Wiener Wurstl

We were pretty happy with the view from our hotel rooftop bar.

While it seems I was also happy close to the cathedral, I think I was wincing in the cold.

Now, in Vienna, Wiener means Viennese, and Wurstl means wiener as shown below.

Here, Barry is shown with wiener wurstl, and pretending to pat a taxidermied boar. This means that the wurstl probably involves boar meat, and that I didn't take his preferred picture of him snuggling the boar.

Barry also likes aperol spritzers, but with vibrant taste and colour, who doesn't?

I was a bigger fan of this stuff, called sturm, which is freshly fermented wine/juice.

The pretzels we got were more into size than deliciousness, unfortunately.

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Statue Disturbance

I found statues in Vienna to be a bit disturbing. Look at all the misery and bad hair in the above.

Here, a child is grabbing the lip, which is probably really slippery, of the fish he's riding, so as to cut it with a small knife. Creepy.

A store window displays what happens when teddy bears become evil.

Welcome home, angry man.

The above, near our hotel, depicts angels on some kind of volcanic cloud-like structure. Who knew heaven was so fluid and precarious.

Also beside our hotel was a clock that was supposed to do something exciting at noon. Here we wait in anticipation with my longer-than-usual picture taking arm. (Note you can see Barry's bike glove tan).

To our dismay and confusion, some Kaiser figures moved by. No special effects at all.

We preferred the grocery store, actually. While sauerkraut, above, is delicious, its juice, below, is not, even for cabbage lovers. Maybe we weren't supposed to drink it.

But then strange sculpted shapes showed up here too!

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Norwegian Oil

At first, the earth was a fiery mess.

Then, in the tween years, Norway became tropical!

Significantly later, the 10 Oil Commandments were printed onto yellow poster board to improve life for all!

The Norwegian oil museum is fun even from the outside.

Inside, you can sample oil from different countries.

These tiny Norwegians are demonstrating their skills in the cold.

This is one of the cold Norwegians, who I think too a liking to me.

As I was practicing my underwater assembly skills, the pictures started flying through the air.

They, but not I, look better with 3D glasses on.

The museum had some safety warnings, one of which was very disturbing!

Now, Alexander Kielland, shown below, was a famous author from Stavanger.

They named a rig after him. However, the Alexander L.  Kielland capsized and killed many. So what is the statue associated with, now?

There were other dark moments at the museum, where we find out that the 10 commandments are, sadly, not enough!

And then it ends, just like it started.

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Utopialand?

On my way to Scandinavia, I saw an uberplane, from which other large planes are born. There are only 5 of these in the world, and you can see some of the baby planes behind it, and the relatively tiny windows in the front. Big.

Then I went searching for Utopia. Can you tell that the sky is perhaps a bit bluer?

In Utopia land, most people ride bikes so as to be nice and gentle on the environment.

This is Lund, Sweden where I learnt that Barry was made!

There was also modern art, which we had trouble separating in our minds from flat-pack furniture. That's because we haven't yet properly adopted Utopian values.

I suppose if Utopia has a church, it must be for all religions?

The above confirmed that this was indeed Barry's paradise. He agrees that 18 is the right number of hot dog varieties.

In my hunt for societal perfection, I was sometimes distracted by the seemingly twisted tongues. But I approve of being called Kvinnfolk.

With tempting danishes everywhere, the locals seem to eat also-yummy seedy buns. Healthy.

At work, open-faced sandwiches magically appeared at lunch, although utopia cracked a little with the lack of vegetables. One of our team attempted, and succeeded, to eat salmon 3 meals a day. But that's another story.

Just as I'm starting to think it's looking close to perfect,

I found out that, alas, there is evil here too. (I worked too hard for that punch line maybe?)

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