I don't think I'll ever really understand the appeal of ski jumping.

4/16/2007 01:20:00 am

I tried to do some things which I didn't do on my last trip to Oslo because I figured it was stupid to go again and not do anything new. So, I spent large portions of my time eating, sleeping, and watching shows in english on Norwegian cable because it's far better than in Sweden. I was lucky enough to catch an Anne Hathaway movie set in mediaeval England, complete with American accents and an elf; an extremely moving, and I daresay histopolitically correct, depiction of the American defeat of the Soviet Union in Ice Hockey at the 1980 Winter Olympics; as well as something with that old guy, who generally plays grumpy old men, portraying a grumpy ex-republican-president of the US who, along with an ex-democrat-president of the US, discovers that someone wants him dead and so must spend the movie escaping said aspiring-assasin in a variety of humourous and unlikely ways.

I went outside a few times too.

The Botanical Gardens at the University of Oslo.


Norwegian seagulls.
But ever since I heard Australian Sam say that they look like they got curious and dipped into a bottle of ink they'll always be blek-hoder måke to me, ink-head seagulls.




Oh, such inspiration. That is art. And I'm so glad to see again that across the world, some things just never change.

Yeah, so I'm a nerd, what are you gonna do about it?! I've been looking at these birds now for months thinking how much they look like magpies with the black and white and wondering what they actually are. Well, that would be the Eurasian Magpie, I love how they have block colour on their bodies, and they really look so similar to Autralian magpies but they have longer tails and plumper bodies.
From the very top...
...to the very bottom...

...this is what it feels like to be 417 metres above sea level. Why anyone would want to ski down this is a little bit beyind me but Holmenkollen ski jump is apparently very important in the history of Norwegian skiing and jump skiing in general, it was first used for competition in 1892 and they're about to tear it down and build it again for the 2011 world championships. Actually, when we were on the train on the way up to the top of the hill (it's a big hill) lots of dirt-covered sporty-looking people got on with mountain bikes, and there was also a group of abseilers going off the side of the jump tower, so maybe there's just an obsession with going down really steep things really fast in general.

Although, the view from the jump tower literally takes your breath away. Well, actually I think that the three flights of steep and high stairs are probably the cause of my breathlessness, but it's amazing all the same.


There's a museum at Holmenkollen too, a museum allllll about skiing.




This is equipment from Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition. You know, the one where they beat the English...

Equipment including one of the sled dogs they used- The Colonel.


And then finally we just wandered around the neighbourhood near Robert's place.






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2 comments on this post

  1. Anonymous9:04 pm

    nice to see you havent stopped doing inappropriate things to statuey things... im referring to the bear your groping...

    ReplyDelete
  2. i wasn't groping him! I'm cowering in sheer terror at the size of him as he rears up tobite my head off. duh

    ReplyDelete

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