Impressions of Oslo IX

The picture speaks for itself: ugly cruise ship behind even uglier town hall ... one of the reasons I never really thought Oslo was a beauty.

Taken out of the hotel room (16th floor) hence the rather bad quality.

Das Bild spricht für sich: häßliches Kreuzfahrschiff hinter dem noch häßlicheren Rathaus ... einer der Gründe warum ich Oslo nie so sonderlich schön fand.

Aufgenommen vom Hotelzimmer (16. Stock) deshalb die etwas schlechte Qualität.

Nordic Ski World Championship 2011

For those who are not much into winter sports: Oslo was the location of the nordic ski world championships this year and we had cross-country, nordic combined and ski-jumping competitions for the past two weeks. Initally I was debating about going since I was right at the source and the new ski jump was built especially for this event but I didn't want to go alone so didn't buy a ticket early on. Retrospective that was a good thing because I spent the first week of the WC in bed with a feverish cold and I couldn't have stood outside for hours. In addition, we had the worst fog for about a week, so people must have had difficulties even seeing the athletes. Yet, when I heard that a few people from Uni were going and I felt a little better , I bought a ticket for the large hill ski jumping team competition on the second last day of the WC.

The whole week we were completely covered in dense fog and we were quite worried about the weather but we couldn't have gotten a better day.

Here, a side view of the ski jump. Although they were running express trains to the WC area, some people have had problems to reach the competitions in time so we started out really early and caught the very first train up there which wasn't bad at all. At almost every corner you get free food/drink/stuff from companies advertising their products.

That picture was taken a few hours before the competition. By the start of the competition the "stadium" was completely full.

The only downside of the good weather was the wind causing problems to the jumpers. Yet the competition started quite promising for the German team ...

Severin Freund just below the OSLO writing if you don't see him ;)
Unfortunately the competition was terminated after the first round (apparently due to the constantly changing wind conditions but it came quite unexpected even to the coaches etc.). It was quite unfortunate for the German team, since their last jumper, Michael Uhrmann, had bad luck with the wind and they missed 3rd place by 0.7 points or a mere 39 cm. And that was his very last jump since he plans to end his career this year.
For us it was quite disappointing to see only one round and the very abrupt ending was actually the only downside of an overall very nice experience. Although I am not really a fan of people in masses, it didn't feel as overwhelming as I feared - you still had space around you and people didn't seem to be as much in a rush as they usually are.

Impressions of Oslo VIII

Another series of pictures from Oslo - I played tour guide for an Australian friend last summer. This was almost a year ago, lol, I am so up-to-date ;)

Ornaments on a viking ship in the famous viking ship museum:

After a long time of restauration, they had the extraordinary sledges displayed again - first time I saw them but it was quite hard to take pictures because of the glass.



I tried to capture the eye made of amber:



Gjøa - the first ship sailing through the Northwest Passage:



And another impression of Åkershus ... they change the flowers every year:

Oslo Fjord Cruise

For some mysterious reason I ended up on the invite list of a cruise dinner on the Oslo Fjord. The weather wasn't really that nice but here just a few pictures ... and yes the ugly town hall is taken with an angle ... was hard to find a good spot for the camera ;)

Oslo - the hole

We can easily agree on the fact that Oslo is not beautiful but recently it became even worse - they are destroying almost every road to put in some heating pipes. It seems like the whole of Oslo is one huge dig hole. Bah!

Vigelandparken by night

Yeah I know it is not aligned but it was hard enough to hold the camera without tripod ;)

Impressions of Oslo VII

Åkershus - always a nice motive.

Impressions of Oslo VI

View from the harbor in front of the City Hall towards Åkershus.

Impressions of Oslo V

Karl Johans Gate - quite popular with many shops, cafés, bars, pubs ... and sometimes quite crowded.

Impressions of Oslo IV

I've been asked to show more pictures of Oslo which is quite hard for me because I hardly take pictures of buildings (especially if they are ugly) but this time I managed ;).


This is the view from Akershus on part of the harbor where mostly these sailing ships and smaller cruises anf tourist boats come in. The car ferries start from another point. On the hill in the background the ski jumping tower of Holmenkollen can be seen (this one will be replaced by a new one until 2011).

Ich wurde gebeten, doch mehr Bilder von Oslo zu zeigen, was mir immer sehr schwer fällt, weil ich einfach kaum Bilder von Gebäuden mache (besonders dann wenn sie auch noch häßlich sind). Aber dieses Mal habe ich es geschafft ;).
Das ist nun der Blick von Akershus auf einen Teil des Hafens, wo hauptsächlich die Segel- und Touristenschiffe ankommen. Die großen Autofähren starten von einem anderen Punkt. Auf dem Hügel im Hintergrund kann man auch noch die Skischanze (oder schreibt man das nun Schischanze .. brrrrrrr) vom Holmenkollen sehen. Diese wird bis 2011 abgerissen und durch eine neue ersetzt.

Impressions of Oslo III

Ju proudly presents: the ugliest city hall in any capital of the world (well ok I haven't seen all but I still think it is):



It is just an unexcusable sin to put this ugly thing into the middle of Oslo. The extreme ugliness can be seen better on the next picture taken by my mum:



And it doesn't really help that there are bells in one of the towers which play different musical pieces every hour.

Impressions of Oslo II

Finally I manage to continue the series ;)



This is Akershus seen from the harbor. Unfortunately I couldn't take a picture at the best spot since a huge cruise ship was destroying the whole view on Akershus on that day. However I have a picture from the spot which was taken in March:



The earliest parts were built in 1299 and the fortified castle is the only building which is left of old Oslo which burned down in 1624.
From the other side, it looks like this:

Walking in Oslo

... in the middle of the night after a day of heavy rain is just perfect. Nobody walks or bikes on a Saturday around 1 am. There are only a few cars on the road and these are mostly taxis. The clouds made the night actually dark and there was some fog forming after the rain stopped. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me.

Impressions of Oslo I

Recently I was asked by a friend to show more pictures of Oslo since I mostly have pictures of landscapes, flowers and animals, so I think I will continuously add some pics and make a series out of it ;).
I will start with this one and I think I don't have to say that Norwegians are proud of this institution. Anyway I hope that I will never ever see Kohl there ;)



Kürzlich hat mich jemand gebeten, doch auch ein paar Bilder von Oslo zu zeigen, da ich bisher fast nur Landschaft, Fauna und Flora fotografiert habe. Demnach werde ich daraus wohl eine kleine Serie machen und immer wieder ein Bild hochladen.
Dies ist das erste und ich muss bestimmt nicht erwähnen, dass die Norweger besonders stolz auf diese Einrichtung sind. Allerdings hoffe ich, nie Kohl dort sehen zu müssen ;)