this for a while before i get it right, or i could just walk back to the hostel and scan the QR code on the door. It's a third of a mile. That's like a six minute walk.
    So i did that.
    Once i was in the app, i selected my destination, and it gave me a route. It looked like i needed to go get on the tram right back by the restaurant i'd just eaten at. Alright. Fine. So i walked back that way.
    I was almost all the way there when i checked the app again to see exactly where the stop was, only to find that my little blue dot was now twice as far away from the start of the route than when i started. I thought i could see where i'd gone wrong, so i started retracing my steps, only i hadn't made the wrong turn i thought it did; by the time i got there, i was still much too far away.
    I had gone wrong the second i left the hostel. It wasn't a walk back to the spot where i'd eaten, it was a hook around the block in the opposite direction.
    What i am learning here is that all of the orienteering skills i learned in Boy Scouts are long gone. I'm never gonna get accredited to run that Eagle Scout GED program.
    So the bus ticket cost $4, and i would have had to walk six minutes to the bus and nine minutes after the bus anyway. If i'd just walked straight to my destination, it would have been thirty-five minutes. Add in all the back-and-forth between the hostel and Bønder I Byen, and did i really save any time by taking that bus?
    Also, no one checked my ticket anyway. In Copenhagen, we needed to pull up QR codes on our Copenhagen Card apps, but the bus driver just glanced at them and nodded, they never got scanned. Here, it was the same, i bought the bus ticket and it gave me a QR code. But the bus driver didn't even look up at me, much less my code, and there was nothing there to scan it. Well, at least i can feel like i did the right thing, anyway.
    My first stop for the day was a different church, St. Hallvard's Church and Monastery, which is notable architecturally because the dome on top is concave rather than convex. The dome is an innie. There's a giant bowl on top of this otherwise square building.
    The entrance i approached from was deserted. I couldn't even tell if it was open. I felt uncomfortable, so i didn't try the door. I walked around to another side, same story. These were both just like, doors, though. Where is the front of this church? I thought. I kept walking, but couldn't find anything that seemed like a main entrance. As i came around the third side, though, i could hear singing. I decided that i wasn't nosy enough to interrupt whatever was going on inside. I cut my losses.
    Can't see the inverted dome from the ground anyway. The thing is built atop a hill, too, so i'm looking up at a square building no matter what i do. This would have been a job for the drone that i couldn't get into my luggage.
    Speaking of "nosy," my next stop was Neseblod Records, literally "Nosebleed Records." It's a record shop opened in 1991 by Euronymous, guitarist of the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. Euronymous passed away in 1993, but according to Atlas Obscura, the current owner, Neseblod, has gathered enough ephemera from the 80s-90s black metal scene to "constitute a sort of makeshift museum in the basement."
    The Atlas Obscura page does have an update on the bottom, though; in May 2024, a fire in the store damaged much of the basement museum.
    I went anyway. The store upstairs is exactly the kind of place i would have loved in my 20s. It is tiny, and more densely packed with CDs, tapes, and vinyl than you'd think possible. Kind of like my closet in my teens. You can barely move around in there. I browsed through the offerings, there's so much rare, out of print, and promotional material stacked up everywhere. For physical media collectors, this is a wet dream.
    I couldn't see any entrance to a basement, though. After a few minutes, i waded through the tight maze of merch to the counter and asked the clerk, "Hey, i heard there's a museum in the basement. Is that open?"
    And she laughed at me.
    "Um. It's not really a museum, it's just an old wall. But you can go look around." She gestured to a tiny spiral staircase in the floor behind a rack of hoodies that i had not noticed at all. Probably would have fallen down that if i'd been able to get over there without effort.
    I descended. The basement was mostly just full of more racks of t-shirts and CDs. Crates of vinyl records were strewn about the floor. The fire damage is very apparent. There was one guy down there, running around with a tape measure, checking dimensions of various parts of the basement. We made eye contact as i came into the room, nodded at each other, and then he ignored me.
    Yeah it is not a museum. Mayhem's gold record for Ordo Ad Chao is displayed on one wall; next to it was a Metallica t-shirt with the Kill 'Em All album art, which i have to assume was an original since they wanted 900 krona (about $90) for it.
    I feel like the "museum" bit of this shop is just that they have a lot of old stuff that they're charging collector prices for.
    Still, it was cool. If i'd had a place like that close by 10-15 years ago, i probably would have collected some of that collector shit.
    At this point, it was earlier than i expected. After the monastery and the black metal museum had both failed to pan out, i was left with a bunch of time before i could go to the Edvard Munch Museum; i haven't purchased an Oslo pass, so i thought it was worth slipping in at 6:00 when they would be having free admission. I had at least an hour and a half to kill.
    Checking Google Maps, i found that there are a bunch of sculpture parks in the area. Klosterenga Skulpturpark was very close, so i just headed over there. Some interesting water features, some elephants, and a wall stuffed with the heads of very Eastern-looking statues. It was interesting for a minute, but none of this art was really catching my fancy.
    I was headed for Ekebergparken, another sculpture park, with plans to hit up independent statue Chloe on the way, when i accidentally found St. Hallvard's Cathedral, which is different from Hallvard's Church. I noticed that there were ruins on the grounds in front of it, so i entered and walked through it for a bit. The Devil of Oslo was supposed to have come from St. Hallvard's Cathedral, i'll bet these are the ruins that that's from.
    Continuing on toward Chloe, i came to a roundabout with a giant red statue in the middle. It looked a bit like a dwarf holding a butt plug.
    Obviously that's not what it actually is. There must be an explanation for it that's perfectly benign, i just don't know the history and culture of this area well enough to know what i'm supposed to be looking at. Unfortunately, there was no dedication plaque or anything.

    Drew had been asking me for "wacky selfies" earlier in the morning, so i took one with this strange statue and shot it over to him. Then i proceeded down the road, i thought in the direction of Chloe.
    Drew replied, "...if you're brave enough," a reference to a meme which i hope i don't have to explain here.
    "I am not," i countered.
    Drew has access to my location on Google Maps, for this trip. I know how much he enjoys watching my travel videos and reading my travel blogs, so i thought it would be fun to give him access so he can follow right along with me. Also for safety, so that someone out there knows where i am at all times. Alyssa has this also.
    Two minutes later, Drew messaged back, "IT IS LITERALLY CALLED BUTTPLUGGNISSEN!"
    OH MY GOD. I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE.
    I pulled up Google Maps so fast, and sure the fuck enough, right there, it's labeled, "Buttpluggnissen - Paul McCarthy." I assume Paul McCarthy is the name of the sculptor, and not a misattribution to the Beatle and British Sir. I immediately started dropping it into some of my other group chats, and saying, "Take a wild guess what this guy is called."
    I was soon informed that "Nissen" is Norwegian for "Santa."
    I came to a tunnel. This didn't look right. I pulled up the map again, and realized that i'd gone the wrong way out of Butt Plug Santa's roundabout. The two roads were very close to each other, they're basically parallel, it's just that after a quarter mile or so one of them takes a sharp left and tunnels under the other. I needed the high road.
    There was no way up the hill from where i stood. My only option was to return to Butt Plug Santa and take the correct fork.
    As i was walking back, i realized that it had gotten much later than i thought. I did not have time to go chase Chloe down or hit up Ekebergparken. It was quarter to six. Fortunately, the Munch museum was in view from the overlook i'd been on when i realized my mistake. It shouldn't be too far of a walk from here.
    Heading in that direction, i accidentally stumbled across the ruins of another church, Clemenskirkens (St. Clemens' Church). I had noticed this one on the map, but decided to skip it. Well, since i was here, i might as well walk around and get a few shots. It was worth taking a few minutes.
    There was a young couple there playing with their baby dachshund. The little guy was cruising all around the ruins. As i walked up, on the other side of the very short remains of a wall, he looked up at me, and paced me for a minute like he wanted to say hi, but by the time i came around the wall he was gone.
    I don't know if it was because another human had entered the area or what, but the couple called their dog back and leashed him up. I only investigated the old, abandoned foundations for a few minutes, but they were already getting up to leave. Wish i could've pet that dog. Hope i didn't drive them away with my presence.
    I got to the museum about 6:10. They were giving out tickets at the counter, but they assigned you an entry time. I got 7:00.
    I thought about leaving the museum to see what else was nearby for a bit, but i was right by the train station. I've already thoroughly investigated this area. I had a seat by the café, which was closed. Too bad, they had a smoked shrimp special today. I don't think i've ever had smoked shrimp.
    I nearly fell asleep sitting in that chair waiting for my entry time. I did get a decent amount of sleep last night, but overall, i may still be running a deficit, especially since i'm burning like 4,000 calories a day with all this adventure and eating less than usual.
    To be honest, before today, i was not very familiar with Munch's work. Like, i know The Scream, everybody knows The Scream...but do they know The Scream?
    Munch made multiple versions of many of his works. As i walked through the first sections of the museum, i was already taking note that there were duplicate paintings, slightly differing from one another, but the same subject from the same angle in the same style. He did this with his most famous work, The Scream, as well. There are "multiple versions" of The Scream out there, and the way it's worded in the exhibit makes me feel like the museum does not know exactly how many exist, but they have eight of them. One oil painting on cardboard (probably the best known version), one crayon drawing on cardboard, and six lithographs on paper. They are not all be displayed at the same time. I'll get back to that.
    The exhibit starts on the third floor. This floor showcases mostly Munch's nature work: lots of forests, farms, farmers, people in natural settings.
    I took my time with each painting, in the beginning, analyzing the composition, framing, colors, trying to figure out why he made the choices he did for each piece. I got close and really appreciated seeing the brush strokes left visible by the master of his craft, sometimes giant globs of paint left to dry, giving the art a physical texture. Beautiful.
    But what i saw in a lot of these paintings was death. I felt like there was a lot of death motif to everything i saw. One of the first paintings in the exhibit, Two Women On The Shore, from 1898, really hit me in some kind of way. I hadn't seen the title of the piece, but just staring at it, taking it in for what it is, i felt like it was a young woman dying, with a Grim Reaper-like figure behind, leading her off into the unknown. She stares into the distance, like she's preparing for a journey into the unknown.
    Then i read the caption and it is none of those things.
    Maybe death is still just very much at the forefront of my mind these days.
    I continued to find these themes in much of his nature work in the first exhibit.
    The last room on the third floor contained the largest canvas i'd seen yet, what i would have described as "giant" in the moment, a nearly floor-to-ceiling painting called "The Sun." It was flanked on each side by a smaller work, which a bit of text on the wall explained were each strongly negative emotions, but when coupled with The Sun, become an overall positive piece.
    The one on the left was The Scream.
    It was one of the lithographs. I took a selfie with it, assuming that today was just Lithograph Day, so that was the The Scream that i get.
    Moving up to the fourth floor, we start finding some of Munch's darker work. A lot of these paintings were depicting people in various states of their life, including many paintings of people in active death. I felt like i was seeing the same things in Munch's dark, intentionally deathly work as i did in his brighter, life-focused work downstairs.
    I'm actively having a hard time writing this, by the way. Just. Just getting that out there.
    I didn't feel that way at the time. I went through and absorbed it all, making note of how Munch chose to portray these moments.
    There were also many portraits of his friends, plus self-portraits, and portraits of certain rich people that he had accepted commission for. Also other famous people of his day that he did just because he wanted to, not necessarily for the cash. He painted Friedrich Nietzsche twice.
    In the center of this exhibit, there was a section with four walls, arranged so they would be a diamond shape relative to the walls of the room. The corners were all cut off, so you could enter this diamond. It was dark inside, save for a single dim light from the ceiling pointing at one wall.
    This is where they keep The Scream. Since every version of The Scream is on paper or cardboard, they can deteriorate quickly under constant light, so they are kept primarily in the dark. Rolling doors keep two versions of The Scream covered at all times, while the third is open for viewing. One version of The Scream is on each of three of the walls of this diamond; the fourth wall explains all of this.
    The lithograph was open when i arrived. I was unsure why this lithograph was protected in darkness, while the other one was just on open display downstairs next to The Sun.
    I also found out at this time that the rotation is every thirty minutes; from the description i had seen on the web site, i assumed it would be one Scream per day. But no, if you time it right, you can see all three.
    Unfortunately for me, i was walking into the room and seeing that lithograph at 8:07pm. After i'd explored the entire rest of this exhibit, it was 8:25ish, and the lithograph was still open in the The Scream diamond. I figured it was worth waiting around to see one of the color versions.
    At precisely 8:30, they opened the door for the crayon on cardboard version. I got my shots of this Scream, but was aware of the time. I asked the security guard, since the museum closes at 9, if there was any chance the oil painting of The Scream would be seen again tonight. He said no.
    So unfortunately, i did not get to see the most famous version of The Scream in person. If i'd gone a little faster in the first exhibit, or if i'd not gone chasing sculpture parks and headed to the museum sooner to get an earlier entry time, or this or that or the other thing, maybe it would have worked out. Anything to shave 8 minutes or more off of my arrival time on the fourth floor.
    If i'd known, i would have done it. But i didn't. I just have to remember that, i didn't know, there's nothing i could have done. I went into this museum thinking i'd only get to see one version, and i came away from the third floor thinking i'd seen it and that it was the lithograph and that was it. So i just need to feel fortunate that i saw the crayon version at all.
    The fifth floor is entirely Munch's biggest paintings. The fifth floor ceilings are twice as high as the previous two floors, and there is a version of The Sun spanning the entirety of it, floor to ceiling, across the wall. The other walls in the room contain other gigantic paintings in the same series. Walking past The Sun gets you to a hallway behind it, where inscriptions on that wall explain that this is a series of 11 paintings that are half-scale to the final versions, which are murals at a nearby college. It also helpfully gives the public opening hours of said college.
    On the sixth floor, there are two exhibits. One showcases Munch's lithograph work. They have many of the wooden carvings he made, as stamps, plus the ink pressings he did with them, and even the machine he did them on.
    The second exhibit, i'm not really sure what was going on. I entered this final exhibit at 8:55, the security guard was just telling everyone that they would need to leave soon, so i didn't have enough time to find a proper explanation for what was going on. It's called Shadows, and on the floor as you enter are the words "Prepare to enter Edvard Munch's home" in white, but "home" is struck out and "mind" is written above it in red. The exhibit consists of old video footage being projected onto sheets suspended from the ceiling. I have to assume these are Munch's own home videos, which he was fond of making, and there were clips of playing on a TV screen in one of the lower levels. The whole room is dark, and filled with abstract shapes, which i assume Munch did not create, but are supposed to tell some kind of story about him. Many of his personal effects are also kept in this room.
    Time was up, so i left the museum. There's a very tall escalator leading from the sixth floor to the eleventh, where there is one more Munch exhibit, but i didn't have the time to see it. There's also a sky café up there.
    All in all, time well spent. I came away from it with a great appreciation for Munch's work, and i actually kind of want to study him more deeply. I've never felt like i appreciated art the correct way, if there is a "correct" way to experience and appreciate art, but today something really got to me. Maybe because i'm still emotionally raw over everything that's happened the last few years. Maybe this is just scraping at raw wounds in a way i've never allowed before. I don't know. All i know is, i felt something in there.
    I bought another bus pass to get back to the hostel. My watch and phone were both almost dead, so i didn't want to walk. I probably couldn't find the hostel if i tried without GPS at this point, not from that far away anyway. No one checked my bus pass again. I didn't even have it up on my phone this time.
    I had kind of wanted to find a place to try lutefisk tonight, but the only places that were coming up near the museum were super expensive, and when i searched from the hostel they were all too far away. It was getting late. I gave up looking for authentic Norwegian food and just went to the grocery store attached to the hostel. Didn't see anything appealing, but i did find bottles of Surge, except it's just called Urge.
    Walked over to the area where i'd eaten dinner last night and lunch today; it's a long strip of restaurants, surely i'd find something good. There's a vegan place over there i wanted to try.
    Vegan place was closed. Most other places were packed. There was a deli, so i stopped in there, but all they had were premade sandwiches. I got one of those, the clerk heated it up for me, and a chai latte. It was...okay. Just barely a notch above 7-11.
    Should've gone to the taco place. I just figured, i have so much Mexican food at home, i should be looking for something different.
    Should've gone to the taco place.