Oslo, Norway.

Last week, in addition to Whit Monday, we also had a public holiday on Friday for Grundlovsdag (Constitution Day … although every time I saw it written, I thought it was Groundhog Day). It was also Father’s Day AND the last public holiday for the year so we decided to use it wisely and caught an overnight ship to Oslo, to expose our children to a wide range of cultural experiences like Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” (there seem to be several version of this picture, which is fortunate, as it keeps getting stolen); the Vigeland Sculpture Park (see photos here) … and the ball pit on the ship.

Interestingly, we ‘nearly’ ended up living in Oslo this year … and on beautiful sunny Saturday, with the city alive with music and fun, it seemed almost a shame that we didn’t (until you consider that although in Summer, daylight lasts from 3am until 11pm, in winter it’s more like 9am to 3pm, being just that much further north than Copenhagen).

The ship was kind of fun … we slept in a four-berth. When we were traveling with Hugo as a small toddler (around the same age Sophie is now) we caught an overnight sleeper train from Venice to Paris. It was not so fun … I was terrified that Hugo (still in a cot at that stage) would fall out of bed, so I shared a very, very narrow bed with him. And then, right as we pulled into Paris, he succumbed to motion sickness and threw up all over me. So it’s fair to say, I had my doubts about sleeping on the ship.

I think it must have been slightly larger than the train (although still not much bigger than our bathroom back home), because there was (just) enough room to set up Sophie’s travel cot which meant I didn’t worry about her falling out of bed, and both children fell asleep relatively easily (though late … and woke early - the sun rises *really* early up there). Generally, my fears were basically unfounded - and we even managed to have civilised dinner and breakfast at one of the buffet-style restaurants on board.

(Although, this was also the scene of another “I can’t speak Danish” shame moments for me … I thanked the waitress in - I thought - Danish, and she started speaking to me in Swedish, because apparently she thought I was speaking Swedish *sigh*).

Oslo was really nice, we had fun at the Sculpture Park - admittedly, the kids were happier playing in the playground there than actually looking at the sculptures, we had a brief visit to the National Gallery to see The Scream, we wandered around the city and Hugo had a ride on a big wheel (amusement park connoisseur, remember).

We caught a plane home, which I mention because directly after take-off Sophie (who, being two now, has her own seat) put her head back and fell asleep, waking as the seatbelt sign flipped off at the other end. It was a dream … but I think I just used my “Get Out Of Jail Free” card for flying with children. Hugo, meanwhile, spent the entire trip studying the Safety Procedure card, asking me to read it out to him several times, and clarifying what we should do if there was an emergency. (In a way I didn’t mind, because it meant he stopped asking if they’d remember to put our pushchairs, which we’d left at the gate, on the plane).