City sounds: The Bells over Oslo

The Oslo town hall with the carillon on the roof of the right tower. View from Akershus fortress
Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/brostad

Maybe this is featured in some Oslo guide books, but I still think it's eccentric enough to write a little post about. For the inhabitants in Oslo, it's always there, but hopefully you can learn some more about it and appreciate it more after reading this. It's such a big part of the Oslo experience to me.

The bells in the Oslo town hall is in many ways the backdrop of the city to me. You can hear it over big parts of the city, depending on the direction of the wind and certainly in the down town area. To me it's more than anything connected to long summer nights in Oslo in June. When the city has the blue light and it's a tiny bit cold, but still warm enough to just wear a t-shirt. It's just magic. My favourite places to listen to it is from the Akershus fortress or the little hill on the south east corner of the park around the royal castle. There is a little bench there, but you should probably not venture there alone as a girl in the evenings, though it's probably very harmless.

I have just found out that the instrument "bells in the tower" is called carillon
You can read all about the bells in Oslo and the art here. Most of the site is sadly in Norwegian, but if you click on Konserter, you can see when the bell tower plays concerts, as of now: every Wednesday all year around at 13:00 and in the summer months at 17:00 on Sundays. The site is made by the Carillonneur, the man that plays the Oslo City Hall carillon.

The way the bell strikes has a very distinct and interesting system, according to the web page. Every 15 minutes you hear the three tones of h - F# an a . You hear this once if it is quarter past, twice if it is half, and three times if it is quarter too. Then the biggest bell chimes out the right time. After that comes something called "ritornell" that is a little melody. Here you can see the program for this summer. Both Norwegian and international classics.

I will probably do another post in the future about this lovely song about Oslo, but for now, you can just enjoy it and at the end of the song, hear the bells.

The bus driver at the 54 bus

Photo by: OlaErik

A few months back, me and some other friends had an idea to make a web page or a blog with all those great things that exists in a city, but never make it to the guide books. In many ways, the hidden little things that often give the city it's heart, if you ask me. Feel free to give me tips as well. So here we go.

First up is the amazing bus driver at bus number 54. I don't know he's name, but trust me, if you have been on the bus while he was driving it, you'll remember him. Today me and my boyfriend got on the bus and it was already crammed with kids to the brim. A school outing on a public bus usually mean hassle and stress, but we soon realized that the driver was doing a little Q&A with the kids. "sing the Winnie the Pooh song!". So he did, over the speaker system, the whole thing. "Can you speak English?" "Yes, I can. Hello" "Speak chineeeeeese!" "Ni hao!" The kids are all screaming with excitement!! "Wow! He can speak Chinese! "what's your favourite soccer team??" Pause. All the kids are waiting in excitement! "Manchester United!". Half of the bus goes..."NOOOO" and the other "YES!". And so on and so forth for about half an hour.

Every time he makes a stop he also says things like: "Have a happy Easter, take care of each other, celebrate love and buy your girlfriend a diamond ring!" or "Remember all your luggage, we are now stopping next to Oslo's greatest karaoke bar - Trompeten". On our way home from the city he was there again: "Believe in love and have a great dinner!"

In the winter we had a another experience with the same driver. There had been a heavy snowfall over night and inside some kind of strange compartment on top of the bus there were big chunks of ice. They kept sliding and slipping in there and sounded like a herd of buffalos was running over the roof every time the bus braked or started up or turned. Luckily we also had the famous driver on this bus. He kept saying things like: "Oh, it's just my tax free goods". and "The drinks are served in a few minutes". It might sound cheesy now, but trust me, it was a lovely sensation over weirdness and silliness in the air.

To me and a lot of other passengers this guy just brightens our day, I think. So if you are in Oslo, jump on the 54 bus and you might be lucky.