January 2 – Oslo and the Opera House

It is pretty cold (for us) at about 27 degrees F (but at least not minus 27 F like it was in Finland), and it was pretty overcast so we spent most of the morning (what little of it there was…sun didn’t come up until 9:17am) inside working on photos.  The sky did turn clear and sunny around mid-day so we decided to head out for a bit of sightseeing.  By the time we got on our thermals and coats and toe warmers and boots and all the other cold weather gear the overcast skies had closed back in.  But, we headed out anyway (too much trouble to take everything back off).

We headed down to the waterfront where we visited the opera house.  It was a photographer’s dream.  The exterior was beautiful…

and the variety of textures and materials on the interior made for some great photo opportunities.

During our walk we noticed some huts along the waterfront.  Turns out they are dry sauna’s (at least that is what they looked like) and people would wander out of the huts and jump into the water or (in case of one guy) casually climb down the ladder as though he was entering a pool at a tropical resort.  A few minutes later (or, in some cases, a few seconds later) they would climb the ladder back out and go into one of the sauna huts.  We practically froze solid just watching them in the water.  Burrrrrr!

In the waters near the opera promenade we say this fascinating glass and steel sculpture.  It is called She Lies.  It rotates depending on the winds and tides…giving a constantly changing perspective.

In one of the plazas was another sculpture called the Creature from Iddefjord. 

We then headed back to the hotel where we stopped in the bar to get hot chocolate. 

We spent all afternoon watching How-to videos for our new photo processing software that we want to start using.  It is rather complicated so a lot of tutorials are called for. 

That evening we headed to the TGI Friday’s restaurant for dinner, mainly because it was directly adjacent to the hotel so we could duck over there quickly without putting on all our winter gear.