My slippery path to sunset

When I looked out of the window this morning (Friday, it just happens to be past midnight once again), I realised that this would be one of the rare beautifully sunny days in Oslo. Quoting our Australian tour guide in Stockholm at the end of January, "You managed to get the first sunny day this year!" - and I doubt Oslo has many more days of sunshine...

Therefore, I decided today was the perfect opportunity to pursue the plan that had been at the back of my mind for a while: being on the rooftop of Operahuset (the futuristic glass opera house at the Oslofjord, if you remember from the free bus tour?) at sunset.

Spoiler alert: I managed!

But first things first. Which meant in my case: first go to BI for the first meeting of my group for the Managing Workplace Diversity paper. (Group work is definitely a thing here, even for papers. And yeah, we're starting early - because the deadline is early.)

Anyway, the group meeting was not the only "but first". Another aspect of my quest to see the sunset from the Opera House rooftop was, once again, the weather. There had been degrees above zero in the middle of the week, causing snow and ice to melt. And I'm talking about snow like this:

Thus, it had been all wet and muddy for about two days. However, naturally, that's not a sustainable status in Oslo in January/February. The temperature fell to something in between -5° and -10° (there might even be double digit freezing temperatures this weekend!). I assume you can imagine what happened: water and mud turning into solid ice. Everywhere.

On the way to the metro stop, for example. I even took the bus because I didn't feel like sliding downhill in my student village, but that didn't help much. The short walk from the bus stop to the T-bane station was quite an adventure in itself:

(That's not even the worst spot. At the worst spot, I didn't take photos, as I was focusing on not falling.)

Around BI and its T-bane station, Nydalen:

Even in the city centre! The Opera House is just a short walk from the central station, right in the middle of the city, where there's usually not so much snow and ice. Well, today, there was...

I made it to Operahuset without any accidents, but - surprise, surprise! - there was also ice on the rooftop...!

Fortunately, some parts of the roof were free of ice, and I managed to take some quite nice photos from there. I guess I'm just gonna spam you with a bunch of photos again.

Again, like at the Grefsenkollen viewpoint, basically all phases of sunset. I'm ending this post with a seagull watching the sunset and a (not particularly good) selfie of proof I was there. (Yeah, I usually don't take selfies, but as I went there on my own and didn't feel like asking random people to take a photo of me, you know...)

Hi seagull!

Yes, it was cold.