Karl Johan's Gate

To those of you who have never heard a Norwegian pronounce the most famous street in Oslo - it is pronounced: "Carl" "Yo-hans" "Ga-ta" (Gate = Street and they always put an "a" sound when the word ends with an 'e' - there you go - your trivia for the day ...)

I got up - rather leisurely and noticed that it was raining ... hard.  So I went back to bed.  Very tough day.  But after I was actually up and had consumed my 2 croissants with approximately 1 cup of raspberry jam, and back down in the room - I was feeling a bit of 'cabin fever' and had wanted to walk Karl Johan's Gate today and take photographs of all of the marvelous old buildings - but ... ick.  I could go out, get a bit wet - which I don't mind, but my camera would also get wet and the pictures would be crap ... so what would be the point?

Went downstairs (I had been thrown out of the room by Housekeeping) and shot the crap out of anything and everything that looked the least bit decorative in the lobby while Norwegians stared, spoke softer when I approached their comfort zone, and rather quickly wandered to another part of the lobby.  Why?  Me: a wild looking woman who had been thrown out of her room, not particularly dressed for that (but not buck naked either ...) hair uncombed in an unruly ponytail and a bit of a crazed look in her eye with a couple of cameras and shooting a TON of photos of basically nothing (I'm pretty sure some of them were convinced that I was mentally unstable bad / or mentally handicapped. Hmmmmm ... that talking to myself probably didn't help anything either ...) if I ran into myself I would saunter off quickly too.

So - I went back to the room, was laying around surfing the web when a good friend from here in Oslo called.  We were going to meet up some time this week and she was calling me to tell me that she was stranded for a few days and this would have been the only day we could have met for her.

She lives about 45 mins out of Oslo (made driving in to church fun ...) and up more north where it was also raining - but, unfortunately turning to ice as it hit what ever it landed on since the temp was a degree below freezing.  So no electricity yesterday to look up my phone number to call me or to write me a note, and today - sheets of ice on the roads so no toodling on down to Oslo to meet an old friend.  So we spent a few hours on the phone catching up - which was about the same - so that was good.

It was getting dark when I hung up with Turid ("Turrrr" roll that 'r' "eed") it was about 3:00pm but with the rain and all ... I decided that I would play with the focus of my big camera and set it up on the tri-pod.  

It never ceases to amaze me that I can shoot a photograph through a rain covered window, focusing on something in the distance and the raindrops almost disappear!  So I thought I would set my focus on some fun spots and waste some time ...

This is a series that I shot at a street light down the road a bit.  My 'infinity' setting was not infinit-eed enough to focus very well on the setting, but it had to work for my other shots and by this point I was not very picky ...

The other shots are just as the street lights and car lights start to blur and the raindrops come into focus - makes a funky bokeh circle!

The last shot is the raindrops with the lights behind them.  I only moved the focus - not the lens or the tri-pod - so what is showing in each shot is exactly the same.



That took up an exciting half an hour!

Since it was dark and since it had gone to bed rather late the night before (which was about 2 hours ago as I type - I'm in trouble ...) I decided that a nap was in order!  Lay down and fell asleep!  

JUST LIKE THAT!

No muss, no fuss, just fell asleep!


DAMN!!!!


Why can't I do that at night ... oh, say EVERY NIGHT?

Oddly enough - it was still dark when Gary showed up after his meetings to find me asleep in bed.  And ...



GUESS WHAT?



IT HAD STOPPED RAINING!!!

So off to dinner and to take night shots!

Pretty little church on our way to Mamma Rosa's - an Italian place off of Karl Johan's Gate and EXCELLENT:


The one above was taken with my smaller camera with a wide angle lens.  The one below is an HDR composite I took with my big Canon:

A pretty building with the most wonderful snowflakes all over it ... they were huge!

Statue of some dude that wanted to be in all my photos so I let him have one of his own ... don't know who he is (didn't look).

We turned onto Karl Johan's Gate and I set up my camera and took this shot down the street (a pedestrian street for a bit right here):

Another shot down the street, just up the street a bit further:

A BEAUTIFUL building that this photo does not do justice (an aside:  all my photos in this blog are CRAP!  Just sayin'  I don't have all my 'tools' just a scaled down version of Photoshop and Gary told me to go to bed even before I had finished choosing which photos to use, so I spent probably - no exaggeration - approximately 30 seconds on each - so .... yeah crap and throw aways.  I will re-edit the originals when I get home).  There are pretty little cherubs above the door - wonderful decorations.  Hopefully it won't be raining tomorrow and I can go and get all my photos:

A building - not as pretty as the last.  As we were walking towards it all the fairy lights were lined up 'just so' and they seemed to be one continual set - but from this angle they aren't that impressive.  But I guess since I decided to take a photo of the building ... I would take a photo of the building ...

Pretty Christmas tree on the street (OK,a real tree PRETENDING to be a Christmas tree ...):


And - the street dead ends at the Palace where the King and Queen live.  We were not going to walk down that far and night is not the best time to be taking photos of stuff a ways away - so ... crap:

An HDR one from my big camera ... also crap:

Here we have a ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL building - called "Stortinget" and is their Parliament building. Lovely, yes?


And off to the left of Stortinget is the lovely, old 'Grand Hotel'  I have walked through it and it is simply divine:

ABSOLUTELY, without a doubt, the largest, most hideous sign on Karl Johan's Gate!  It is HUGE!  On top of a beautiful old building and is in every freaking photo you take of the area.  A serious eye-sore - and EVERYONE hates it.

But they make REALLY, REALLY GOOD CHOCOLATE ...

We ate dinner and decided to take the subway back.  We tried to buy subway tickets, but after purchasing one with coins, Gary tried (as did a helpful Norwegian) to feed in a Fifty Kroner bill for the other and it refused to take it.  He only had 2 50's and then only 500's and it did not take such a large bill - so we were out of luck.  It is basically on the honor system - with periodic checks by the 'subway police' and if you are caught without a ticket - it is a hefty fine.

So Gary decided to walk and I was to take the subway:



Gary had said to go one stop East - handed me some money should I suddenly become mentally dense and get lost for Taxi fare back to the hotel (I have no phone so we make sure we know EXACTLY what is going on since we cannot communicate).  I also did not have a key to the room, having left with him I didn't take mine.  I told him if I beat him there, I would wait in the lobby.

Went down into the subway (going East) and looked at the maps - and sure enough - all the lines would take me there so what ever showed up first, I could get on and take it back.  The map showed where I was (the 'Stortinget' stop) and various other stops along the line heading east, but it bothered me that it did not label them - or show me where the central train station is - since THAT I knew was where I was to get off.

But Gary said one stop, so I didn't worry - hopped on the next train and took it one stop.  Walked out of the subway tunnel and was staring at the Church we had been taking photos of!  SO NOT THE NEXT STOP ...

Good thing the Radisson is tall and labeled!  So I started trudging back and found that I could not cross a very busy street - there were no lights and it was fenced off.  But the subway station was right there - and so was the mall that I was at the day before.

I decided to go into the mall and find where I had left the mall the day before to orient myself and (if you read my blog from yesterday ...) sure enough!  There was the deli where I had bought my dinner the day before!  Headed down to it and out the doors to run smak dab into a very concerned looking Gary!

He had been to the room and waited, and waited and got nervous - so assuming I would be coming out of that station - he headed down there ...

So A VERY GOOD THING that I couldn't cross the street and A VERY GOOD thing that I decided to go through the mall to find my way out ...

because if not,

I am pretty sure that we would still be wandering around looking for each other - passing one another on different floors, too dark to see ....

You name it - it would have happened - these things just like to follow me around so


VERY LUCKY TONIGHT!!!


Well, I had better get to bed before the sun comes up ...



Oh! Wait - that does not happen until 10:00!



I'm fine!


** Disclaimer - if you read this ... say sometime Tues evening - you will be reading it before I have even read it through - so probably some mistakes and rambling ... Yeah - like that's going to go away with me reading it again!  But I WILL proof it in the morning ...

Night ....