By: Samie

Travel Date: June 5th, 2023

Total Honeymoon Travel Days: 8

Day 5

(Opera House, Munch Museum, Oslo Street Food)

After being on the go almost nonstop since the beginning of our honeymoon journey, we were very much looking forward the reprieve of a much more relaxed and easy-going day. We took full advantage of having a very flexible agenda by starting our morning later than we had the last week. We didn’t get up and going until 9:00am. Catching up on some sleep was a much needed activity we got cross of our to-do list for the day, so we were already off to a very productive and successful start!

One of the things our must-do list was visiting the iconic Oslo Opera House. It was only about a 20 minute walk from our Airbnb, and it was an absolutely gorgeous day! We of course had to start by getting our morning caffeine fix at our nearby Starbucks since we had to walk right past it on our way to the Opera House anyway. Since we had a more relaxing morning and got a later start, we didn’t arrive at the Opera House until around 11:30.

We spent about half an hour taking in the view of the Oslofjord and city and then walking up the unique angled exterior that allows you to walk all the way up and on top of the roof to enjoy the panoramic views of Oslo!

The next thing on our list, the MUNCH Art Museum, was only a short 5-6 minute walk away! We made our way over to MUNCH a little after noon. We spent about 10-15 minutes walking around the outside of the museum and exploring the stunning landscape and a few sculptures before making our way inside around 12:30pm. Entry to the museum costs 180 NOK (about $17) for an adult ticket.

Edvard Munch (which we overheard passing a museum tour guide is pronounced munk) was a famous Norwegian painter. One of his pieces has become one of Western art’s most acclaimed and recognizable images. If you’ve ever heard of or seen The Scream, you have seen the work of Edvard Munch!

MUNCH has three versions of The Scream to display – a painting with Tempera and oil on cardboard, a Lithograph print, and a drawing with crayon on cardboard. One of them is always on display while the other two rest in darkness. The version on display will rotate throughout the day. The reason that all the versions cannot be displayed all the time is because Munch produced all of his versions of The Scream on cardboard or paper. These materials are much more fragile than oil paintings on canvas. This means that not only are the regular factors such as temperature, humidity, and oxygen levels taken into account, but light exposure must be limited as well. Light can affect the color pigments in the pictures and also break down paper and cardboard over time. The museum has conducted several research projects so that they know how much light each version can withstand each day.

During our museum visit, the black and white lithograph was the version on display. While the color painting is definitely the more recognizable version, we were still very excited to see the black and white print. There was something very haunting about it, and it’s easy to see the color painting in any reference of this infamous painting, so it was cool to get to see something a little different. Edvard Munch had an extremely difficult childhood filled with loss and illness and inherited a mental condition (thought to be borderline personality disorder) that ran in his family. His mentor and influence encouraged him to ‘soul paint’ or paint his own emotional and psychological state, which is where Munch’s distinctive style came from. The Scream’s agonized face is seen as representing the angst of the modern person.

While we greatly enjoyed the infamy of The Scream, after exploring the rest of the museum, our favorite painting we came across was actually The Sun. It depicts a sunrise over the rocky Norwegian coast before a scorching summer day. It was Munch’s first major commission for a public institution as it was created for the University of Oslo’s new ceremonial hall. MUNCH has several versions of The Sun, including a full-size practice oil sketch. The painting is huge, with a size of 63 4/5 x 80 7/10 inches.

We ended our time in the museum on floor seven, an exhibit called Up Close where you can explore Munch’s woodcuts which pioneered the idea of printing plates! While there is not a single surviving print, the museum is home to many of Munch’s woodcuts from his earliest attempts to the last woodcut he ever created. You can even create your own prints using the ancient technique of frottage, the process of taking a rubbing from an uneven surface. The table where you could make your own prints was crowded, so I just made my way to the one the was available, which ended up being a copy of Munch’s Salome Paraphrase.

After a quick visit to the museum’s gift shop, we departed around 1:30, spending about an hour exploring the museum.

The Opera House and the MUNCH Museum were the two things we knew we wanted to accomplish for the day, so the rest of our afternoon was open for exploration! We made our way to Oslo City Mall, an enormous 5-story shopping center, less than a 10 minute walk from the museum. We figured we would have plenty of things we could see and check out here.

One of the first things we came across was a little cafe that was selling my new favorite pastry. Since it was about lunch time anyway, we hopped in line, and I got to joyously devour another scrumptious skolebolle to hold me over until we made our way back over to Oslo Street Food for a more filling and hardy meal. While it wasn’t quite as fresh as the one I got from the bakery in Flåm, it was still extremely tasty and something I miss being able to easily grab as a sweet treat.

We made our way through the many floors of the shopping center, popping in and out of many different shops. Our energy started to run a little low, but luckily there was a Starbucks on the bottom floor, so we got a chance to refuel before continuing on our way.

After about an hour of exploring the mall, our tummies were rumbling, so it was time to make our way back our Airbnb neighborhood, where Oslo Street Food was located. We had been looking forward to filling our bellies with food from all over the world from some of the many different food stalls since we first arrived!

For lunch, we decided to make Hawaii Oslo our first stop. We wanted the opportunity to sample another place as well, so we ordered one poke bowl to share. We settled on the classic salmon bowl. The bowl comes with fresh salmon on sushi rice with seaweed, ginger, unagi sauce, and chilimayo. I’m not always a huge seafood person, but it was absolutely delicious. I haven’t had the opportunity to consume ginger very often in my life, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it!

Our next stop took us over to De Mi Tierra for some Argentinian empanadas. We ordered a combo meal of 2 empanadas and dip. We went with a creamy corn empanada and beef empanada with a chumichurri mayo dip. It also came with some onion rings, so when our order was up, we weren’t sure if it was actually ours since we hadn’t ordered onion rings, but it turns out he had some extras and added them to our tray free of charge! Neither of us had eaten empanadas before, and we enjoyed them greatly! The creamy corn empanada was our joint favorite.

After having full and warm bellies, we made our way back to our Airbnb to relax for a little while. The next time we were out and about again was for supper. We made our way back to Oslo Street food so that we could try a few more places.

This time, our stop was at Wings and Things. We ordered the Lemon Pepper meal which came with 6 wings covered in a zesty lemon pepper dry rub with a side of fries. Wings are something we are very familiar with and is one of our favorite meals back home, so it was nice to enjoy a taste of something familiar and see how other countries served “American” food. It was very well-cooked with the wings having a nice and crispy outside and steamy meat. The fries were also firm and snappy with a nice crunch.

To end our adventure through Oslo Street Food, we of course had to savor some dessert. We stopped at Crepes and More to treat ourselves. Although the wafting smell of the fresh and sweet crepes mixing with the chocolatey Nutella topping was definitely tempting, we settled on a couple of milkshakes, strawberry for Luke and Oreo for me.

While we didn’t get a chance to try food from each and every stall within the food court, we enjoyed what we did get to try and had to snag pictures of all the other options. Some of the other food choices included Breadbowl Oslo, Tacos Al Pastor, Silk Road Dumplings and Steambuns, Der Peppern Gror- Indian Streetfood, Tunco Noodle Bar, Thai Streetfood, Kimchi Korean Food, Shady’s Burgers and Fries, Gyros and Souvlaki Meraki, Xin Chao, Ikigai Japanese Food, and Roast Smash Burgers.

We returned to our Airbnb for the night to relax and watch some TV before preparing to leave Norway and head back to Iceland the next day. After some time passed, we decided we needed a late-night snack and ordered some pizza from Digg to take away and enjoy from the comfort of our Airbnb bed. We went with another Margherita pizza, like the one we enjoyed our first day in Oslo (pictured below first) and also tried a Kortreist Parma, a type of locally produced (Kortreist) prosciutto (Parma ham). To tie it all together, we enjoyed some of Norway’s Sørland Chips, Paprika flavored.

It was hard to believe our last full day in Norway was coming to a close. We had waited three whole years to travel here, and the time seemed to fly by far too quickly. Fortunately, we knew we had a later flight and would still get to enjoy a little more time exploring a different area of Oslo before flying back to Iceland where we could get to spend another day enjoying the lovely Reykjavik before heading home. Stay tuned for the last few days of our journey!