readjusting my brain

One of the things I have been missing in our 'new' (now over a year) apartment has been proximity to nature. In our old place, a few minutes walk, and I was in fields, and a few more minutes and I was out by the Semsvannet, a beautiful lake with ancient farms and fields and meadows all around, and cows with cowbells around their necks melodiously ambling about. I always enjoyed going out there and wandering about on the trails, at any time of year, but especially on crisp fall days like today.

Today is a beautiful day, it's in the mid 40's (9c) out so not too cold, and with the sun out it's fine in just a long sleeved t shirt, really. So I got off my lazy, finally-recuperated-from-the-tequila-hangover ass, and went for a walk. I wandered over to Bygdøy, an 'island' (really a peninsula) right up the road from our flat.

Bygdøy has some pretty historical shit to boast of. There's the royal family's farm, and there's a little palace (Oscars Hall) and there is the Norsk Folk Museum and there's the Vikingskipshuset (Viking ship museum) and paths through woods and cows and horses ambling. There's farms and meadows and trees and grand old houses and what looked to me like burial mounds (but could be just big piles of rocks from previous farmers clearing fields) and everywhere, just everywhere are paths beckoning you to follow them on another walk, another discovery, and another new ramble.

In reality, all my kvetching aside, it's very similar to what I miss from the Semsvannet, actually. Pretty much the same walking distance away, trails to interesting places, some history to boot. Makes me miss our previous place just a little bit less. I'm kind of glad I figured that out, sometimes I really miss the old apartment and that neighborhood it was in.

One thing I enjoy doing on walks is playing a little bit with the Norwegian penchant for staring at anything that is slightly out of the ordinary. My little enjoyment for today was, at one point, I just stopped walking, suddenly, and stared into the distance. I actually stopped because I noticed the view into the hills at Holmenkollen, how lovely it was, from a perspective at the top of a meadow, looking down over a little bit of the fjord, then across and up and over the western side of Oslo with the way the light played and the clouds on the horizon....so I stopped to look. Then I noticed that other people were stopping and looking, too, as if I was seeing something they needed to see, or they were curious what I saw, or whatever. And that cracked me up, so I sort of upped the ante a bit, shading my eyes with my hands, looking into the distance with concentration....and then giggling to myself when people would stop, look at me, then look into the distance to see what they could see, too.

At which point, I just briskly walked off and carried on with my rambles, leaving them to look a bit stupid as they then hurriedly carried on themselves.

Heh.