Overnight in Oslo

Alex and I spent a quick and rainy day in Oslo. Highlights were definitely the Viking Ship Museum and the Fram Museum.

Highlight of the Viking Museum was seeing my husband's smiling face as he posed next to this Viking burial ship. He loves this stuff.

I knew very little about the Vikings on entering the museum and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Really cool stuff. These burial chamber boats were found under large piles of dirt in the Oslo fjord in the early 1900s. The black and white photos of these tough looking Norwegian men digging these massive boats out of the mud were just priceless. Along with the bodies of the Viking kings and queens, the boats contained food, jewelry, weapons, weaving equipment, even pigs and horses. These were tough tough tough people and it was really cool to see how advanced their civilization was, especially with regards to sailing and navigation, going as far back at the 8th century.

The next awesome museum was the Fram Museum, containing the Norwegian ice-ship that was used in expeditions to both the Artic and Antarctic regions. The wooden boat carried explorers on the first expeditions to both the North and South poles in the early 1900s. The exhibition was amazing with beautiful black and white photographs of the explorers' encounters with Eskimo and Inuit peoples, daily life aboard the ship, winters in total darkness in igloos on the ice shelf, and of course my favorite part, all about the sled dogs. Again, very very very tough people. I think some people are just warm blooded and can deal with that weather. I can think of nothing worse then darkness on an ice shelf in the middle of the Antarctic.

ps...Our little sled dog is alive and well in sunny Florida...and making quite a few friends.