A Whole Lotta Ship

Today we went to three museums. We went to the Viking Ship Museum, Kon-Tiki Museum and the Fram Museum. The Viking Ship Museum was my favorite of the three. It is a part of the University of Oslo. They have two VERY big ships, the Osenberg ship and the Goksberg ship (I'm not quite sure of the spelling on the last one). The Osenberg ship is the bigger of the two. It's size and the worksmanship on the helm just blew me away. The top of the mast was only about 3 feet from the ceiling wich was maybe 90 feet high. Not only were these ships tall but also very wide. The ships were mainly originals with some newer pieces added on to make them appear complete.

The Kon-Tiki Museum was my least favorite of the day. It was about Thor Heyerdahl, a famous Norwegian scientist. He sailed a reed raft from South America to Polynesia to prove that Native South Americans could possibly be the ones to have settled the area. I wouldn't have cried if we didn't go there, kinda bored me.

The Fram Museum was interesting though. It was about a couple of guys from Norway and their explorations of the North Pole. I'm drawing a blank on their names right now. One guy was the first person to reach the North Pole and another guy they had a portion on had a theory that the ice shelf drifts and wanted to prove it. His ship was there and that sucker was massive...more massive than the viking ships obviously. This ship was three stories tall and extremely wide. It was shaped like an egg so the pressure of the ice wouldn't crush it. You could also walk around inside the ship, the space in there is very small and cramped. We got a picture of our leader at the wheel with his captain's hat....it's pretty funny!

Today the sun started going down around 2:30 today! That's really crazy!! Tomorrow I might be going on a bus ride around the water front after we go to the Noble Prize museum or hall or whatever it's called. Later this week we get to see the palace and, get ready for it..........one of those HUGE ski jumps! All of us are really excited for that! I want to take an inner tube down that. That could hurt though, but would be very fun! I hope all is well back in the States.