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We said our goodbyes to our tour group and Garry, Betty, Peter and I headed to the Heritage Centre in Sognsvann by a local train to try and trace the Jacobson family who came from Posgrunn, Norway. We passed Forskningsparken station which made us all laugh. After identifying ourselves and signing into the Heritage centre we were able to access their records. The staff there were very helpful, yet we were unsuccessful finding out any more information on the Jacobson family. We will need to do more searching from home when we have more time. We travelled back to Oslo Central station and hopped on Bus 30 to the Viking Ship Museum. The main attractions were the Osberg ship (excavated from the largest known ship burial in the world), Gokstad ship and the Tune ship. There were also Viking displays of sledges, beds, a horse cart, woodcarvings, tent components, buckets and other grave goods.
We then walked to the Kon Tiki Museum. This museum houses vessels and maps from the Kon Tiki expedition as well as a library of 8000 books.
The museum was originally built to house the Kon-Tiki, a raft of balsa wood of pre-Columbian model that Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl used to sail from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. Another boat in the museum is the Ra II, a vessel built of reeds according to Heyerdahl's perception of an ancient Egyptian seagoing boat. Heyerdahl sailed the Ra II from North Africa to the Caribbean after a previous attempt with the reed boat Ra failed.
There were also exhibits on Heyerdahl's expeditions, including Kon-Tiki, Ra, Tigris, Easter Island, Fatu-Hiva, Tùcume, Galapagos, a 30-metre cave tour, an underwater exhibit with a 10-metre model of a whale shark, Thor Heyerdahl's library, Thor Heyerdahl the person, and Tiki pop culture. This place was fascinating especially for Betty who had read the books.
We went back to Oslo Central and purchased our tickets for the train to the airport for tomorrow. Then we went to the Opera House and walked on the roof of the building which angles to ground level, creating a large plaza where we enjoyed the panoramic views of Oslo. While much of the building is covered in white granite and La Facciata, a white Italian carrara marble, the stage tower is clad in white aluminium, in a design by that evokes old weaving patterns.
The lobby is surrounded by 15 m tall windows with minimal framing and special glass that allows maximum views of the water. The roof is supported by thin angled columns also designed not to interfere with views. The main auditorium is a horseshoe shape and illuminated by an oval chandelier containing 5,800 handmade crystals. There was a very interesting piece of artwork known as She Lies, which is a sculpture constructed of stainless steel and glass panels. It is permanently installed on a concrete platform in the fjord adjacent to Opera House and floats on the water moving in response to tides and wind to create an ever-changing face to viewers.
We were invited out to dinner with Micks' group and met up with Garry and Betty near Oslo Central for our final meal together. It was a great night out.
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