Oslo to Lillehammer

Hi All,

On Wednesday we flew to Oslo for meetings with Fulbright and our ski trip to Lillehammer. On the bus to the Viking Museum Wednesday afternoon we met a satellite salesman for Lockheed Martin, who remained with us during the afternoon and evening and kindly answered the boys' questions about commercial satellites. Upon entering the Viking Museum, we faced the prow of the Oseberg ship sweeping to the ceiling; the grace of its design belying the Vikings' marauding mission. The oaken ships in the museum were so well preserved because they also served as burial chambers in the blue clay near Oslo. In preparation for the afterlife, men and women of high rank were buried with weaving and agricultural tools, gold and silver (which had been pillaged long ago), sleds, and cooking utensils.

Next, while Bill went to a lecture on global warming at the American embassy, we went to see the art deco Gustav Vigeland sculpture park in Oslo. Male and female figures, babies, old men and women carved out of granite line the boulevard culminating in the central obelisk of intertwining figures. We all touched the shiny bronze fist of Vigeland's petulant baby stamping his foot in protest.

On Thursday, Bill took the boys to the National Museum and I went to hear the ten-minute reports of the Fulbright participants' projects. Some of the many topics that fascinated me--passive houses that require no outside heating source, preservationist rhetoric based on human rights rather than intrinsic rights logic, the eugenics movement in Norway where approximately 44,000 people were sterilized over a 40 year period, and Friluftsbarnehagen, or the outdoor classroom mandated by the Norwegian government for all Norwegian children.

That evening we had a dinner of hors d'oeuvres at the ambassadors residence, a mansion west of the city center. When I returned to our hotel I walked through an outdoor black metal concert and was so eager to get away from what sounded like amplified belching lions that I took a wrong turn and ended up in the parliament building.

Now we are in Lillehammer where Mark and Walter had their first downhill skiing lesson! It's a lovely resort with swimming, iceskating, cross-country skiing.

Update: Mark and Walter love downhill skiing, andthey are quickly becoming pretty good at it. Aunt Jenny and Uncle Dan, Mark and Walter would like to come and see you for a skiing adventure.

Mom and Dad went cross country and we were both comically hopeless, ending up on our backs, skis in the air, flailing like Gregor in "The Metamorphosis."

I'll post pics when we return home.

Yours,

Martha et al.