Oslo

I still haven't mastered pronouncing Grunerløkka, but we loved our temporary neighborhood. We lived above a freakin chocolate factory for four days. Thank goodness I could only smell the chocolate being made from outside, otherwise there may have been a feeding frenzy... A bigger feeding frenzy. 

It seemed like half the city dwellers we saw were pushing a stroller and the other half were in them. Ali made a friend, Anna from Skien where Grandma Barbara's family came from. We weren't able to meet up with her for brown cheese so we dodged a few strollers to try it at this great local bakery.

It seems like the Norwegians excel at craftsmanship. From sweaters to beer, really high quality local products are abundant. So I went looking for coffee and found Tim Wendelboe's. I was the only paying customer in the place for my whole coffee. That's normally not a good sign, but then there were these guys, a film crew from South Africa.

There's three seats in the place and a some South Africans are traveling to the top of the world to document it. The next day it was a photographer from the Monocle for their story. 

I think I've spoiled the ending. It was great coffee, or lightly roasted coffee berry juice. 

Our time in Oslo wasn't just about coffee, it was also learning about Norway before they had coffee. Things weren't too bad back then because they had beer and secret hiding places for their beer.

They have built a few things since discovering oil in the North Sea too.

Oslo has a lot of parks with a lot of statues, including a famous statue of me as a baby... Having a tantrum.

and another statue of how adults felt about baby me.

 

After wandering around and eating through the city one day I decided to try and work out. I found a water polo team was staring practice about a mile away, so I headed over. They let me play, but only after they made me put condoms on my shoes for the walk by the pool.

The team would be good competition for TOTEX in Austin. They playin tournaments with teams across Scandinavia and the Baltics. Maybe TOTEX could fly over next year...