Oslo City Hall

To this day, I still cannot fathom how amazing Oslo's city hall is. From the outside, it looks like any other generic building that line the street, but as soon as you step foot inside, you're blown away by the expansive room dotted with grand wall paintings. This is a must see when visiting Oslo. Furthermore, each room has its own unique feel with a different atmospheric painting.













Oh and HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2015 is here and nothing feels different. lol.

A different perspective

So obviously, I'm a sore loser when it comes to updating this blog. Clearly NOT breaking news.

Anyway, it's been about 6 months since I visited Norway and I still have a bajillion pictures to share. Oy. I guess today is as good as any day to get some of that done. Especially since I've also done a 2 week road trip during this past New Years. Hence, more friggin' pictures that'll take months to upload!!

These pictures were taken in the botanical garden. It was in a seedy part of the city but once you entered the garden's threshold your world would be transformed. There was such beauty everywhere you turned. I mean, I had never seen so many plants/flowers before. Unfortunately, I hated all my flower pictures so these are going to be of everything BUT flowers. haha.





These next pictures are from the Viking Ship Museum. It's a surprisingly small museum but it packs a big punch. From what I remember, it only houses 2 full-sized ships. Since the museum itself is small, once it got crowded, IT GOT CROWDED. I remember being a little bit annoyed at how many people were crammed in most of my shots. Fortunately, after being in there for awhile, all the tour groups moved on & all the sudden, the place was deserted. So the museum is located in Bygdøy, which is a short boat ride from Oslo. Bygdøy felt like it's own little island (even though it isn't, it's a peninsula), there were lots of big, expensive houses lining all the streets and it felt very homey.




This should suffice for now. Toodles :)

Norway continued...

The first few days of our Norway trip was spent being complete tourists which included lots and lots of picture taking and lots and lots of walking (my feet were hurting!!). We spent the first day in Oslo taking a bicycle tour through the city. I felt like it was a great way to get around fairly fast while having a guide to help keep us from getting lost. I think it was definitely worth the money. Plus it was super fun to get back on a bike again. Houston isn't exactly known for being bicycle friendly. With everything being so spaced out and our 100+ degree summers, Houston isn't the ideal city to ride a bike in. So of course I was excited to get on a bike since it had been YEARS since I last rode. And of course, being the dumb American moron, I was the only idiot who didn't know how to work the bike shifter thing. We were getting ready to head out on our bikes and I was playing around with the shifter while we were parked when the tour guide kinda called me out (yikes, I had no idea you weren't supposed to shift when the bike was stopped). It was slightly/very embarrassing. Anyway, we got a nice tour of the city and it helped give us an idea of the layout of the city.

Our first stop was Akershus fortress.


|View of Oslo from Akershus Fortress|




A hop and a skip further east on the coast led us to the Oslo Opera House. This building is amazing. The simplicity and clean lines of this building really blew me away. Unfortunately it was in an area of Oslo that was being renovated. Not the prettiest surroundings but the building itself more than made up for the construction.