We have liftoff

Timid with excitement and groggy from the lack of sleep, we caught a few winks on the flight to Oslo. Oslo from up above looks densely populated,hilly and layout looks typical of any other euorpean city. When you travel intra-continental in Europe you rarely get asked to show your passport, this time was not an exception either both in Oslo and Munich. I find that kind of weird with all the security fuss across the atlantic. Took the airport express into town, took all of 20 minutes in a very fast train. Given the fact that we had very limited time in Oslo, we headed straight for the King's Palace after stowing our luggage in the hotel. Not very impressive but we did see the change of guard which was entertaining, interestingly the guard inspection was led by a woman. I must mention that Priya is extremely enamoured by scandinavian design so going to Design museum was but a given. Needless to say I had to bid my time following her around like a shadow while she ooh, aahed her way throught the displays. The one takeaway I had was that stuff that was designed in the early 80's is what people are lining up to buy at IKEA nowadays. Though the 'man of the match' award goes to the Vigeland park, it was our last stop but certainly one of the highpoints of our trip. Not very clear about the history of the park but it has a collections of sculptures made of granite and brass by sculputor Gustav Vigeland. As you walk into the park you are greeted by a collection of brass sculptures mainly depicting family life- children playing, spouses squabbling, intimate scences... Furtheralong the bridge, you can feel your past life flashing by and at the end of the bridge you get peek into what to expect later in life. The sculptures are made of simple lines but well formed and the artist depicts raw emotions quite plainly including some scenes of domestic violence . Further along into the park where the granite statues are, you will find what is obviously the 'circle of life' - birth, infancy, adolesence, love, marriage, parenthood, old age and finally death. There is a large phallic structure in the middle of this circle of life, a single pillar of granite with intricate coil of human bodies. Overall its a very nice urban park, seemed very popular with the locals also. We topped the evening with a very authentic Norwegian meal at my friend Are's place, I am still salivationg thinking about the salmon. Met Reena and their newborn viking, extremely cute guy. We caught the train the next day to Flam. The first train ride is about 6 hours, popularly known 'Norway in a nutshell'. The scenery dramatically changes from urban offices to farmland to mini-fjords to finally to a more arid landscape. At one point you notice that the horizon is devoid of any kind of trees. The train stops at Finse, where you get some time to see a glacier from far away, we regret not having halted there for a day, well there is always a next time. A few stations later we switched trains, the train to Flam corkscrews its way down a fjord through some very beautiful settings. We stayed overnight in Flam, the town is nothing to write home about but the Fjord is nice. The best part of the stay in Flam was the view from the room, the best vantage point to see the Fjord. We spent the better part of the next day travelling- hopped onto a ferry, a couple of busrides and flight later which finally got us to Geiranger. More soon...