Oslo in 19 pictures

June 6, 2008 at 7:11 pm · Filed under Culture, Entertainment, Music, Travel and tagged: beatbox, Blå, Brenneriveien, Edward Munch, folk music, Grunelökke, Hardanger fiddle, Hardingfele, Hukodden, Music, Norway, NRK, Oslo, Stor Overraskelse, Valkyrien Allstars, Wergelandskonferansen 2008

Sunshine and hot weather as I arrived, not great picture quality, as all pictures were taken with a poor mobile phone camera. This above is one of the marinas as you enter Oslo from the airport Torp.

As soon as I arrived I unloaded my bags and headed to a bar called Blå, in the trendier Grunelökka area of Oslo. But on the way I saw this copper spaceship where music was coming from. As you see this band is setting up for their gig, all around there were caravans, a hangout place for musicians? I didn’t have any time to stick around and ask as I was going to the soundcheck of Norwegian band Valkyrien Allstars.

Valkyrien had just started soundcheck as I walked into to this industrial looking venue, with discoballs and a globe hanging from its ceiling. Even though this is just soundcheck, it sounded brilliant.

Above you see the riverside terasse outside Blå and the colourful graffitti art all around the nearby area.

The surrounding buildings, most of them old style warehouses are used for rehearsal space and studios and there was a lot of music coming out of everywhere as I was walking down this street. Even NRK (Norwegian public broadcasting service) was here on this street, filming a tv-series.

As I said, poor quality on my phone camera. But in the picture above is Stor Overraskelse…. meaning big surprise! This is their name, a Norwegian, brilliant hip-hop band with an extremely talented beat boxer Julian taking a break, at the right of the picture.

The rappers where playing for an international crowd who were attending the Wergelandskonferansen this very night so they brought in extra reinforcment, Mr Anthony who was rapping away in English. The aim of the conference was to build bridges through the means of culture and art between the Middle East and the West.

This is a typical Norwegian fiddle, called Hardingfele, it has a set of strings, below the strings the musicians play upon, and they are vibrating and creating a sound that accompanies the other strings when they are played upon. A beautiful instrument!!

This is the Scream, by Edward Munch.

It was a sunny hot day, a lot of people resorted to the beach, here in Hukodden, just outside Oslo, no sandy beaches, but that didn’t seem to stop the Norwegian vikings from jumping into the water.

© Copyright Elisavet Sotiriadou, June 2008

Comments (4)