Turist i egen by

Yesterday was a rather special occasion for all of Oslo because of a rather marvelous special event hosted by the city itself, callde "Turist i egen by." The meaning of that phrase is rather straightforward; you're a tourist in your own city. Mind you, I've been doing a fair amount of Oslo touristing myself since about mid February or so, so many of the events that were listed in the catalog to visit were places I've already been to. However, the OSLO Pass grants you free entrance to all different sorts of places that normally require an entry fee, so I took advantage of the free day in order to visit the Norwegian Resistance Museum, bits of Akerhus Castle, and the Nobel Peace Center.

I definitely think that the Norwegian Resistance Museum was my favorite of the three, and I'm kicking myself now for not bringing my camera with me. All of the exhibits were very cleverly laid out, with lots of small models of different battles or resistance operations, and I found out lots of cool things about Oslo during the Second World War that I didn't know about before--including the fact that there was a concentration camp called Grini located on the outskirts of the city. According to Wikipedia most of it has been torn down by now, but apparently one barracks is preserved alongside a small museum. I doubt it will be anything like Dachau, but I would still like to find a way to go sometime, maybe for an afternoon trip or something. Akerhus Castle and the Nobel Peace Center were both quite fun, though I've been up to Akerhus Castle quite a lot since arriving in January. There was apparently some sort of medieval expo going on, though, so lots of Norwegians were out in the castle courtyard in medieval attire... and I shot a bow. :D That was quite thrilling. The Peace Center was pretty fascinating but rather small, and I spent most of it listening to Obama's speech over the loudspeaker.

Amatøren hosted a movie night last night, and showed "Harold & Maude." Gotta say, despite the sad ending, it was a very good, quirky movie, and I definitely want to see it again.

May 5th is Cinqo de Mayo! And also the date of the Vålerenga football match. :) We're going to party, it's going to be grand.

Hadet!