Dining al fresco in Oslo

Alasdair met us on the platform at Oslo Sentral station and it was just lovely to see him! He has had his hair cut very short! After checking in to our hotel we took the train to his flat in Bjølsen so that he could put the haggis he requested in the fridge there. It's a really nice area with a river and views down to the sea. It was strange to sit in his room which is already familiar to us from Skype! 

We took the bus back into town and Ally took us on a walking tour of central Oslo. We saw the government building which was badly damaged in the bombing three years ago. The gunman then went on to massacre young people at a summer camp on the island of Utøya a couple of hours later. Outside the building is a newspaper display case from the day of the bombing, its glass still shattered and the news from the day of the bombing still pinned inside. It was very moving; the moment of violence preserved in the broken glass.

We walked along Karl Johanns Gate, which is the main shopping street, and then cut down to the sea front and walked along to Aker Brygge, the harbour area, which has lots of bars and restaurants. We arrived at the far end of the harbour in time to watched the sun setting as we looked down the fjord. By this time it was about 7 o'clock so we chose a restaurant where we had a very pleasant meal. It was a fine evening so we were able to sit outside; the chairs had sheepskins or thick woolly blankets draped over them to keep us warm. There were also some radiant heaters which made it quite cosy, but even so I think that the Norwegians must be nearing the end of the season for dining out of doors! On the way back to the hotel we heard shouting and then passed a demonstration (which was being closely monitored by the local constabulary) by some Kurdish people against the I.S. (Islamic State) which is of course very topical because today the U.K. Government has voted to join in air strikes against I.S. extremists in Iraq. Will we make things better or worse by our intervention though? I don't know. As it happens my current book is "Hard Choices" by Hillary Clinton which is an interesting tale of international relations from the American point of view.