"Hei" from Oslo

This past weekend, Ava and I took a quick trip to Oslo, Norway. Although the hope was to see Northern Lights, that did not happen. After all, it is hard to see solar radiation if you can't even see stars in the sky.
The websites for Oslo tourism stated that their city's reputation for being expensive were not really true. I don't know about that, but I do know that a Kids Meal for lunch cost $16.50. (6Kr=$1)
One of the sites one is supposed to see is a park that is filled with sculptures. But what I didn't know was that every one was naked.
As you can see. We actually have several pictures of the park, but this is the only one not rated "R". Ava actually really enjoyed the park as many of the statues were pictures of mothers and fathers playing with their children ... naked.
The highlight of the trip. There was a huge ice skating rink complete with a central area where Norwegians were playing hockey ... well. After Ava fell for the 63rd time (to get around the rink once), we went back inside to rent a helmet. It was a full blown hockey helmet with face mask and once Ava had it on she never fell again. By the end of two hours of skating, I would skate (yes Donnie and Karyn I was getting the hang of it too) out about 20 feet and Ava would skate to me in about 20 seconds.
She was so proud of herself and even though her leg was so tired she still kept smiling!
The obligatory "we were both there" pic.
OK - here is a funny story. On Saturday we walked through the main street of Oslo and I was noticing that one out of every dozen shops or so had smashed windows. When we ate lunch on the strip, the waitress warned us that there was a planned demonstration about the Israel/Palestine saga at 2:00 and that we should probably not be around as the demonstration on Friday got out of hand. Well, we went to the park (naked statues) and skated, and then we started heading back towards our hotel to eat at the local Burger King. All of a sudden, we came to a police barrier, and I was afraid we were going to have to go around the whole mess. Not so. A police officer (in full riot gear) saw us and came to help. He explained that this area contained a rather violent protest and some of the kids had even been run off and had reportedly smashed up a McDonalds nearby. Thanks to the officer, we got through the danger area by going through the police tape, jumping over the police barrier, and cutting through the backyard of the King and Queen's home palace (where they actually live)!

We then found a more peaceful protest (pictured above). Ava and I actually went right up to it and we were about 5 feet away from Arabs dressed in full-gear Palestinian "terrorist" garb chanting in Arabic. Pretty neat. When we finally got to the Burger King, we discovered that it was the unfortunate "McDonalds" that the officer had mentioned. It was completely wrecked. So we went to a Middle-Eastern restaurant across the street and ordered food from a nice Arab. It seemed appropriate.
On Sunday the whole city shut down, but at least the museums were open! What would a vacation be for Ava without some visit to see a T-Rex?
And so we came home. For a quick trip, we had a great time. And now Ava can't wait to go to Cambridge and show off her mad skills on the ice to mommy.