Day 9: Oslo

Thursday, August 22

My plans to get out of the city and go hiking through some of that beautiful, untamed wilderness was thwarted by the return of the rain. I waited around until noon, staring through the skylight in the common room, paging through website after website about picturesque hikes near Oslo, but it never let up.
    If i'd realized that yesterday afternoon was going to be the only half of a bright, sunshiny day i was going to get in Oslo, i might have tried to get a hike in then. The Munch museum isn't so expensive that i absolutely needed to take advantage of that free admission.
    I did walk around outside a lot yesterday, though, so at least i didn't waste that warm, clear day.
    Rain be damned, i needed to go do something today. I opted to go to the Norsk Folkemuseum, a collection of 160 buildings that have been moved to a giant open-air museum and cover every era of Norwegian history, right up to the late 20th century.
    I started with the indoor stuff, both because it's at the beginning, and because i was still naïvely hoping the rain would let up. I learned more about Norwegian independence than i expected. It's interesting, coming here from Denmark, to see how each country's respective museums deal with the history between the nations. Or at least, the small sampling of museums that i saw; i certainly am not a scholar on the subject and i only saw a limited number of museums. But what i did see in Denmark was like, "This king was a good king, he was our king, and he was also the king of Norway at the same time for a while! He was a great king." And that's it. Then in Norway, it's more like, "We were ruled by Denmark for a century. It was equitable and people were agreeable to it for a while - but we thirsted for freedom!" and then there are eight informational panels across a wall detailing the struggle to gain independence, how they first formed a union with Sweden to facilitate separation from Denmark, and how that eventually soured. Plus a full-scale recreation of the room where the Norwegian Constitution was drafted while they were struggling for self-governance.
    So i understand the moving of entire buildings from one location to another, but as i went through the indoor museum, there were several individual rooms that had been removed from buildings and reassembled inside of this one. The most confusing one to me was the ceiling, just the ceiling, of the bedroom of a former Norwegian Master of Coin, who was convicted of treason for devaluing Norway's money by mixing excessive copper into the silver coins, and embezzling the silver he saved for personal gain. He spent lavishly, which attracted the attention of the rest of the government, including building what at the time was the largest private residence in the country. He was convicted of corruption and sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison and hard labor, and he died three months later anyway. So here's the ceiling to his bedroom, which they've placed some long, padded benches under, and a plaque that essentially says, "gaze up at this man's bedroom ceiling and contemplate what it's like to be a corrupt government official."
    The main star of the museum, and the thing that attracted me to it in the first place, is the Gol Stave Church, a beautiful, hand-carved wooden cathedral first built around 1200 and restored in 1880.

    The church originally included brightly-colored sculptures of Catholic saints, but those are no longer present, only the empty places where they used to be. In the nave, there is an inscription scratched into one of the staves which reads "Kiss me, because I struggle," which is suspected to be in reference to one of the missing statues, but no one knows for sure. Also, it's in ancient runes, so this interpretation is up for debate. Also also, it's just scratched into the pillar, as a child would scrape their name into their desk at school, it's not a proper carving. I had pulled up the Norse text on the internet and searched all of the real plaques and paintings with words around the church for a while and couldn't find it, eventually i had to ask the guide stationed at the door. It's fortunate that she knew what i was talking about. It's barely visible in the photo i took with it, and even then, only if you know exactly what you're looking for.
    I do really like the phrase, though.
    I did take the time to sit down on a bench and take in the essence of the building i was in. People used this building to connect to a higher power almost 900 years ago. All that essence and energy in this one spot.
    There are no pews or chairs in the middle, just the benches ringing the perimeter. I had overheard the guide explaining to someone else that this was a standing church, the benches were only for the elderly and the sick. People would stand in the middle of this church for services that lasted 2-3 hours.
    It really is a remarkable building.
    I continued through the museum for another hour or so, seeing a preserved Viking village, many buildings from the 1800s and 1900s, and walking through some of the ones that were open. They were fully furnished with period-accurate items, set up in an example of how they may have looked in their time.
    It's a little surreal to see a building from the 1960s preserved in a museum and filled with 1960s things. Like. A lot of that stuff was still in circulation while i was growing up in the 80s and 90s. Seeing things i had in my childhood in a museum is...humbling, i guess. I did have to remind myself that this museum is supposed to cover all eras of Norway's history, so it's possible even 90s and later things are already preserved here.
    Not long after, i went through a basement which had an exhibition on power and plumbing, including appliances, and i did see electronics from the 90s included. Definitely one cassette player that i owned as a kid, and a unique single-slot toaster that i clearly remember having seen before. Possibly other things that i have owned at one point as well.
    The rain was getting heavier. I was starting to worry about my camera. I think it's technically waterproof, but i don't know about the lens and the lens adapter. I'm not sure it's meant to be used wet. I started to pick up the pace to get through the last of the open-air stuff.
    Coming back to the courtyard where i had begun, i saw there was another multi-story building to my right which i'd missed on the way in. More indoor exhibitions.
    I stood on the first step and looked at the door for a moment. I'd been here a while, mostly walking through the rain. Did i want to go through another round of exhibits?
    I decided i'd seen enough.
    I passed through the turnstiles, locking me out of the museum forever.
    Standing under the overhang at the front of the museum, i did a quick search to see if there was anything nearby serving lutefisk. Once again, all that was coming up was extremely fancy, expensive restaurants. I hopped on the bus and headed back to the hostel.
    My intention was to drop off my camera, which was weighing more heavily on my neck today than usual for some reason, and some other heavier items, and head back out for dinner. I'd grabbed a quick sandwich and a banana at the grocery store this morning, and that was all i'd eaten. It had been an okay sandwich.
    Last night, i had walked through this same grocery store (because it's attached to the hostel, so it's, like, right there) in hopes of finding some interesting Norwegian food pre-packaged, cheap, and easy, and found nothing inspiring, so i went out and ended up with that mediocre sandwich instead. But i had seen premade salad kits, and for some reason i kept thinking about them.
    As i prepared to leave the hostel to go in search of food, the rain had really picked up and was almost an earnest downpour. It's a half mile walk to the street with all the food that i keep going to. I am feeling kind of exhausted today. I did not really want to walk another half mile each way in the rain. I went back to the grocery store.
    I grabbed one of those salad kits, plus a decent-looking wrap, another banana, a bottle of URGE which looks just like SURGE from the 90s, and a can of paprika-flavored Pringles. The salad was mostly boring, and the wrap was actively kinda bad. Worst food i've had on the trip so far, hands down. Kinda wish i had just gone out.
    The banana was fine, and the paprika Pringles are pretty good i guess.
    It was my plan to take a shower tonight, do my laundry in the Scrubba bag (which i STILL have not used), and repack my bag and get ready to move on to Stockholm tomorrow. I'm just. Not really feeling up to it though. And there's no one at the desk to issue me a clean towel. Guess i'm gonna just have to do all this in the morning.
    I was kinda hoping that, if it was nice, i might still be able to get a quick hike in before my train tomorrow. Might still be possible, but if i'd done it today i could've showered after.

That's the end of the experience part for today. The rest of this will be oversharing my internal monologue, as per usual these days. Exit now if you don't want that.

Filming this whole thing has been weird. I'm trying to document my experience, but as a solo traveler, it's not easy to film myself. I have always used Amanda to anchor my shots, to find the emotion in the journey, to bring out the joy of traveling. In Copenhagen, i was able to use Cyndi and Jake for this, but out on my own, it's difficult.
    I very much did not want all of my travel footage and photos to just be "shots of things that i saw," i don't really see a point to that. All of these things have been filmed and photographed by much better professionals over the years, decades, centuries...me taking another photo is not going to add anything to that. If i just wanted to see a photo of Edvard Munch's The Scream, i can type that into any search engine and have thousands of jpgs instantly, many of which are public domain or can be constituted as "fair use" for the eventual travel videos i'm going to make out of this. What i need to capture is the feeling of being here. And i don't think i've done that very well.
    I've taken selfies with all the important stuff, but you know what i see?
    Sadness.
    I've had to retake some of these over a dozen times to try and get one with a look on my face that doesn't seem like i'm not having a good time. There have been a lot of them where i thought i was smiling, but when i check the pic, it just looks sullen.
    The loneliness is getting to me. I'm only a few days out from Copenhagen, and only one of eight weeks down, and already i'm questioning why i'm even doing this. It doesn't feel as good as i thought it would.
    It's not that i didn't know that my previous videos were interesting because Amanda was interesting, and because we were interesting together, it's just that i guess i thought i could still make this interesting by myself. But i need that interplay between people. Between her and me, between her and Alyssa, between the other distinct personalities that have traveled with us or that we have visited in our travels.
    Me traveling on my own just isn't as interesting as i thought and hoped it would be.
    Instead of this trip accentuating my freedom to see the world and experience what i want, it's just underscored how god damn lonely it is to have that freedom.
    I've been at a hostel with up to 100 other people for the last three days and i've not really talked to any of them. Most of them are a lot younger than me, some are much older, actually. And it's heartwarming to watch people from different countries and cultures come together around me and talk to each other and become friends, i'm very happy to see that.
    But i feel like i'm becoming more introverted all the time. I can't start a conversation with a stranger, and, like with those two guys in the train station the other day, even when someone else begins the conversation with me, i feel like i can't carry it anymore. I had hoped this trip would help with that.
    During the planning phase, i kept telling people, "this is a thing i need to do, for my soul," but the longer i'm out here the more i'm asking myself, is it? did you?
    Maybe this was not the right choice.
    I hope it gets better. I'm still really looking forward to the film festivals.
    I just really miss her.