The Vikings

On Tuesday, Damion and I traveled into downtown Oslo and then took the ferry to Bygdoy, where we visited the Vikingskipshuset, or Viking Ship Museum. The Museum houses two of the world's best preserved Viking ships from the 9th century, which were found in burial mounds.

This is the Oseberg ship, which contained the remains of a Viking queen and her servant, as well as jewelry, weapons, cooking implements, animal carcasses and other needful items for the afterworld.
The ship was so well-preserved in its clay burial mound that you can still see the carvings:
The Oseberg ship was a luxury liner, for short trips, and sat very low on the water. The Gokstad ship, which was a burial chamber for a Viking chieftain, was less decorative, and intended for long voyages and pillaging:
This museum was fascinating. The artifacts recovered from the ships were incredible to look at, but I was blown away by the description of the Viking shipbuilders. They made incredibly sleek, fast ships which they could bring ashore to aid in all the raping and pillaging. Without plans. They made all of their ships without diagrams or measurements, but simply measured by eye.
Damion and I spent a long time in this museum, reading everything and looking at every artifact, because it was just so interesting. Then we left and walked to the Frammuseet, or Fram museum, to meet with Roberta and Claire. Claire had told us all about the Fram, which was used in explorations of both the North and South Poles.
We left the museum and drove home so Claire could get her music books, and then Roberta drove all four of us to Claire's school for her piano lesson, which Claire allowed us all to sit in on. Roberta dropped me and Damion off at the grocery store on the way home, and after dinner we sat at the dinner table and made up sandwiches in Norwegian lompe bread (sort of a tortilla, but made from potato) and packed a bag of snacks for our huge trip on Wednesday.

We played soccer with Kyle after dinner, but his final exams were looming, and he couldn't play with us as much as we all would have liked.

The best is to come...