I was at Northern Akerselva over the weekend, thinking it would be better to be outdoors in a nice sunny day. Unfortunately, I was totally mistaken. And me, a fool, thinking that the sun might warm things a little, am finding it out to be totally wrong. It was literally freezing. I think it was around -11C thereabouts. Furthermore, I wasn’t quite suitably attired, thus, my hands and feet were, at one point so frozen that I couldn’t even feel my toes :(. Taking pictures was worse, coz I had to take off my gloves to do that.
However, the beauty of the landscape at the small park at Kjelsås took my breath away. This was the Akerselva in the north, I guess the water flows from the great lake Maridalsvannet (I must go there one day, and in the summer :)). You could see little ducks everywhere and they also had a julesalg (christmas sale), where they have small shops exhibiting paintings, photographs and glassware, along the side of the river.
Walking further north, there was a bridge ahead. Water still flowed, despite the low temperature, although some of it had been frozen.
Icicles could be seen among the rocks where the water had already turned to ice.
In fact, some parts of the Akerselva had already frozen over, and there were some children who were daring enough to stand on the river itself :).
As I winded back where I came from, there was a slight hillock where you can catch a more aerial view of the Alkaselva amidst the setting sun. The sun seemed to take forever to set, however. At 1pm, it was already hung low in the sky and it stayed there for a very long time till around 3:30 – 4pm. That was a real super long sunset :).
But the aerial views were simply beautiful.
This was the view on the other side, where there was a small hill. There were houses up there though. Quaint and pretty.
In the evening, I went to Aker Brygge. It had some interesting christmas “trees” too. :).
But the best was for the last, as when I was at the Universitetetplassen watching a REAL giant christmas tree being lighted up. I think it was organized by Fretex, they were handing out free coffee and cookies around. Quite sweet. And down Karl Johans Gata, a group of carollers in torches marched down. It was quite a sight.
Unfortunately, my camera battery decided to perform its last rites so I had to be a little conservative. :(. The brass band was quite good though. I marvelled at them, playing through this freezing cold, they must have anti freeze in their blood :D. Then another band came on (with drums etc…), that was when the announcer started a countdown to the tree lighting up….
Fem, fire, tre, to, en..
Of course, the Norwegians around were pretty amused and found it a little funny. Apparently there seemed to be some problems with the bulbs lighting the tree…So a pastor came out and preached a sermon about Josef and Maria… 😀 (Right, sermons are a time filler)
After the sermon, the tree still couldn’t be lighted up. The band then resumed playing some music…
And out of the blue, all of the sudden, the tree lighted up :).
And with the above shot my camera battery gave up its ghost, nevertheless, I was still happy that I got a shot of the tree just in time :).
At this point, I think I had finally reached the end of my tolerance for the cold, so I made my way home.
