Ascension Day

Today was Ascension Day. It is a church holy day, but there is a state religion in Norway so everyone gets a day off on days like today! We have a day off for Pentecost next week as well. Even though there is a state religion, there is freedom of religion here-people can choose what religion they want to be. It's kind of a strange concept to us Americans that church and state are not separated-the church is mentioned in the Constitution.

We were supposed to go with our professor to see the ski jump and Vigenland Park, but it was raining and cloudy so he said we would go another day. Since we were already up, I went exploring around Oslo with two girls from class. We were walking around and we came across a big, old bank building with banners on the front of it. It turned out to be an old bank converted into an art gallery and it was free! Of course we went inside. The main attraction was a display of runway fashions created by a designer named Per Spook. He was (apparently) popular in the 80's, as you can see by the style of the clothes! There were around 100 outfits and they were generally made with 80's excess in mind-lots of sequins, metallics, and poofiness. There were no cameras allowed in the exhibit, but I found this picture on the internet. GORGEOUS!

After the Per Spook exhibit, we decided to go visit Vigeland Park. Gustav Vigeland was and he planned the park. It features over 200 of his life sized sculptures of people. The statues are really interesting and detailed. Also, they are all nude. The park is huge-80 acres- and most of the statues are in the center. There are also fountains and gates that Vigeland designed.

The statues depict various moments in life and the journey from birth till death. The monolith thing in the center is a huge tower of people and supposedly represents getting close to heaven. One of the most popular statues that is an many postcards and posters is of an angry baby.

In the pictures on postcards, the baby looks really big. As you can see, it's only about 2 feet tall.

That's all for now. Happy birthday Justin!