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Flying Norse for the winter

Khaled Diab

Oslo is a picturesque and progressive city which has put itself at the forefront of attempts to build a better world. But it remains a tranquil and uneventful backwater where nothing much seems to happen.

March 2007

Birds instinctively head south for the winter – and, being a resident of these cold northern climes, that is the direction I normally follow, as my winter escape to Cuba will attest.

Flying against my natural instincts, I landed in Oslo for a long weekend with my wife who had been there for a few days attending a groundbreaking meeting – hosted by Norway – of nearly 50 pioneering countries who wanted to set in motion an international ban on cluster munitions.

The gathering marked a major step towards prohibiting these ugly, destructive weapons which have killed hundreds of thousands over the years and ruined the lives of countless others.

As for Oslo itself, the impervious, sleepy (even hibernating) home of Ibsen seemed a million miles away from such devastation and destruction; and hardly a ripple disturbed its gentle, snow-swept tranquillity and the reserved, understated friendliness of its townsfolk.

Sitting around in warm tearooms and cafes was an enjoyable way of whiling away the hours and we spent an entire afternoon chatting away with an Afghan colleague, who was also a landmine victim, about the future of Afghanistan, while the American-Norwegian owner of the establishment we were in joined in the conversation. In fact, we seemed to spend many long hours with friends indoors, keeping warm and chatting.

Oslo’s eating-out scene is limited and incredibly Americanised – not to mention overpriced – and dominated by chain restaurants and cafes. However, with the help of a local, we uncovered a great Mexican restaurant which lay well off the beaten track, where we had dinner with a group of ban the cluster and nuclear bomb activists.

Architecturally, the town is attractive and the white snowscape of its parks, boulevards and surrounding hills is picturesque. However, to the outsider, the Norwegian capital seems to lack a vibrant cultural life and, for obvious reasons, an outdoor culture. There are a number of interesting galleries and museums, such as the Edvard Munch museum and the national art gallery. Unfortunately, the Munch room in the art gallery was closed for renovation and so we did not get to see his most famous – and most stolen – work, The Scream.

I found his painting of a vampire and two kissers whose faces had melted into one both disturbing and moving. In fact, we decided that Munch’s best works were the ones focusing on death and the macabre.

The Viking Ship Museum contained three impressive examples of longboats. It also offered a fascinating and partial glimpse into the mysterious lives of the Norsemen who did not actually leave many artefacts behind.

Once, on a bus in an Egyptian oasis, a man sitting next to us asked Katleen where she was from, and when she told him Belgium, he responded: “Ahh, the land of the Vikings!” A remark we both found hilarious, since Scandinavia and Belgium are quite far apart. Of course, as the parallels between Dutch and Norwegian kept reminding us, the Vikings (or Norsemen), were also a Germanic peoples, and so the Egyptian farmer might have been incredibly profound, as opposed to ignorant of northern European geography and civilisation.