Oslo Day 3: Nobel Peace Center, City Hall, The Scream & The Opera

View full slideshow
While Kirsten did her own walkabout in Oslo, Mitch and I decided to check out the Nobel Peace scene. First we to went to the Nobel Peace Center museum, which has exhibits of all the Peace Prize winners and a history of Alfred Nobel's* life. They had interactive displays, artwork and the current exhibit on Obama. Next we went to the Oslo City Hall where the Nobel peace prize ceremony takes place. This is where the winner addresses the audience, with the Norwegian royalty sitting front and center, including Haakon Magnus, the crown prince of Norway who lived at I-House Berkeley. The interior of City Hall has big colorful frescos of life in Norway and some with full-on nudity- something you would never see in civic buildings in America.

Then we went to the National Gallery where we saw J.C. Dahl's artwork of landscapes in the naturalist style. The highlight was an exhibit of Edvard Munch's (1863 - 1944) artwork, Norway's famous and troubled painter who pioneered the expressionist style using lurid colors and wavy lines to "express" inner turmoil and angst of the modern world. We couldnt take photos inside, so I did my best scream near a poster of "The Scream" outside of the gallery.
We enjoyed a local Ringnes beer at the lively Scotsman pub, and had a nice dinner at our hotel. Then we went to the Oslo Opera, built in 2008. This is probably the most amazing building we have ever been in, or on top of. There is a sloping plaza that allows people to walk up the sides and onto the roof. Its all white marble, and in the afternoon sun it was quite bright on our eyes, even with dark sunglasses. Inside had beautiful acrhitectural design, with vertical wood slats rising up around the central stairway and lots of light from all the windows. It sits right on the waterfront, and at the top you can see a great view of the Oslo fjord, and the big HolmenKollen ski jump.

*A pacifist at heart and an inventor by nature, Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. However, the invention that he thought would end all wars was seen by many others as an extremely deadly product. In 1888, when Alfred's brother Ludvig died, a French newspaper mistakenly ran an obituary for Alfred which called him the "merchant of death."

Not wanting to go down in history with such a horrible epitaph, Nobel created a will that soon shocked his relatives and established the now famous Nobel Prizes.