January 10. Oslo Museums.

Good Morning, Oslo!! We are off to the Fram and Kon-tiki museums, by bus. If it is was summer, we would go there by ferry. Snow still on the ground. Norwegians talk about how cold it is! They say it has not been so cold since 1990. It is shocking to us that they do not scrape the sidewalks.

The neighborhood near the museums.

The Kon-tiki Museum houses the Kon-tiki raft that in 1947 floated from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl. Thor, and his 5 colleagues, were testing theories about currents in the Pacific. He was sure South American people could have reached Polynesia in Pre-Columbian times. This raft was made out of balsa wood. The museum documents his trip and findings.

In 1969 and 1970, Heyerdahl built two boats from papyrus and attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean from Morocco in Africa. The first boat, named Ra (after the Egyptian Sun God), was constructed by boat builders using papyrus reed and launched into the Atlantic Ocean from the coast of Morocco. Heyerdahl deliberately selected a crew representing a great diversity in race, nationality, religion and political viewpoint in order to demonstrate that, at least on their own little floating island, people could co-operate and live peacefully. Additionally, the expedition took samples of marine pollution and presented its report to the United Nations.

Fram Museum -- The Polar Exhibition Museum. Starting with 2 most famous explorers.

The wooden ship, Fram, was used by Polar Explorers between 1893 and 1912. The actual ship that went to the North and South Poles is in the museum.

This diorama depicts exploring in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

After the museums, we walked around a bit.

Stopped for a delicious late lunch/early dinner at The Grand Café.

 From the Café, we could see the sun setting about 3:15 pm!

Time for the walk back to the hotel. When the sun goes down, the magical lights appear, as well as the ice on the sidewalks. Treacherous walking.