Busy Day

Today we kept busy:
▪️walking all over the Oslo Opera House rooftop,
▪️admiring the collection of centuries old houses and buildings at the Norse Folk Museum,
(In the 1970's, Eric's brother built and lives in a compound of three cabins very much like these, based on an old Norwegian book detailed with photos, drawings and locations of these old buildings from over the country. I'm willing to bet he knows where this one was built. I'm sure I've described his place to a number of you over the years, pretty incredible.)
▪️fighting crowds at the Viking Ship Museum,
▪️admiring the paintings at the National Gallery,
(Watching the steady stream of people take their turn next to Edvard Munch's The Scream each with their own hands to their own cheeks for the photo op.)
▪️walking through the lovely gardens at the Royal Palace,
(With its blend of the formal and the natural, with its armed guards marching about in their smart white helmets.)
▪️listening to a piano concert that was part of the Oslo Grieg Festival,
(The venue very hard to find, and no wonder: it was in a house in a tiny alley. Crowded, too, and very intimate - we sat at the family dining table next to the festival director. They all knew each other, we were the only tourists in sight. The hosts were a woman well-known in children's television and her husband a Mozart scholar; the house, famous for the musicians and theater people who gathered there for years in the early 20th century, was Victorian and filled with theater and music mementos and family photos. See, if you poke around long enough to find live music, you can end up in the heart of things.)
▪️eating late at a crowded cafe near the water.
(Last night in Oslo, I'm already sad.)