Oslo, day 1

We finally made it Oslo late last night. Izzy says the Airports in Iceland and Oslo look like Ikea's. They are efficient and well layed out. We could learn a thing or two from these Norsky's.
We are rested again, but at this time of year the sun comes up at 3:30 AM and goes down around 10ish, so my circadian rhythm is still off by half a beat.

The city ignores the sun for a few hours, so I lay awake for two hours with only the squawk of ravens and the sunshine. The kids were even slower to get moving, which was expected. They have trouble keeping up with their elders. We brunched at Kaffebrenniet, which is hip and tasty. There are a lot of young people in rolled up shorts or skinny jeans and tee-shirts, riding bikes or strolling. The men are pushing strollers as often as the women and nobody seems to be in a hurry. We walked West to the Royal palace and then on to Frogner park, busy with families relaxing and full of sculptures depicting people in all stages of life and relationship with each other. We took our pictures with them, adding ourselves to their commentaries.

We made the mistake of hitting the most touristy part of town for Lupper and after giving up waiting to be seated at the first place we tried, wound up having American style pizza. The waitress assumed we were Norwegian and said something very strange. When we looked at her uncomprehendingly, she tried English; "What would you like to drink?" Wow, that was not what I would have guessed. For all I knew she had asked something about our level of skill playing a game involving a cat, a beanbag chair and waffles.

After eating we hit the Nobel Peace Museum by the water front and learned about Malala and I managed not to weep in public. Then we climbed to the top of the city's fortress and watched a cruise ship set out from the harbor as the sun sat low, setting the boats and buildings off in brilliant colors and high contrast. We hiked home and played volleyball on a nearby soccer pitch until 10:00 PM. Phew!