My first trip to Oslo part 3

It's Saturday and we decided to head to the what I'm guessing is the slightly touristic Kaffistova in town, a sort of canteen place. I had reindeer cakes, same had their famous 'meat cakes', both served with gravy, potatoes and a mound of mushy peas. 

Post lunch, we were heading to the Vigeland sculpture park, we decided to walk there as we hadn't seen a lot of that side of town. We walked past the Royal Palace (the king was in), through Palace Park, past the House of Literature (Litteraturhuset). We came across a flea market with lots of nice stuff, but not anything special enough to buy. 

The sculpture park is located in another larger park (Frogner), but the sculpture section takes up a large section by itself. Conceived and designed by Gustav Vigeland, the sculptures are incredible. They show so much emotion, and are also quite eerie. 

We met up with our friends, and got the tram to Sentral station - it was the first tram we'd been on since arriving in Oslo. We unfortunately missed S O H N and Angel Haze was just about finishing when we arrived on site. We watched the last song of Pissed Jeans's set, and then watched Truls - a Norwegian artist we hadn't heard of before, but had a great voice. 

Mathallen - a new food market in Oslo (which we wandered through on Wednesday) had stalls at the festival and I went fish and chips today (Sam had a chorizo in baguette), and sat down to eat whilst Unknown Mortal Orchestra played. I'm always surprised by how Ruben holds his guitar like a bag. We then went to see John Talabot and I enjoyed seeing some of the Norwegians getting a little crunk - it was Saturday after all. 

We watched the opening songs of Slayer - they looked exactly how you want them to look: axe guitars, beards and long hair - before heading over to the main stage for The Knife. The Knife were a little bizarre, three different girls sang lead vocals so I was pretty confused as to which one was Karin. I was quite up for the idea of their performance art/dance led stage show but I was less up for only hearing one song from Silent Shout, everything else was from 'Shaking the Habitual'. 

Slayer 

The Knife

We had a drink outside Dattera Til Hagen before heading in for Talabot's DJ set. The venue was very cool, almost like a house although I didn't stay inside for long. 

John Talabot DJ set

Oddly enough, by the day of our departure, I had a fair amount of kroner left so I headed into town to check out their large second hand shop Uff and some of the design shops. When I got to Sentral station, I recalled nearly all shops are shut on Sundays - doh! So I headed to the opera house roof. It was really cool, and a great design/architecture idea. We had one last lunch at the apartment and then it was time to head to the airport. We bought a cheese slice at the airport (the Norwegians invented it). As we took off, a child shouted "We're flying now" and it transpired to be the son of Commodore Norrington from Pirates of the Caribbean and the crazy lady from Green Wing.

Opera House

Fun playground at the airport

Summaries of Norwegian dress: Kankens are everywhere on all ages, not just for the hipsters. And they have a brilliant collection of waterproof jackets. 

All photos my own. 

My first trip to Oslo part 2

The glorious sun of yesterday has departed this morning and replaced it with rain. We had plans so my and Sam headed down to Radhuset where the rain came down especially hard, perfect timing for a ferry trip across to Bygdøy (no 91) and walked over to the Viking Ship Museum - we only had time for one ship museum before lunch and decided on the vikings cause you know the history of Norway and all that. Sam lamented that there was no norse god type museum (we couldn't find one anyways) and wondered how good the Fram Museum would have been. 

The Viking Ship Museum had two two very well preserved boats, one not so much plus lots of well preserved wagons and other things these people had been buried with and also a burial chamber. It's not a huge museum but we finished just about on the time we had to leave for lunch so a good size for us. 

Viking Ship Museum

Lunch in question was on a tiny island (Herbern) of the coast of Bygdøy. We waited on a small pier for a small boat to take us over to the island - a very short ride! The restaurant, Lille Herbern, was in a beautiful location - I'd imagine if it hadn't been raining, it would have been even nicer - definitely a place to spend several hours chilling on the swing chairs, watching canoes go by. There was no one else in the restaurant - we had got the small ferry over with one of the chefs - whilst we waiting for the others to find the pier, but the sky started clearing and we could see back to the mainland and start to hear the festival bands as well. 

The menu is small, the food is delicious. I went for catch of the day (salmon) and apple tart, ice cream and an earl grey for afters. 

We skimmed stones for a while and then jumped on the mini ferry - as we got off, there was a smartly dressed party waiting to head over, I think this restaurant was definitely a special occasion place but I'm really glad we went. We walked past the Fram, and got on the ferry back to Radhus. We had a pit stop at our friend's apartment in Grønland. We had a sneaky tequila before heading to the medieval park (Middelalderparken) for day 2 of Øya Festival.

Lille Herben ferry

Fram Museum & Kon Tiki statue 

Opera House (Operahuset)

First up, was Grimes - who sounded a little out of tune in places (not the best time I've seen her anyways). As we arrived so late, it was now turn for today's headliner Kendrick Lamar (smallest headliner of the festival) who played with a live band. 

The festival is quite green, so offers a 1 kroner for each returned plastic cup intact, there were a lot of kids scurrying around collecting for pocket money but two of our friends started during Kendrick and soon enough had 200 cups (the equivalent to about £20 so pretty good). By the time they finished, the exchange point was closed so they put them in the cloakroom (?!). 

The one

How to survive Oslo's prices 

The precious raffle ticket

A further stop at the close apartment where we made toast. The others headed to the RA party, but we took the opportunity for a relatively early night. 

Friday - the sun is out again! We headed to meet some friends and got the ferry from Vippetangen to Hovedøya. We got the long one so went past the other islands Bleikøya, Gressholmen & Lindøya Ost. We headed to a bathing spot and went straight for the water. The Oslo Fjord wasn't too cold to swim in, but took a while for the water to get deep. We had a little chill post dip and got the quick ferry back to the mainland. On our way back to our apartment, we stopped off a weird second hand market on Storgata but couldn't find anything to buy. 

A local bar

Hovedøya 

Second hand market

After some quiet time, we walked yet another route to the festival, this time going through the financial district. I could hear Parquet Courts starting 'Stoned & Starving' as we arrived towards the end of their set. We headed to Goat - a Swedish band I was very excited about seeing live. They were all wearing masks, lots of feathers and even a burka. The show was great - bought the record when we got home. We watched James Blake from the riverside and had an Illegal Burger for dinner to get ourselves prepped for Kraftwerk. I thought it would be a safe bet to go toilet after Autobahn, but then Tour de France came on so I had to run back. When I did make it to the toilet, I could hear Beach House's soothing sounds from backstage - it was a shame they clashed.

Kraftwerk

 

Post festival, we got on a bus organised by the festival for a midnight excursion to the Botanical Gardens. It was the first time, they had ever opened up the gardens after closing and it was lit by candles along the path - very special. We were given a beer and shown into the small house with Victoria Lilys, we then were given some food and sat on picnic tables listening to a Norwegian artist. After getting dropped off back at Sentral, we headed to Sukkerbiten again, this time for Todd Terje. We had some fun on the opera house on our way back. 

All photos my own. 

My first visit to Oslo part 1

I left work a little early to ensure we had enough time at the airport - didn't want a repeat of the Istanbul stress. Without any kerfuffle, we were on board and up in the air. We seemed especially high, with a glorious sun setting underneath cauliflower clouds. As the clouds began to separate, we could see thinner clouds (I suck at correctly identifying nimbus from cirrocumulus) and then darkness below. It was super bright up in the clouds. It didn't feel like we were heading to a capital city, but closer to something on the edge of the world. As we descended form the upper echelons, the clouds didn't disappear and even as we approached the runway, it was just trees and mist surrounding us. Our Airbnb host Petter picked us up from Sentral station as it was already 11.30pm. The airport train was super quick and swanky. As we drove the apartment, Petter pointed out a few things to us, and on arrival, took us up to the roof to check out the panorama views in the dark - it still helped us get our bearings. It was very peaceful up there - we were 20 minutes walk out of town - and we could see the ski jump Holmenkollen in the distance. Petter also mentioned that he has a lot of coffee enthusiasts staying in his place as there is a local guy called Tim (will find his full name) who has won the World Barista Championships - I don't drink coffee but still a good factoid. 

The apartment

  

The next morning we had breakfast  and headed out for a wander around the local area. We were staying very close to Our Saviour's Cemetery (Var Frelsers Gravlund), we walked past the wooden houses of Telthusbakken to the Akerselva River past bridges and waterfalls till we got to the main road. We looped back through Grunnerlokka (the trendy area apparently), Bergfjerdingen (more colourful wooden houses) and into the cemetery where we visited Munch's grave. We had lunch on the roof and chilled for a little in the sun before heading to the festival we were in Oslo for: Øya Festival. 

View from the roof

I was attempting to do the opera house on the way to the festival but we didn't have time. As we were trying to establish where we got our passes from, we wandered into the artist area (secure), we could hear Mount Kimbie soundchecking but didn't have much luck. We got in the main entrance queue and I called one of the festival team who were handling International stuff. We got in but missed all but one of Kimbie's set : (

Found our friends sitting on some hammocks and listened to Tame Impala from this sweet spot. It was then time for Wu Tang prep, it was the first time I had seen them, and they kept on bringing out more of the Clan as the set progressed. Blur were headlining and played a hits-heavy set - which is what I like for a festival headline act. They ended up on Song 2 in the encore of course. 

We headed to our friend's apartment for some drinks before heading to the Mykki Blanco/One Man Øya Natt show at Sukkerbiten. It was a cool venue, almost a container city on the edge of the desert but you're actually on the water's edge of the city. It wasn't very busy and it was getting late so we headed home as One Man came on.

Sunset on day 1 of the festival

Walking alongside the opera house

Sukkerbiten

All photos my own. 

Sustenance

Recently, I've found that I cook less. Since moving in with my boyfriend, he generally handles the dinner, it's not something to complain about but I have missed cooking. 

Last night, I decided I would cook something completely new each week - it's very easy to fall into the trap of making the same dinners when you're tired after work but it tends to get a little boring. Obviously when you have people around for dinner, you tend to push the boat out, but that doesn't happen every week and I want to cook more for myself - without sounding like I'm been selfish.  

So yesterday, I made a bean 'cake', served with sour cream and broccoli. I use the term cake lightly, as whilst in the pan, the ingredients looked cake like but when I tried to serve it up, it crumbled. Still tasty though: spring onions, yellow pepper, borlotti beans, black eye beans, breadcrumbs, mayo, coriander, basil and seasoning. 

Other happenings, over the weekend, I started to watch Top of The Lake (5 hours of it!), a BBC4 drama with Elisabeth Moss and Peter Mullen. I'm enjoying it, almost like Twin Peaks without the surrealness - more of the underlying criminality/twisted nature of small town elders. 

I also went to see Frances Ha, written by Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig and starring Gerwig as the lead. I loved it, Gerwig is so endearing and it was great to see a film about girls not about boys. The film's crux isn't whether Frances will find the one! Shock horror! This is one of my favourite of her expressions: 00.51.

People will probably call it a post-Girls thing but as much as I enjoy Girls, Hannah (Lena Dunham) is a self obsessed d*ck, she's a girl you'd probably would only want as a party friend cause you can't rely on her for anything. Frances is genuinely nice and whilst she makes her mistakes, they aren't done maliciously. 

Had quite a lazy weekend then. 

Oh and last night we saw Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, very enjoyable. 

Theatre binge

A few years ago, I started going to the theatre a fair bit. It was part encouraged by discovering how to work the entry pass system - the first time I investigated the website, I found it too hard to decipher. The entry pass system sold cheap tickets to the theatre to those under 26, I started rounding up a few friends and soon we were booking for all sorts of things. Danny Boyle's Frankenstein, Grief and The Last of the Haussmans - all at The National plus front row tickets for The Old Vic where we saw Kevin Spacey as Richard III. Incredible.

I'm no longer under 26, but I've kept abreast of theatre goings on and regularly score affordable tickets to great plays. As you generally have to book the tickets a few months in advance, I often find myself with 3 shows in 2 weeks - this happened a few weeks back when I saw The Book of Mormon musical (alas no cheap tickets for this one), A Season in the Congo and Othello at The National. 

The Book of Mormon was extremely sharp, so effortlessly sharp that you didn't notice how expertly written the show was. It was very funny and I'd recommend but I couldn't help but think £75 for a ticket meant it was hard for it to compete against best play I've seen all year (Chimerica), tickets for which were £16. However, I do think you often put more weight on plays that deal with serious issues - not that Book of Mormon doesn't mention these, but it's done in a South Park way and not that Chimerica isn't funny, it is whilst blowing your mind about the world's power and money. 

Next up was Chiwetel Ejiofor in A Season in the Congo who plays Patrice Lumumba. Backstory fro The Telegraph: The play deals with the civil war that erupted out of Congo’s first stuttering weeks of independence from Belgium in 1960. Lumumba, who had risen from eloquent beer salesman to the country’s first prime minister of the new regime, attempted to introduce socialist ideas to Congo, but his efforts ended in military conflict and his own murder. In January 1961 he was shot by his Congolese enemies, or possibly by the Belgians supporting them, and later dismembered and dissolved in acid. The CIA and the British have been rumoured to have been involved in his assassination.

The play was directed by Joe Wright (who everyone loves and tends to work with Keira Knightley, ok, maybe just twice), I did think the stage direction was great - the use of puppets, and toy soldiers cascading onto the audience to mark the paratroopers entering the country. I thought Chiwetel was great too. 

To round up my theatre binge, was Othello played by Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear as Iago. It was set in modern times but used Shakespeare's language obviously. I'd never seen Othello before, and thought it was a really good production. 

Chimerica still stands though.

My 2nd Latitude

A couple weekends ago, I took my sister off to Latitude for her birthday and some fun and games. 

The fun and games got off to a delayed start whilst the British Transport Police worked on a getting a man off Ipswich station's roof for 7 hours - we suggested a tranquiliser dart as we made our way from London to Cambridge to Norwich to Diss......

Eventually, we got to our campsite and quickly set up the tent with a beer in hand - natch. 

We had pretty much missed all the live music by this time but managed 10 minutes of Japandroids and 20 minutes of Bloc Party playing some 'Silent Alarm' hits with lasers - always good. 

My sister wasn't really into Guilty Pleasures the year before so we decided to go to In the Woods, I then wandered over to the Lake Stage where Moshi Moshi were DJing and certainly enjoying themselves. We camped out here for most of their set before I rejoined my sister at In The Woods and it was time for the stages to close and we headed back to the guest bar for more drinks. It had now been officially my sister's birthday for a few hours so we sung 'Happy Birthday' and chatted into the daylight hours.

Changing at Cambridge

De-thistling our tent area

Friday evening

We started Saturday with some mimosas, unfortunately having to sacrifice seeing Dylan Moran over finishing the prosecco. Our friends arrived around the time White Denim started so we had to miss them as well, not going so well on the music front. However, then it was time for Jagua Ma, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Hot Chip and Kraftwerk who certainly made up for our lack of progress earlier that day. We started on the vodka around YYYs - who were my 2nd highlight of the weekend - so by the time Kraftwerk were finished - my highlight even if the 3D thing wasn't amazing - we were ready to party hard. We attempted to get our party on at Buttoned Down Disco but had to retreat to the guest bar where tunes were more plentiful. We realised it would be better to hit the hay before it got bright so retired around 4am. 

D's birthday

Kraftwerk excitement 

A good start to a Sunday begins with Bobby Womack, so we happily obliged. We hung out for a few hours, before heading to Temples at the i Arena. I was enjoying their set but couldn't stay till the end as the dust from the woods worked itself into my eyes and nose - worse than tube nose. We watched a good portion of James Blake before packing up the tent and heading back to the train station for a cup of tea, sausage sandwich and our carriage home. 

I feel Latitude is the perfect sized festival for me, it's a great site and perhaps we didn't work this to our advantage this year, but a varied bill of not just music.