Last night, Jonathan and I took our favorite short walk in Oslo: straight southeast from our flat in Frogner, through the grounds of
det kongelig slott
(the Royal Palace), down Karl Johans gate, to Jernbanetorget (Oslo Central Station). Temperatures reached the high 50s yesterday, but dropped off quickly once the sun lowered behind the buildings. We stuffed our icy, white hands deep in our pockets and moved at a quick clip to keep the blood moving in our toes.
The ponds behind the palace are still empty. We watched children, bundled up in chubby, one-piece suits, toddling across the pebbled surface to kick at the last, dirty piles of snow. After the first major snowfall, trucks had buzzed along our streets spilling gravel over the flat surfaces to provide traction for pedestrians. Last night we watched another large truck equipped with something like a mega-shop-vac as it howled along one of the paved paths near the palace and inhaled the gravel once again, leaving the dry path clean behind it.
Walking down the hill into the city center, I happened to glance at one of the large, winter-barren planters to my left. I stopped short. Flowers! The earliest, tightly coiled purple and yellow buds are nosing their way up through the dark soil beneath the still-bare trees.
So, Veldig Oslo - Volume 02 is spring color! Within the next few weeks, these brave buds will open toward the sky in bursts of yellow and purple glory.
Veldig Oslo - Volume 02: Yellow daffodils and purple pansies on the Oslo Royal Palace grounds in April 2011
Crossing my fingers against any impending frost. Survival of the brightest. Bring on the spring!