Norway

A hot Friday afternoon in July. We were sitting at a table on the pavement outside the Grand Café watching the world go by on the elegant, tree-lined boulevard that glides from the Parliament building past the university and theatre to the Royal Palace on the hill. Blue electric trams hissed past, speeding roller-bladers swooped by at terrifying speeds. In the park opposite, a troop of dazzlingly clothed Africans swayed in a trance to the hypnotic throb of drums. In a café to my right the guitarist was singing; the man eating fire while riding a unicycle was pulling more and more spectators; a couple of mandolin- and flute-wielding musicians dressed in cloaks and long baggy trousers tucked into Cossack boots were singing seventeenth-century madrigals at my whisky.