Oslo, July 22

During my weekend in Oslo last week, on Saturday we took a walk down town and went past the government building and then later that day/night we drove past Utöya and Sundvollen. It was such a strange feeling seeing and being right next to the island where one man was able to commit one of the worst terror attacks of all time. The government block is still of limits to civilians and several windows are still shattered and some of the houses are still standing only thanks to cement blocks that are supporting them.
But going to Utöya was just awful and so hard. Just driving down the road that leads down to the island thinking that this is exactly where he was driving, sitting in his car with his police uniform on knowing exactly what he was about to do made me sick… We drove past it first when it was daytime and just saw the island and the hotel where all the survivors and family gathered after, but stopped there on our way back.
How one person can be so evil and so cold to go to a youth camp and choose who to kill, look them in the eyes, judging their age, talking to them, trying to trick them in to trusting him and then walk around for hours looking for the children who are hiding so he can murder them…. That is something I will never, ever be able to understand.
People still come out there to lay out flowers for the people who lost their lives that day and the national archives collects all the flowers and save them which I thought was really nice. It has been amazing to see how all the people of Norway have handled this awful event.