The Royal PalaceEven though Oslo is the oldest Nordic Capital (more than 1000 years old), most of the buildings downtown don't seem that old. The oldest part of the city (that I know of) is maybe Akershus Slott (Akershus Castle) which was built in 1290. Everything else is probably about 200-300 years old. After being in Oslo for a while I tend to forget that this is the capital of Norway, its more like part city and part mountain town. The downtown area is pretty busy everyday of the week except Sundays and consists mostly of the area surrounding the blue dots on the T-Bane(subway) route from the picture on the previous post. Karl Johans Gate is one of the main streets in town:
Here's the view of it from the Royal Palace looking towards the city center. The road may look red but its actually tiny pebbles spread along the street so that you don't slip on the melting snow. A truck that looks like a street sweeper goes up and down the streets after each snow fall and shoots out the pebbles. In the outskirts of town (like where I live) a tractor will plow the roads and then spread the pebbles (kind of like how farmers spread their seed). A tractor will also come trough on the sidewalks, but instead of spreading pebbles, it spreads salt which lowers the temperature that the melting snow will freeze at. (There's your chemistry lesson for the day). Most of streets surrounding Karl Johans Gate are business type of buildings, but further out you get the more residential it becomes. There are two main shopping malls in the city center where you can find just about anything (even a grocery store). However, all the stores are specialty stores (ie. electronics, hardware, shoes, sporting goods, books, etc.), there is no such thing as Target or Walmart here. There are only two stores that go above and beyond the specialty store status, IKEA (pronounced E-key-a not eye-key-a) and Clas Ohlson. Of course we all know what IKEA is, but I'm guessing you've never heard of Clas Ohlson. It is probably the closest thing to Walmart in Norway, the difference is that it doesn't sell clothes or food, but carries most everything else.
This is another view of the beginning of the dowtown area, just one stop from the University. I must have taken this picture on a weekday, because Sundays are pretty dead. Even though 85% of the population are clasified Christians, only a small portion of these people actively attend church. Most people go skiing on Sundays or just stay home because there is nothing else to do; all the stores are closed. There may be the occasional Navarsen (like 7-11) or café open, but everything else is shutdown. Grocery stores even stop selling alcohol at 6pm on Saturday nights, which some of my international friends found to be extremely inconvenient the first weekend here, but I think its pretty cool. I'm sure this tradition originated from resting on the Sabbath and has been kept around to have one day where you can't do anything, but stay home with the family (or go skiing). I wish stores in the U.S. would be closed on Sundays, good thing we have places like Chick-fil-a around that find this to be an important tradition. Of course this is just one of many things that I like about Oslo. My favorite thing, by far, is Sognsvann Lake just 10 minutes down the road from me. 
Here is two views of the lake: the one on the right is of the island, but since its there is about a foot of snow on top of the ice you can't tell, and the other is from the dock looking out across the lake. Both of these pictures were taken on pretty foggy days, but I don't know why one looks blue and the other looks grey. I think it may be because the blue one was right at sunset and the other was a couple hours before sunset, but thats just a guess. It takes me about 1.5 hours to walk around the lake, of course this includes stopping to take pictures along the way, dogding puddles from melting snow and walking to and from my room. I'm going to make it my goal to walk there once a day for the rest of the semester. The main reason I want to do this is #1 it gets me out of my room and #2 I want to make a time lapsed video of pictures taken each day from different spots around the lake to see the change from winter to spring to summer, which I'll put together and post once I get back home. This is one of my favorite pictures taken on my walk the other day, it might be a little difficult to have a picnic right now, maybe in a few months. 
Here's the view of it from the Royal Palace looking towards the city center. The road may look red but its actually tiny pebbles spread along the street so that you don't slip on the melting snow. A truck that looks like a street sweeper goes up and down the streets after each snow fall and shoots out the pebbles. In the outskirts of town (like where I live) a tractor will plow the roads and then spread the pebbles (kind of like how farmers spread their seed). A tractor will also come trough on the sidewalks, but instead of spreading pebbles, it spreads salt which lowers the temperature that the melting snow will freeze at. (There's your chemistry lesson for the day). Most of streets surrounding Karl Johans Gate are business type of buildings, but further out you get the more residential it becomes. There are two main shopping malls in the city center where you can find just about anything (even a grocery store). However, all the stores are specialty stores (ie. electronics, hardware, shoes, sporting goods, books, etc.), there is no such thing as Target or Walmart here. There are only two stores that go above and beyond the specialty store status, IKEA (pronounced E-key-a not eye-key-a) and Clas Ohlson. Of course we all know what IKEA is, but I'm guessing you've never heard of Clas Ohlson. It is probably the closest thing to Walmart in Norway, the difference is that it doesn't sell clothes or food, but carries most everything else.
This is another view of the beginning of the dowtown area, just one stop from the University. I must have taken this picture on a weekday, because Sundays are pretty dead. Even though 85% of the population are clasified Christians, only a small portion of these people actively attend church. Most people go skiing on Sundays or just stay home because there is nothing else to do; all the stores are closed. There may be the occasional Navarsen (like 7-11) or café open, but everything else is shutdown. Grocery stores even stop selling alcohol at 6pm on Saturday nights, which some of my international friends found to be extremely inconvenient the first weekend here, but I think its pretty cool. I'm sure this tradition originated from resting on the Sabbath and has been kept around to have one day where you can't do anything, but stay home with the family (or go skiing). I wish stores in the U.S. would be closed on Sundays, good thing we have places like Chick-fil-a around that find this to be an important tradition. Of course this is just one of many things that I like about Oslo. My favorite thing, by far, is Sognsvann Lake just 10 minutes down the road from me. 
Here is two views of the lake: the one on the right is of the island, but since its there is about a foot of snow on top of the ice you can't tell, and the other is from the dock looking out across the lake. Both of these pictures were taken on pretty foggy days, but I don't know why one looks blue and the other looks grey. I think it may be because the blue one was right at sunset and the other was a couple hours before sunset, but thats just a guess. It takes me about 1.5 hours to walk around the lake, of course this includes stopping to take pictures along the way, dogding puddles from melting snow and walking to and from my room. I'm going to make it my goal to walk there once a day for the rest of the semester. The main reason I want to do this is #1 it gets me out of my room and #2 I want to make a time lapsed video of pictures taken each day from different spots around the lake to see the change from winter to spring to summer, which I'll put together and post once I get back home. This is one of my favorite pictures taken on my walk the other day, it might be a little difficult to have a picnic right now, maybe in a few months. 
Here's another view of the path. Most of the snow on the path has turned to mush since Sunday, so it doesn't look as nice anymore.
Okay, one last picture. Oh how I just love seeing the snow on the trees!! It looks so much better than the fake flocking we can get on our Christmas trees.
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