A very cold, very dark place indeed (Oslo, Norway)

It was five o'clock all day today, except when the sun was setting at four o'clock. It is bizarre to walk around in perpetual late afternoon! Shortly after it got dark, I wandered back to my temporary lodging with Wenche, a CouchSurfer who is going to teach me to cook fresh codfish tonight (!), because I'm used to going home when it gets dark. I'm going to have to break that habit soon, or my existence in Tromso will be an unhealthily solitary, indoor one.

During the four hours of five o'clock that I walked around, I saw much of downtown Oslo -- very pretty, very chic -- which is full of Norwegians successfully leading healthily social, outdoor existences despite the bitter cold. The streets and parks were bustling with people of all ages, walking, skating, rolling (the babies in their stroller cocoons), and speaking Norwegian, which sounds very pretty to me. I wonder if they are always saying very pretty things. (Must find Norwegian classes in Tromso.)

I went into the Nobel Peace Prize Museum, where my eyes, as usual, teared up when I saw the pictures of President Barack Obama. The exhibit was not just about him, but also about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, and I wondered what all of this history means to the (surely mostly European) visitors to the museum. Does it seem very distant? Very foreign? Unbelievable? It seemed a bit unbelievable to me as I read the captions that went along with pictures of Civil Rights protesters and Freedom Riders -- was that really just a few decades ago? In the country that I grew up in? I wonder what changes will occur in the next fifty years that will make my grandchildren tear up.

Tonight: After eating codfish, Wenche and I will stand on her balcony and look for the International Space Station. We will wave at it with numb, mittened hands -- maybe it will wave back!! Tomorrow: Vigeland Park, the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, and the Viking Ship Museum, in that order, so as not to miss the park by day (i.e. at five o'clock). Ja!