Oslo escapade

By special request from Mr. Kriek Lindemans

Some ideas on what to do on a short weekend trip to Oslo:

Visit of Oslo center
Start out by walking around the Karl Johans Gate – Stortingsgata area. Right between these two streets, you will find a green area where there are sometimes street shows (not so sure if also in the winter…), cafes, and a small mall. The “park” is flanked by the beautiful and original circular Parliament building on one side and the National Theater on the other side. Further down in that direction is the Royal Palace, which is surrounded by a small park.

Just a five-minute walk away, straight towards the south (go towards City Hall), will take you to the pier, which is quite a lively area, especially if you walk east towards the popular Aker Brygge (which hosts a popular shopping mall).

Fjord Tour
From the pier, you can take a fjord tour / mini cruise. They have tours of different durations (ranging from 50 minutes to full-day tours with a combination of bus and boat), but for a short weekend visit, I would recommend the 50-minute tour or the two-hour one. Tickets can be bought at the pier, but it is best to check the schedule online.

Museums
From the pier, there are regular boat departures to Bygdoy, which is the area that has some of the most popular museums. (You can buy your ticket on the boat – the best deal is a 24-hour ticket, even if you just do a return trip.) You might have time to visit two of the museums, as they are rather small and can be visited quite thoroughly in about an hour each (if you read every single thing. If in a hurry, you can do it in 30 minutes in a rush).

Kontiki Museum – Displays the original vessels (papyrus and other rafts) of several expeditions by local Thor Heyerdahl. Definitely worthwhile.

Viking Ship Museum – Of course, while in Norway, you should not miss the Viking Ship museum, which has the best preserved Viking Ships found to date. There are actually only three of them, so you will get through the museum quite quickly, but it’s worth the visit.

To get to one museum to the next, you will have to take the ferry boat (just one stop – a really quick trip).

The Vigeland Park

You can’t go to Oslo without visiting the Vigelandsparken, which you can easily get to by taking the metro, bus or tram (take the number 20 bus or 12 tram to Vigelandsparken). This is quite a unique sculpture park that was designed in its entirety (sculptures, fountains, design, architectural layout of the park) by Gustav Vigeland, who was smart enough to get the local government to build him a house in the park. Walking leisurely through the park will take you an hour at most (if you can, join a guided group), but you can run across it in 15 minutes

Ski simulator
If you still have time, go to the ski simulator next to the tower in Holmenkollen (a bit further away and a longer metro ride). You can experience how it feels to ski in a thrilling, steep downhill slope through this realistic simulator (which I unfortunately have not tried yet).

Tip: Check at the tourist info office or the hotel for opening hours and boat schedules and beware: Oslo is a very expensive city – see exchange rate – but beautiful and with really friendly people. Have fun!

Brussels Airlines anniversary sale Nov 1-4

If you’re planning to buy a plane ticket to fly from Brussels to anywhere in Europe or Africa (Brussels Airlines destinations, that is…) you might want to wait another day to take advantage of the anniversary sale they’re having starting at midnight on November 1st (well, 00h01) and running through Sunday, November 4 at 23h59.

All destinations are included in this sale, which discounts 25% off the fares (not taxes and other fees), which makes it an ok offer if you were planning to get a ticket over the next few days, but not a great offer, as it is unlikely prices will go down to EUR 4 to EUR 10, which is the price during their special evening sales.

Change to winter time this weekend

“Spring forward, fall back.“

We’re changing time back to GMT+1 this weekend. In the night of Saturday to Sunday, at 2am (so technically, Sunday, October 28 at 2am), don’t forget to turn your watches/clocks back one hour to 1am.

The good news: One more hour of sleep or partying on Saturday night!
The bad news: Many more hours of darkness in the next couple of months…

We’ll be switching back to summer time on March 30, 2008… (see exactly when)

And then back to winter time on Sunday, October 26, 2008 at 3:00am local time

Thursday evening museums 25/10

The line-up of museums for this coming Thursday’s Nocturnes (click here to find out more about what the Nocturnes are) is probably one of the best of the season so far. If you start early, you might even be able to visit 2-3 museums in a single evening. These are my picks (also realistic because of distance):

• Museum of Musical Instruments – featuring a Monteverdi concert this Thursday
• Coudenberg archeological site – ruins of the old palace, under the Place Royale
• Belvue museum – learn a bit more about Belgian history (the Coudenberg and Belvue actually offer a combined ticket for both venues).

If you still have time, I highly recommend the behind-the-scenes tour of the opera house, La Monnaie / De Munt. If you enjoy opera or theater, you will find this guided visit quite entertaining, as you will see the make-up and design studios, the wardrobes, etc.

Guided visits for all these museums, however, are only in French and Dutch.

More info on a previous post or the official website.

Europalia has started!

The European arts and culture mega-event Europalia kicked off already two weeks ago… This year, the star event of Europalia is the Grand Atelier exhibition, which is housed at the Museum of Fine Arts (Rue Ravenstein 23) and features European paintings from the 5th to 18th centuries.

Europalia will feature exhibitions, concerts (jazz and classical), dance performances (mostly contemporary), movies, theater (often in the original language, with subtitles in French and Dutch) and literature from the 27 EU member states.

You can check out the complete schedule by countries or by date on the website, or pick up a more user-friendly, but less ecological brochure from the office in Rue Ravenstein 23 (Bozar – close to the Central Station). Alternatively, visit this site for recommendations from time to time.

For next week, Spanish speakers might be interested in two plays in Spanish: The Spanish literature classic El Lazarillo de Tormes and another much less popular play San Francisco, el juglar de Dios. Both plays will be performed at the Theatre Royal du Parc and prices are quite reasonable at EUR 5 – EUR 24.

Europalia runs through February 3, 2008.

Brussels Airlines sale tonight 18/10

Another sale, this time for winter ski destinations (Geneva, Turin, Milan, Ljubljana, Marseille, Oslo, Venice, Munich, and Lyon). The sale is on from 18h00 through midnight tonight and fares start at EUR 50 each way for travel between December 17 and March 27, 2008.

Belgium Welcome Fair

• What? (Commercial) fair targeted at expats in Belgium featuring goods and services useful for newcomers
• Who? Exhibitors include a wide range of companies and organizations (e.g., healthcare, moving services, cars, fitness gym, performing arts, etc. etc.)
• For who? Newcomers mostly. If you have been in Belgium for a while, you probably won’t find it that useful.
• When? This coming weekend, October 20-21 from 11h00 to 18h00
• Where? Parc du Cinquantenaire, Autoworld Museum
• How much? Free
• More info? Check out the website

Cooking classes – cook and eat

When talking about cooking classes in Brussels what often comes to mind is Mmmmh, the popular cooking lesson venue on Chaussee de Charleroi, which is often mentioned along with the comment “but it’s kinda expensive”. However, we might well have found a nice alternative now, a great little discovery called Cooking Time – same concept (a variety of cooking lessons, over lunch, in the evening, or even on weekends) but at more affordable rates and in a more intimate setting.

The location is maybe not as ideal for many expats, as it is not in the Louise area (which on the good side also means fewer people peeking in while you cook…) but Cooking Time is still very easily accessible, located just a few blocks away from Place Sainte Catherine (on a street with little traffic and a pleasant view of a small park / green area). Cooking lessons can be in English, French or Dutch covering French, Asian, Italian cuisine, and I suspect that many other on demand (I was satisfied with that offer, so asked no more).

What is best: A lot of flexibility when it comes to organizing even quite small private parties. You give them a budget and they tell you what you can do with it (e.g., cooking lesson and sit-down meal, with wine and coffee for as little as EUR 25 per person).

Great for private parties, as you get to customize your program and have the venue to yourselves. The staff (nice and discrete at the same time) is also nice enough to let you linger without ever putting pressure for you to leave. There is also a schedule of regular classes, which is available on the website, and I heard you can even book a series of courses if you are really into cooking (or just really need some help in the form of a few intensive courses….)

Filigranes – bookstore open late select evenings

Filigranes, one of the nicest French language bookstores (also with an English section) in town, will be opening until late in the evening – from 20h30 to 23h30 – on select evenings for charity/fundraising purposes. Each of those evenings will feature a different charity and special activities, and 25% of your book purchases during that evening will be donated to that evening’s guest organization. (Newspapers and magazines, CDs, DVDs, etc. are excluded from this offer).

The schedule and participating organizations are listed below:

• Thursday, November 8, 2007 – Alzheimer Belgium
• Thursday, November 15, 2007 – Les amis de l’ HUDERF (For the pediatric oncology unit of the Children’s University Hospital of Queen Fabiola)
• Thursday, November 22, 2007 – Nos Pilifs
• Monday, November 26, 2007 – Médecins du Monde
• Thursday, November 29, 2007 – Make a Wish Belgium
• Friday, December 7, 2007 – Sauvez mon enfant asbl (Save my child – for the intensive care unit of the Children’s University Hospital of Queen Fabiola)
• Monday, December 10, 2007 – MamaBW

More information will be available on the Filigranes website closer to the date of the events.