五月, 2012: Akershus Fortress, 奧斯陸, 挪威

Alfred Nobel gave the world the Nobel Prizes. He was Swedish. Each year, the award ceremony for the award the Nobel prizes are held in Stockholm. All except one, the Nobel Peace prize. It is Nobel's wish that the Peace Priz be awarded in Oslo. The recipients of all the categories are announced in October each year, and the award given out later in the year. I wonder if the timing is to liven up the winter with the presence of the dignitaries in Stockholm and Oslo.

Near to where the fjord cruise ends and the passengers leaves the ship is the Nobel Peace Centre. It is a abandoned train station converted into a museum about the Peace Award.

The actual award ceremony is held in the city hall a stone throw from the Peace Centre around November of each year.
 
For 2012 though, there were two award ceremony. In June, Aung San Suu Kyi was finally able to head to Oslo to accept her peace prize awarded in 1991.

Amnesty International, one of the human right organization which kept her name alive for decades while she was incarcerated in her own home in Burma, seems to have a presence here in Oslo.

And later in November, there will be another award ceremony for the 2012 recepient of the Peace Prize, the European Union. I hope the city hall can fit everyone in.

From the banners flying off the lamppost on Carl Johans, I knew Oslo is hosting a Oslo Freedom Forum. Back home in Singapore, there seems to be some hoohah if Chee Soon Juan could attend the forum.

I am not sure why the Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo instead of Stockholm. Maybe this arrangement is just as well, given Sweden's darker history during the second world war.
While Denmark and Norway stood with the Allies and each had their resistence movement against the Nazi, Sweden (with Finland) started out siding with the Nazi.

 
Until the Swede decided that between Hitler and Stalin, Hitler was the greater of two evil.

Excerpt from the book. Click to enlarge.

 
Similar to Copenhagen, the Allies leader of WWII has pride of place in Oslo. A statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt can be found at the entrance to the fortress overlooking the marina. The fortress also houses a museum about the resistance movement.
 
Incidentally, while Jet Li appear on a poster in Copenhagen, Maggie Cheung appears on a Oslo National Museum programme.

The fortress compound is a multi-purpose complex.
It is a park;

It serves as a lookout, not only out to the sea, but also down on the city;

It houses at least a couple of museum and some art installations;

It used to house a prison. But the prison had been converted to, you guess it, a museum about the prisoner of the Akershus prison. Probably because of the great injustice in the penal system of the bad old days, some of the prisoners had been elevated to folk heroes.

The fortress is also a functioning military camp. Some area of the fortress are not accessible to the general public.

Leaving the fortress, I was back on the Carl Johans.
 
I was hoping to check out the local supermarket, and get some local processed food and tidbits for dinner. I knew there was one in the station, but this being a Sunday, the shops were already closed.
 
I have a taste of how the shops closes on a Sunday here in Oslo. It took a lot of running about earlier in the morning before I found possibly the only foreign exchange still open on a Sunday, in the station basement.

That's the problem I have with European cities. They shut down too early in the evening. Whereas in Asia, as the sun goes down and the evening gets cooler, all the shopping and eating get started.

I was not ready to give up and start wandering into what looks like the immigrant enclave of Oslo. I saw the first kebab shop I have seen in these two days here. The majority of those on the sidewalk as I walked around looking for food looked to be from Asia, northern Africa or are Arabs. Here, I actually see people queuing for the public bus. I saw a rather large Phi-Viet-Thai Asiatisk Supermarket. Too bad it was closed for the day, too. But I finally hit paydirt when I saw a supermarket-grocery still open. Fresh food and vegetables were display outside the shop. When I when I, the aroma of spices inform me this is not a Norwegian-run establishment. From the cashiers, this was likely ran by Muslim immigrant. The shop stocked packaged food imported from Turkey and even Russia. There is a section for rice alone, stocking different variety from all over the world. I guess the Thai immigrant would want their Thai rice in Norway, and the Indians their Indian variety. I picked up some stuff for dinner.

The only shops left open now on the way back were the 7-Elevens and the local franchise of convenient stores. They stock more magazines than food, and the betting counters in the shop are making more business. But I picked up some "junk" food anyway.
  


The 7-Eleven right by the hotel were promoting their fried noodle, done in asian style. It looks good and the price were even better. When I tell the cashier I would like the noodle to take away, he (who look Asian) politely told me the price I see on the poster is the price of a 10g unit of the noodle. Ha ha, not enough to fill the gap between my teeth.

I don't think got much sleep. With the train leaving early the next day, I prefer to start up rather than oversleep.