Norway in the rain

Day three did not start out well. I overslept and missed breakfast, mostly because Ostrich and co. had kept me up/ woken me up several times in the night. It was also raining. Not pouring, but a very determined sort of rain. I ended up talking to Joan for awhile in the lobby before heading out, hoping it would let up.

It didn't. I got off at the bus at the right stop, but couldn't find the place I was supposed to get on the next one. I ended up walking down the street for quite some time, and found another bus stop, and watched the bus pass me. So I sat there for 20 minute, not knowing had I just kept walking a few more blocks, I would have made it to the Natural History Museum, one of the goals for the day. Got on the bus, two stops later got off. I was pretty wet at this point, and preceeded to walk in the wrong direction, following the signs no less. That took an additional 30min or so. By the time I found the door to the geology building I was soaked through. My feet were wet, my raincoat had leaked and had also been shedding water onto my pants, that had also wicked water up to the knee. I was cold and really grumpy, and worried about my camera.

But a few hours of wandering around looking at some very pretty rocks and some really cool fossils and bones (the paleo museum was connected), I had dried off a bit and was in better spirits. I ventured back into the rain for the short walk to the zoological museum part, which had a cool exhibition on Darwin, and almost more stuffed animals than Chicago's museum, it was pretty neat. There I found the thing I had been looking for the whole time. Her name: Ida. She is really old, extremely well preserved (think lots of fur and stomach contents), and perhaps a "missing link." She's one cool little monkey.

One of many rock pictures

Fish fossil

Ida!!

Polar animals in the zoological museum

I was running low on time at that point (I thought), ended up going into the Munch museum and deciding it wasn't worth it, and catching the bus to the National Gallery. Eventaully found it, and went in. It's a pretty small museum, I did the whole thing (I think) in a couple hours, but it was really nice. Lots of Norwegian painters (of course), so most of it revolved around maritime themes. They also had an entire room of Munch, including The Scream. The Scream is wayyy cooler in person. The reproductions really blur out the background details and eliminate how raw his style is. I spent some solid time looking at it. The museum also had an entire room of other famous artists. Manet, Renior, Picasso, Van Gough. You name it, they were all in there, and very approachable. Sadly, I couldn't take pictures. It was getting late at that point, so I headed back to the hostel for an early night.