This post will be short because it really is very late. We spent most of the day being ready to leave Vidaråsen for Oslo. At first we were going to leave at 10 & then catch the train from Tønsberg; then leaving at 2; then someone would come to get us at 4... Finally we got away at 6 or so. And now we are spending the night with the people who came all the way from Oslo to pick us up, some friends of Eivind's, a couple who are a little younger than me & have 3 children of about Rhia & Eivind's age. The husband, Juan (I'm sure his name is not really spelled that way, he's Norwegian) is a filmmaker & the wife, Georgiana, is a professional storyteller. They are fascinating people & their house reflects many interests. I had not counted on being able to stay with friends! - this is a bonus.
This is my first glimpse of Oslo while being in a conscious state. Oslo is a big city of half a million people spread between city core & surrounding areas. The harbour is FULL of little boats, surely there must be one (maybe more) for every single citizen of Oslo. More interesting facts about Norway, learned on the trip from Vidaråsen: Norway has the second longest shoreline in the world (after Canada). The shoreline is so convoluted that there are little towns & valleys that were never occupied by the Germans because they never even knew the towns were there! Norway is the richest country in the world. Norway is the only Indo-European language that is tonal, like Chinese (I honestly thought I was told last year that Swedish is also tonal?) Norwegian has more unique composite sounds than all the dialects of English put together.
OK, that's more than enough for now. Tomorrow we do some sightseeing.
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