RennyBA's Terella

RennyBA welcome you over to www.terella.no

2007-07-02T12:24:00.000+02:00

It might be a small step in blogsphere, but it’s a big step for me. With great help from my friend and blog designer Chas, I’ve got my own blog home; www.terella.no. So from now on, I’m hosting My Model of the Earth all by myself:-)

At the same time, I’ve migrated to WordPress, an exciting new blog environment to me and I’m looking forward to explore and make my blog more juicy and readable to all my visitors.

All things must past and even if it isn’t easy to leave a place where I’ve had fun for almost two years, I’ll welcome you all for my future adventures to www.terella.no!

Home made meat cakes from Norway

2007-06-30T22:14:00.000+02:00

Norway and the Norwegians have turned into summer hibernations: It doesn’t mean what you first think of as we are not at all ‘sleeping’. It’s just that most of the people or at least half of the population has started their vacation, me included:-) So we’ll be at our summer home in Sweden mostly, although a bit back and forth, as my wife still works part time on night shift in Oslo. The children have some plans too, including camping with some friends, but we are ready for a long, warm summer with golf, swimming, fishing, sight seeing and relaxing.

So today only Kyle and I, my bonus child went by car to our summer house. It’s a long time since we had this chance to be together only him and me and we really had a great time talking along the road. The trip takes about 5 hours and with no hurry, we had some stops and a hot dog treat too. Half way in a big grocery we bought what we needed for dinner and I asked him if he would like to make some? He did: Norwegian home made meat cakes! I don’t how it is home with you, but sometimes I feel the children don’t get the chance to show their kitchen skills. But they can! They’ve learned it in school, but often the dinner is to be done in a hurry after a long day and the children are left out as the adults know better. Not today, so one hour after we came to our summer home, Kyle said: ‘Dinner is served’ – would you like to sit inn?:

In Norway, meatballs are called kjøttkaker ("meat cakes") and resemble Danish frikadeller, but they are usually made from ground beef. This dish is traditionally served with boiled potatoes, gravy, lingonberry jam and/or stewed green peas. Some people also like to add fried/caramelized onion on the side. As in Denmark, Swedish köttbullar (meatballs) are widely popular. But of course Norwegian meat cakes is the best! Here is my dish:

We didn’t have lingonberry, and also I like red beat better (the red slice on the left side of my plate). I also like cabbage stew in stead of green peas, so we had that too! If I ad that Kyle did both the gravy for the meat cakes and the white sauce for stew, wouldn’t you say this was perfect!

After dinner, we’ve had a jolly good time installing a Skype telephone on my computer and he has head set on his. We have broad band in the summer home of course! Boys wanna have fun too you know.

For those who was worried about my business while spending almost 4 weeks on vacation, I can assure you, I can do everything from where ever I am as long as I’m connected to the net and with my 3G (umts) Nokia mobile phone, I can even do video conferences. Wanna have a chat? Well Skype me then – RennyBA:-)

Happy Birthday to OldOldLady Of The Hills

2007-06-27T20:27:00.000+02:00

This is an exceptional post about an extraordinary Birthday Girl. Having hundred of blog friends, I normally don’t do this as it would have filled a blog in itself. Naomi though, turning 76 today and so spiritual and young at heart is a good reason for an exception. She has been living a long and lively life and I do hope she will forgive me for borrowing from her post today – from the beginning and up until today:

I met Naomi in the blogsphere less that two years ago – actually one of my first blog friends. Since then I’ve learned to know this remarkable woman trough her daily life in The Hills through her blog. She is very talkative and sometimes writes until she has writers cramp, but you can’t stop reading and reading these fascinating stories of Naomi.

I know a lot of my regular readers have Naomi on their daily list too. If you haven’t been there today: go visit her blog and give her a well deserved greeting. For new visitors, don’t miss her Birthday post about her rich and exciting life.

Long live OldOldLady Of The Hills! Let’s show her the power of blogging: visiting and give her more than a 100 comments to her post today!

Facebook date and Midsummer in Norway

2007-06-24T23:13:00.001+02:00

My regular readers know I’m a networker by heart. Some weeks ago, I got a new Facebook friend from UK. He found me in the Facebook group: ‘Get LinkedIn’. We are both listed at LinkedIn, of course, and soon we became registered as contacts there too. So far nothing extraordinary, as this happens all the time. But then things started to move in a new direction: My new friend Chris had a business trip to Norway and asked if we could meet - just like that – so we had a very nice time getting to know each other over a couple of beers in Oslo:

Taken with my Nokia mobile phone.
Click to enlarge!

Chris is COO at QuickStart Global, an IT Company with a very interesting business approach (click her to see for yourself!). Working in The Norwegian Computer Society sets me in a kind of network hub within Information Technology in Norway and I could give him some tips on how to approach the Norwegian market.
Chris and his family are kind of globe trotters who have lived in Toronto, Canada for 6 years, and recently moved back home to England. He and his wife have talked about moving back though, and then of course I suggested they moved to Norway instead. Why not? He text messaged his wife and she wasn’t exactly negative to the idea. So who knows?

Midsummer in Norway:
You might wonder why I put up this subject in a post like this. Well, it’s because my blog is about the significant four seasons, and we passed a very special milestone this weekend. The time between the 21st and 22nd of June was the ‘longest’ day on the northern part of the globe. In Oslo that means the length of the day was almost 19 hours. As I sit her now around 11PM, it’s still daylight (the sun went down 22:45).
This has been celebrated in Norway for thousands of years; there have been settlements here for more than 10 000 years back. Since they didn’t know the exact time then, the Midsummer Evening (St. Hans) has been celebrated the 23rd of June. This weekend it has been poring rain though, so you didn’t sees as many bonfires as is normal. So if you are interested in more background and old traditions, you’ll have to click here and check my post from last year.

Our Midsummer celebration is very much like our Swedish friends and good neighbors. The captain of our Cyber Cruise, Mrs. Lifecruiser, has posted about it today, so please click to read her 'Midsummer flower power love' post!

Now the school season is over and soon Norway is closing down for the summer. Most of us take at least three weeks vacation in July. No wonder we are eager to meet the sun: in December in Oslo, the length of the day is a mere 6 hours.

Meet RennyBA with Digital Story Telling

2007-06-20T21:47:00.000+02:00

Story telling has always fascinated me. I love telling and I think my blog in someway is proof of that. Listening is even more interesting – if the story is good – and I’ve loved it since I was a child. I so much remember sitting on my grandfathers (born 1902) lap and listening to his stories from when he was young. He wasn’t only telling – he was painting images in my mind which I still can remember. The three favorite (yes, I could here them again and again) was when he saw the first car (sitting behind a big stone away from the road and saw a wagon coming towards him with no horse in front!?!), when they got electricity in the farm house (to see a glass bulb lighting without oil!) and when they got the first telephone (to talk to a person who wasn’t in the room – that was witchcraft!).

So where does this introduction lead us? Well, I was attending a mini course in Story Telling last week, and best of all, now technology is involved! I was thrilled when a good old co-worker of mine who now is lecturer at Oslo University College, accepted my application to attend. You see, this time the subject was Digital Story Telling! We were led through a process of making our own history by two guys with a creative company name: Jazzmontør (Eng: ‘Jazz Assembling’). Their theories are based on the work of the Center for Digital Story Telling in CA, US. (From their web page): ‘We’re dedicated to assisting people in using digital media to tell meaningful stories from their lives. Our focus is on developing large-scale projects for community, educational, and business institutions, using the methods and principles of the Digital Storytelling Workshop.’

What an interesting, educational and exciting workshop. Kjetil and Kristoffer from Jazzmontør where very inspirational and guided us gently through our struggle to find the right story. You see the key issue is to find out what you are going to tell about and do it in less than 500 words or in 3 - 4 minutes. The idea was to find a personal story and tell it in a way so others could understand, identify and be touched without being too intrusive.

When the story was done, the rest was a piece of cake. You collect photos, illustrations and other multimedia objects like music and sound as well as recording your story. Then using MS Movie Maker, you assemble it all in to a Digital Story.

My story, you might ask? Well as it should be understood without further introduction, I just ask you to play it (with your speakers up loud!):

Since this is not only a premier, but my first world premier, I’m anxious to have your comments of course :-)

A feast of Caribbean cuisine

2007-06-16T23:55:00.000+02:00

Even if I don’t consider mine as a food blog, I realize there have been some posts about it lately. This time I’ll take you along to a culinary feast at Lemongrass. I was there with some colleagues from The Norwegian Computer Society this week. I'd been really looking forward to it, as I love to share good food in a cultural atmosphere around the table and a nice conversation with friends. There are a lot of different restaurants in Oslo, but I’ve never tasted genuine Caribbean food and I can assure you (referring to my last post – scroll down to read!), we're not talking about fast food here. Let’s start with the beginning as I show you Lemongrass from the outside:

Welcome to Lemongrass - click to enlarge!

The restaurant has the most delicate and tasteful interior. Let me give you a peek:

The entrance – the dinning room

The occasion, you may ask? Well, in Norway we have this tradition of getting together at the end of a season and calling it a Summer Party. It’s common in companies, organisations, schools or just among friends to get together before the summer holidays. It might be in restaurants like we did, or in a park or as a cook out in someone’s garden. My regular readers know me as a network evangelist and I just love this kind of happening. I’ve been through two already and have two more before the end of June where I start my vacation.

But let me get back to Lemongrass, my friends and give you the proof of the pudding:

Do any of my regular readers recognize any of these nice looking guys?

We’ve known each other for years and have worked together in workgroups in The Norwegian Computer Society. We share the same interests and professionally that is the strategic use of Information Technology. The conversation though, might varies from IT to what plans we have for this summer – and everything in between.

But a post about food, without showing you the lovely treat for that evening would be a disgrace. So let me end with our three course menu served by a polite, elegant waiter Olle from Sweden, who told us a lot about what we where eating:

Bermuda Chowder
Soup made of shellfish fond, reduced with cream and white wine; Sancerre 2005, Montintin. Loire, France

Chicken trio
The chef’s selection of three chicken dishes accompanied by the wine: Chateau Mercier Cuveé Prestige 2004. Côtes de Bourg, France

Mango Brulé
Crème brulée with mango and mango caulis and a double espresso.

And then the fun began as someone asked for a brandy. Olle said, here you drink Rum and brought four bottles to show us:

I had La Mauny- it tasted like hmmmmm; heaven, and we all had a jolly good time. I was in bed around 1AM, but who cares. We had a wonderful gathering, a lovely meal and some good discussions – tons of good ideas for what we are going to do for the autumn season in our society – besides; it’s soon summer vacation you know:-)

As we are talking about the Caribbean, I dedicate this post to two of my blog friends who are familiar with the area; Lime and ttfootball. I hope one day we can dine at Lemongrass in Oslo!

I wonder if others of my readers have the same Summer Party traditions as we have in Norway?

Update:

This post is a part of Captain Lifecruiser's Cyber Cruise.
Read more about Lifecruiser cyber cruise.
Cyber Cruise Calendar 2007
Cyber Cruise Souvenirs
Lifecruiser Cyber Cruise in Technorati

How about lazy summer day with Slow Food?

2007-06-12T22:11:00.000+02:00

In my last post about hot summer in Oslo, where the Vikings went skinny dipping in fountains (scroll down to read!), I promised you some more from Oslo’s Summer Festival with the theme: ‘Norwegian Food in the Streets’. There were stands with traditional Norwegian food everywhere. The air was filled with spiced and smoked sausages, herrings, reindeer and moose stakes, a variety of fish of course and cheeses such as goat cheese. Let me give you a peek as I shot some pics with my Nokia mobile phone (click to enlarge):

This is Oslo’s main street, Karl Johan. You have a glimpse of The Royal Castle at the end of the street and to the right the east wing of the old university from the same century. Let’s have a look of what they served:

A variety of sea food

An alternative to Hamburger: fish patties and homemade honey

What really got my attention though was the stand of Norwegian Slow Food:

I must admit I’ve thought that the Slow Food was an anti-fast food movement raising their fingers against fat, fast, one taste and high calorie food, but there is much more: I was listen to the enthusiastic couple working at the stand and the more they talked, the more interesting this became to me:

Let me give you some ideas of what they talked about and what I've found on their website:
Slow Food believes in recognizing the importance of pleasure connected to food. We should learn to enjoy the vast range of recipes and flavours, recognize the variety of places and people growing and producing food. We should respect the rhythms of the seasons and conviviality. Slow Food has called this approach ecogastronomy. It is an attitude that combines a respect and interest in enogastronomic culture with support for those battling to defend food and agricultural biodiversity around the world. At their website, I also found some interesting figures, such as:
Today, we rely on very few crop species for human nutrition - less than 30 plants provide 95% of the world’s nutrition. In the past century, 300 000 plant species have become extinct. Since the beginning of the twentieth century America has lost 93% of its agricultural products, Europe almost 85%.

My regular readers know how I love food and the differences in how it is preserved and/or made with recipes developed through thousands of years of traditions and experience. You’ll also know how I love to sit around the table and share this food with good friends accompanied by interesting conversation, sharing everything from the daily life and knowledge in all kinds of subjects. Just you click here from my previous food posts, and you’ll see what I mean.

So now you understand why I prefer a nice gourmet kind of restaurant with a variety of food to McDonald. How about you: will you still buy mostly hamburgers or things that only ‘taste like chicken’ until it’s the only thing our cynical food industry will provide us? Or will you take care of your culture, traditions and variety? The choice is yours, what’s for dinner?

PS: I've been food tagged by Shantanu on his Traveller's Tales. I'll do it my way, so this is my return of his favor.

Hot summer day in Oslo, Norway

2007-06-09T23:06:00.000+02:00

We’ve had the loveliest, sunny and warm weather in Oslo this week. The last three days with an all time high temperature in beginning of June (at least for the last 110 years): more than 30 C (86F)! I know some of my readers around the world would say that’s more like a mild temperature, but let me then remind you of that Oslo is at Latitude: 59° 56'North. That’s the same as the southern tip of Greenland, Seward in Alaska or e.g. St Petersburg in Russia. Despite its perception as being a cold country you may be surprised to find Norway has so much sun and hot summer weather, particularly around the southern coast. This temperate climate is thanks to the Gulf Stream which flows along the coast. But of course it doesn’t happen every day and certainly not in the weekend, so let me show you how this crazy Vikings are doing in the capital of Norway when the heath is on:

So why make so much fuss about it, other than a record in temperature. Well, let me show you what this fountain square looks like in the winter time then:

This is why I talk so much about the significant four seasons in Norway and why I love it. Winter time gives lots of opportunities to have fun. Just check my Categories/Labels in the side bar Navigation for ‘Winter’, and you’ll see what I mean. But then again a hot day gives some advantages too and it’s lovely to see how the same spot can be used as a water paradise like this:

There are a lot of fountains around in Oslo and when I was walking around in the hot city today, I mange to capture a few with my Nokia mobile phone (click all pics to enlarge!).

Totem pole at Aker Brygge - Meeting point in Oslo

Regarding the latitude of Oslo, may I also add about today: Sunrise at 03:58 and Sunset at 22:35. So when I post this evening, it’s still dusk outside, and the birds are singing.

The reason for my trip around in the city today was actually because it’s ‘The Norwegian Food in Streets’ and ‘Oslo Summer Festival’. So don’t miss my next post then - with more about our culture, traditions and how the Vikings go crazy on a hot day:-)

Dona Nobis Pacem

2007-06-06T23:58:00.000+02:00

There is always something interesting going on in blogsphere. Some more important than others and among some of them today is a BlogBlast For Peace. My regular readers know one of my mottos: ‘Make Blogs Not Wars’, so I can't let this change to participate in moving on the snowball to contribute to a better world:

Blog blast for peace!

There are hundreds of blog posts with the same subject out here today. I have to do it my way of course:

My blog is about Norway and the Nordic countries, our culture and habits and I love to share it with the rest of the world. Even better, people read it and comments and I read their blogs too. By sharing all this and learn from others, we brake down the cultural, religious and other buries because the one we meet is a blog friend. He or she has a ‘face’ and want to participate in this givers gain. My readers know more about Norwegian history and why we are living or thinking or behave the way we do. Even more important is that I know more about the same in most countries and continents by reading their blog.

Knowledge reduces skepticism and opens your eyes to others perspectives. It makes the world smaller and reminds us of that we are living on the same planet. We might have different habits and ways of do, celebrate or working out things, but we are from the same planet and a habitant of the same global society.

Blogging connecting people as it’s an opportunity to share about our daily life, getting to know each other. Through small pieces or fragments of sharing my own and read about others, I’ve become closer and in a better understanding to their way of thinking or interpreting. I know we have differences in the way of understanding global issues, but also that there is various ways of solving or finding solutions. Blogging and reading blogs makes us more aware of the differences which I think is a way of finding a mutual understanding.

Make blogs not wars!

Update:
My regular readers knows I'm an in the A-Team of Lifecruisers Cyber Cruise. A great example of a blogsphere joint adventure throughout the whole world. There are alway new harbors to visit, new excitements to participate in and more opportunities to learn about others perspectives, culture, traditions and habits. So Read more about Lifecruiser cyber cruise and Cyber Cruise Calendar 2007. Check also Lifecruiser Cyber Cruise in Technorati.

Starting summer with a folk festival

2007-06-04T23:29:00.000+02:00

My regular readers know we have our vacation house in Sweden, on lake Vänern (northern Europe’s largest lake). Along the lake there are some small villages with an old charming atmosphere and fascinating history. Sjötorp has become my favorite, and we often go there for an afternoon ice cream or to play mini golf. Last weekend they had their yearly folk festival and since my wife was back home reading for her exam, I walked around and captured some of the days activities with my Nokia mobile phone. I’ll gladly take you along:

Oskar II, a sloop type sailing boat.

Although in the middle of Sweden, far away from the ocean, the village is oozing with maritime atmosphere. You see: if you are looking for a pleasant canal-side life, visit Sjötorp, the Göta Canal’s port to Lake Vänern. The canal was build 175 years ago and is one of Sweden’s biggest tourist attractions both for boaters, bikers (beside the canal) and other tourists. At the village, there are 8 locks. You can see one of them in the background to the right in the picture if you click to enlarge. Click also here for information about Göta Canal from my post last summer.

So back to the folk festival then, with stands for hand crafts, flea marked, smoked fish, seafood and of course ice cream:

There where also quite a bit of fun for the children too (for all ages you might say, but I saw mostly young ones :-)

I also hope you could tell we had the loveliest of sunny days with warm weather (25C – 77F). The children were breaking out their summer shorts, while the growing ups (especially those at the sailing boat on the first picture) were more conservative. After all it is the beginning of June and they dress more according to the calendar. Never the less, it was my first real taste this year, so since this blog also is about our four seasons: I hereby declare the summer season 2007 for opened in Scandinavia! Apropos that: It’s almost midnight here, the sun went down a little over an hour ago, its still dusk outside, and the birds are singing.

Networking at Hole Artcenter in Norway

2007-05-31T22:07:00.000+02:00

My regular readers know me as a network evangelist. One of my working tools, LinkedIn where I have more than 500 connections, gives me accesses to millions of people throughout the whole world. Networking is basted on mutual trust and a givers gain. The more you invest, show interest and care about others, the more you get back. It’s impossible to meet all those people all the time, but you can meet some of them some times. Therefore I’m also a co-fonder of LinkeInNorway. We meet at least four times a year and this time I’ll take you with to a very inspirational workshop. I trust that pictures says more than a thousand words, so I base my minute on what I captured with my Nokia mobile phone (click the pics to enlarge):

Taking notes on the table cloth:-)

I’ll get back to that picture, but let’s start with Hole Artcenter itself. I let our host and the owner, Åsmund Bergwitz, introduce you: ’Hole Artcenter is build on a personal and passionate relation to art, design and architecture. We wish to develop a modern inspiration-centre in the style of Louisiana in Denmark. In addition to the gallery, we organize workshops, conferences, concerts and events. The environment at the Artcenter makes it a unique experience.’ I can assure you that it lives up to its goal and more! Let me give you a glimpse of what Åsmund showed us on a guided tour:

Åsmund showing around in the Arcenter

In that environment, a good friend of mine: Paal Leveraas, a coach and journalist, started with a very good presentation on how to how to make a good profile on LinkedIn. Then we had this inspirational workshop and that’s when the first picture in this post comes in. We where discussing in groups and was writing on the table cloth! Actually the workshop was organized in a very interesting way – what they call ‘a world café’; there was one group exercise on each table and we toured around with new people all the time to discuss the subjects. I’ll recommend that kind of work shop organisation to everyone so ask me if you want more details! After an hour there was time for summarising and here you see the conclusions on one of the tables (randomly picked of course:-)

After the workshop we were invited upstairs in the restaurant which ad the most wonderful panorama view to the valley and its beautiful lake (Tyrifjorden, one of the biggest in Norway!). You can read more about Hole by clicking here! The municipality (originally the parish) is named after the old farm Hole (Norse Hólar), since the first church was built here. The name is the plural form of hóll m 'round (and isolated) hill'. The owner and host was the chef too of course (he together with is wife Elenor Martinsen is multitalented you know!) and made this wonderful soup or more like a stew:

The food is excellent too!

If you still wonder about the outcome of the meeting – to make it short: the best LinkedInNorway meeting ever:-) and if you like a proof, click here for my LinkedIn profile. I would be delighted to receive a request for connection from you!

Update:
My colleague and best networker friend Edgar (was at this meeting of course!), have a great post: 'Why don't we teach Networking in universities?' Click and read it!

JazzBrunch at Grand Café in Oslo

2007-05-27T22:49:00.000+02:00

If you are in Oslo on a Sunday afternoon, like Jazz music and want a gourmet adventure, you should go to the Grand Hotel, built in 1874. We where there with my MIL last Sunday and since this will be my last post from her stay this time, your all welcome to join us.

Lets start with the Hotel: An institution in the Norwegian capital for over a century, the Grand Hotel remains the city's top address for its elegantly furnished guest rooms, its splendid location and complete range of services, like the choice of three fine restaurants, two bars and 18 elegant function rooms. The Grand's splendid marble lobby, replete with ornate chandeliers and bas-relief Grecian sculpture, sets the tone for what was once Ibsen's favorite hotel (read my story of our National writer here!).

Grand Hotel Jan 2006

This hotel is one of the oldest and most exclusive establishments in Oslo. When pop stars visit the city, they wave at their fans from the hotel balcony (or hide behind their bodyguards in the lobby). Built in 1874, the hotel has catered to celebrities for over a century. The stone-walled hotel with its mansard gables and copper tower has been an integral part of Oslo life since 1874. Famous guests have included Edvard Munch, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, Charlie Chaplin, Henry Ford, and of course Henrik Ibsen. He was a regular visitor to the hotel restaurant, the Grand Café.

The Grand Café, filled with plush leather seats and modern artwork, serves Scandinavian dishes with Mediterranean touches. Gourmet French and Scandinavian cuisine is on the menu at the Julius Fritzner restaurant. So let’s have our JazzBrunch:

Like I said to my MIL the day before: You don’t eat a heavy breakfast before you go to Grand Café! Here is a glimpse of their buffet or smoregardsboard if you like:

I like to approach these kind of delicacies in a systematic way and to make it short and well documented (all pics with My Nokia mobile phone – click to enlarge to enjoy!)

First serving (to the left): Smoked and fermented salmon, salmon pate and garlic marinated shrimps.
Second serving (to the right): Lever pate, roast beef, more salmon pate, pepper, mushroom, pepper and some creamy salad.

Third: Marinated chicken, ratatouille and baked potatoes.
Fourth: Select cheeses from around the world and crackers.

For dessert, I just love Napoleon Cake!
Look at the small black profile pic on top of the plates edge: It’s Henrik Ibsen!

After such a great brunch you might need a rest or a room for the night? Taking you to Grand Hotel and not mention The Deluxe rooms on the top floor would be a disgrace. They have retained the dimensions and mouldings of yore. The 'ladies' floor' is a must see, with 17 rooms individually redesigned by some of Norway's top female celebrities. Iram Haa's room with its bright pillows, illuminated flowers, and paper globes contrasts strongly with the space designed by Maria Bonnevie, who evidently likes horses. Meanwhile, huge pink-and-black headshots stare perpetually in the hallway outside in Warhol-esque fashion. Sit, back, relax and click here to take a look!

Talking about food and while I’m at it: I’ve been tagged a couple of times lately, by Eastcoastlife and Norma. I hope you’ll excuse me for not following all the food meme rules as I have to do it my way, okay :-) You’re supposed to list 5 places or restaurant to recommend and of course Grand Café is one of them. Other than that, I like to make my own food so if you’re still hungry, you can check me and my wife’s Sea Food Delight, Rakfisk, Salmon and Lamb in cabbage.

Lefse and rural farmhouse from Norway

2007-05-24T21:18:00.000+02:00

The Museum of Cultural History in Oslo takes you back hundred (sometimes thousands) of years back in Norwegian culture, architecture and the daily and rural way of living. The Open-Air Museum sets the scene for entertaining and educating activities all year. In my last post you saw Norwegian folk dance and our traditional costume Bunad. This time, still as my MIL was visiting, we’ll give you a nice treat; the famous Lefse. It’s a traditional soft Norwegian flatbread made out of potato, milk or cream and flour, and cooked on a griddle. Special tools are available for lefse baking, including long wooden turning sticks and special rolling pins with deep grooves. There are significant regional variations in the way lefse is made and eaten, but it generally resembles a tortilla, although in many parts of Norway, especially Valdres, it is far thinner. This woman in an old bakery house at the museum made it the Valdres way:

Click to enlarge!

There are many ways of flavouring lefse. The most common is adding butter and sugar to the lefse and rolling it up. In Norwegian, this is known as "lefse-klining". Other tasty ways to eat it include adding cinnamon, or spreading jelly or lingonberries upon it. We had strawberry jam on ours. It’s very popular among Norwegian emigrants too of course. Their variations include rolling it with a thin layer of peanut butter and sugar, with butter and sugar, with butter and corn syrup, or with ham and eggs. It’s also quite good with beef and other savory items. Click here if you like to a recipe and how to make it.

Of course you can also put lutefisk in. If you don’t know what the traditional Yule dish lutefisk is, read my post from last Christmas about it. I’ve even heard that in some parts of the United States (such as Minnesota), lefse is available in grocery stores, just like tortillas; one Minnesota tortilla factory makes a run of lefse once a month on its tortilla equipment.

In the museum one can wander from one part of the country to another and virtually experience Norway in a day! So while I’m at it, let me also give a glimpse of some old rural buildings. We are visiting Hallingdal, a valley and traditional district in Buskerud a bit more than an hour drive west of Oslo. The first one is a loft or a storehouse:

Most of you might think of a loft as an upper room in a building, directly under the roof, used either for storage or to sleep in. Here you have a whole storing house. Observe that it stands on pillars to prevent moisture and animal intruders. This loft is from the 1700s at Grimsgard farm in Nes.
Update: My blog friend Mar from Spain has posted about their similar storehouse. Check it out!

Then lets take a look into a farmhouse, also from Hallingdal build in 1750:

You can see the coffee pot hanging over the fireplace and in front a copper kettle for logs. Remember; no electricity and the houses where quite cold, so the charming atmosphere as we see it, might have felt a bit different 250 years ago. You might also see the bed on the left side in the picture and that it is quite short. People at that time slept more like sitting than laying down as they thought it prevented illnesses like pneumonia.

Still hungry for more from this museum? Well, you might check my posts: The Christmas Fair in December and Advent time in Norway. Here's the link to the Museum (don't panic at the language - there is an English translation!).

Folk Dance in Bunad from Norway

2007-05-21T21:20:00.001+02:00

You never get to see (or have time to) interesting things as much as when you have visitors. It makes you feel like a tourist in your own neighbourhood. My regular readers know my MIL is in Norway, and today we’ll take you to the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History. You have been there with me a couple of times before (please check the links at the end), but you always find new adventures at this museum. The Open-Air Museum features 155 authentic buildings from different national regions, like the Gol Stave Church from the 13th century, and sets the scene for entertaining activities all year. For this post I had to make a selection, so it’ll be Folk Dance and Bunad (regional folk costumes).

Many consider Norwegian folk music, song and dance traditions to be the most characteristically Norwegian arts of all. Traditional music and associated dances have withstood changing musical trends down through the years and stand today as a highly popular and dynamic cultural activity. This is one picture I took the day we where there:

Update: TorAa reminded me of that they are from Setesdal
- not Hallingdal as I first said!
- click to enlarge!

In contrast to many other countries, this type of music and dance never went out of style in Norway, and there is an unbroken tradition spanning centuries in much of the country. As a tourist in Norway, you may be in search of the exotic and somewhat folkloric image of folk music and dance with origins springing directly from a wild and mystical nature - a window into the Norwegian national soul. I hope you get a hint from the picture above.

In the pictures you see them in special folk costumes called ‘Bunad’. Its use has reached far outside folk dancing and folk music. Just take a look at my last post (scroll down one post!) about our National Day and you see plenty of them.
It is not possible to state accurately the number of different types of bunad in Norway, there may be around 200. At the museum we saw these to charming ladies and were allowed to take a picture:

The various bunads have their own distinct origin. Some of them are based on local customs dating way back, other models are reconstructions made in this century, relying on local and historical material. These ladies’ comes from Telemark, my home county! The interest for bunads started with the folk dance movement at the beginning of the 19th.

My niece in bunad at her confirmation a few years ago.
Also from Telemark as you can see, but without the jacket.

In the late 1800's, there was a national romantic movement in Norway, due to the liberation first from Denmark and then from Sweden. Norway was searching for its own national identity, and the people had a desire to take care of everything genuinely Norwegian. Traditional folk costumes were commonly worn in the Norwegian rural areas. The people living in towns wore clothes much like that in other European and American towns. Interest in folk costumes increased as the culture and traditions of rural Norway were looked upon with nostalgia.

My blog friend Britt-Arnhild from Norway made a great post about bunad with more details as she prepared for the 17th of May. Go check by clicking here!

We explored a lot more at the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History of course, but I’ve decided to split it into two posts. So the next entry will be about a traditional soft Norwegian flatbread called Lefse and some rural houses - so stay tuned!

17th of May – Norway’s National Day in Oslo

2007-05-17T22:24:00.000+02:00

Talking about tradition, culture and habits, nothing is more Norwegian than 17th of May (‘Syttende Mai’ in Norwegian), our National day. Our constitution was signed at this day in 1814 and declared Norway an independent nation. Please read my post from last year to get the whole story and background!
Having my MIL from US visiting, we had the privilege of taking her to Oslo and giving her the feel of the real national atmosphere. I just love to take you with us, especially my fellow Cyber Cruisers (check the links at the end of this post!).

But let’s start with the beginning and what’s so special in the way Norwegians are celebrating this national day: the children’s parade:

Please click all the pics to enlarge!

All over Norway, children march through the local neighbourhoods with an abundance of flags and traditional costumes. Each elementary school arranges its own parade, led by the school's own marching band. The parade takes the children through the community, often making stops at homes for senior citizens, war memorials, etc. This picture is taking in our neighbourhood before we went to Oslo City.

In Oslo however, very many schools are coming together and parading up the main street, Karl Johan to the Royal Castle to greet the royal family as the national symbol they are. The King and the Queen with their family are on their balcony waving to each and every child passing by:

The parade starts at 10 and last for three hours. No wonder the Royal family feels very honoured but also rather exhausted. Then of course there is only one 17th of May each year, so they have a heavy program and among others they visit a different school every year who have prepared a special national day program, preformed by children of course.

Uranienborg elementary school founded in 1886

Another school – flag parade first.

Norwegian newer national history in a nut shell:
In the 14th century Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were members of the Union of Kalmar. In 1459, Sweden broke away from the Union and as a result Norway became closely linked to Denmark. During the 18th century, Danish control over Norway relaxed and at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Treaty of Kiel transferred Norway to Sweden. Norwegians refused to accept the change, as they wanted independence. The Swedish army invaded Norway, but thankfully an agreement was reached. On the 17th May 1814, the Norwegian constitution was written at Eidsvold, Norway. Norwegians were allowed to retain their constitution on condition that the Swedish king was to remain king of Norway. In 1905 the union with Sweden peacefully dissolved, and the Danish prince Carl (Haakon VII) was invited by the Norwegian people to become king. of Norway. Later, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson continued Wergeland's work. In 1870 he organized the first children's parade, which remains the most important event on 17th May.

Russ - The revelling Norwegian high school graduates:
A report from the 17th of May in Norway without mention the Russ, would be a disgrace. They also add a colourful element in the celebration. You can read all about this special tradition in my post from last year by clicking here! They have now celebrated their graduation for a couple of weeks. Some are worn out, some are still going strong:

So by this I hope you’ve got a clue of what 17th of May is all about and what it means for the Norwegian people. You might call it a bit nationalistic, but I would then say in a nice and including way. Like my MIL said when we got back home; “We all felt like Norwegians today”.

Update #1:
My blog friend TorAa was in Oslo to celebrate Syttende Mai too. Please click here to see more pics and get the whole day from his perspective too! I would say: A thrill money can't buy:-)

Update #2:
Caïla, a very good friend from Norway, living in LA, made a real good post about our Constitutional Day too and with great pictures. I do recommend you all to visit by clicking here!

As I said in the beginning, this post is a part of a cyber cruise. Read more about Lifecruiser cyber cruise and the Cyber Cruise Calendar 2007.

BlogCatalog Buzz Experiment

2007-05-14T21:21:00.000+02:00

A week ago, I was invited by Mona Weathers to participate in an experiment to show how a collected group of ‘fans’ can create a buzz and how it will effect the traffic to their blogs. You know I’m curious and fascinated by networking and the blogsphere, so I was thinking why not?

Most of you know there is a lot of catalogues, communities or lists where you can register with a profile and your blog(s). You’ll fine the ones I have used during the past years by clicking 'Feeds and Listings' on my sidebar to the right under Navigation. This time it’s about BlogCatalog then:

I’ve been there since December 2005 and it’s a great community where you can hock up with others and meet good old blog friends. I will say its user- friendly and I kind of like the site design. Their directory browsing style separating blogs into categories, makes it easy to find what you are looking for. Mine is listed in Travel, Culture, Food Tradition, Seasons and of course History as well as Norway.

I also like the interaction in each blog detail page where you can see activities like resent viewers, friends and leave comments (even if you’re not a member!).

Last, but not the least, I will recommend their new Discussion area which is fun to read and reinforces the community interaction.

Click on the widget to go to my blog and please join my neighbourhood if you haven’t already. Click here to see my profile and then you are welcome to add me of course:-)

Btw; my MIL from US is still visiting, so I’m rather busy. The top event this time will be to see her grandson celebrating the 17th of May as a Russ (click here to see what I mean!)

Wish upon a tree

2007-05-12T00:24:00.000+02:00

Walking around in Oslo the 5th of May for the 24 hours of Flickr contribution (scroll down to read the other post!), I was passing the town hall square. There I found the World Red Cross Crescent Day 2007 celebration. The main issue in Norway was the ‘missing people’ around the world. I talked to some of the representatives and asked: why don’t you put up an official IFRC blog for that, but they didn’t seem to understand the power of the blogshpere! Do any of my readers know any of that type of blogs?

What caught my eye at the square even more was ‘The wishing tree’:

Red Cross Wishing Tree in front of Oslo Town Hall

All of a sudden, I had a Déjà Vu experience – I’ve seen this phenomena before at another exhibition? But of course; on another quality time with my wife at Yoko Ono’s exhibition ‘Horizontal memories’ at Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in 2005. Digging on the net, I’ve found this:
A Wish Tree is an individual tree, usually distinctive due to species, position or appearance, and identified as being of special religious value or spiritual identity. By tradition, people making wishes and offerings to the tree in some way thought the ritual votive offering increases the chances of the wish being granted. This behaviour, using living trees, is one of making an offering to the nature spirit or goddess of the tree with the hope of gaining benefit.

I wrote my wish on a note and put it on the tree of course. Then some days later I passed the square again and this time surrounded by a bunch of students:

This time there were many more ‘leaves’ and a lot more good wishes. I was thinking: ‘what you are focused on, you get more of’. I don’t mean to be pompous, but what if we focus more on what unite us instead of the conflicts and what divides us (religion, politics, habits, traditions, the past, bad experiences in life e.g.)?

I found my note as well: ‘Make blogs not wars’. To me blogging is about learning, exchanging knowledge and getting insight in other people and cultures. I enjoy giving you mine from Norway and the Nordic countries as well as I love to visit your blogs to experience the same. If you were to put up a wish on the tree, what would you say?

Btw: My Mother in Law is coming over from the US tomorrow, so we will have a jolly good reunion and lots of family time. Excuse me for being a bit in and out online:-)

Get yourself a Facebook life!

2007-05-08T22:28:00.000+02:00

Some of you might have registered this a while ago, some might not have heard of it. I am in something between and am already addicted. No wonder since I call myself a network evangelist:-) Facebook, a net basted society, is the most popular community and fastest increasing in membership on the net today – well, maybe except for Second Life. The Facebook fever has so far grabbed the attention of 25 million people. It's hottest on this years The web award (MySpace isn't even nominated)!

It all started much like many other net societies. Some graduate students from a university panicked when they realised their where about to end the wonderful student time and leave their friends. How to keep in touch? I remember the first time I noticed this phenomena was in the mid 90s with Yahoo Groups. This time it is Marck Zuckerberg at Harvard who got a copy of ‘the facebook’ (class list or yearbook) and in 2004 facebook.com was launched. After 24 hours, 1200 of Harvard students registered. 26th of September last year, the network was opened to everyone. Rumours tell that Zuckerberg has received an offer of almost 8 bill dollars for his company from Google, but so far he has refused.

I was invited to Facebook first time half a year ago, but I was thinking: no, not another place to register! I’m already listed at LinkedIn, Xing, Ryze, Ecademy, Ziggs, n2c and Ning! But then my fellow blog friend Teena sent me an invitation and I was thinking: If she can, so can I and then she was my very first friend (at Facebook! :-)

First you register with your name, birthday, hometown as well as political and religious views (optional). You can chose whether one or all of this information can bee seen (or searched) by everyone or only your friends. You may also register your education and work info. Then you start to collaborate in networks and groups (open or restricted) and you may find your old schoolmates or friends from your past (or newer like your blog friends!?!).
You may also feed your blog posts into your profile page and download pictures (some does it too uncritical I think!). You have to accept request for friendship before you let them into your world. Then they may ‘write messages on your wall’ or send you gifts. On the status page, you will be able to see who is on, what they do, which friendship or group attending they have accepted lately and if they have uploaded pictures.
Please click on my widget in this post and have a look! If you are registered, it would have been nice to receive a friend request! If not, you won’t be sucked in without knowing, but don’t say I haven’t warned you – you might be addicted!

Tonight I was watching the news on TV telling that some companies have forbidden their employees to open Facebook at work. I do understand their point of view but feel it is a bit like swimming like a shrimp, as backwards:-) Do they forbid them to do work on their laptops at home (or in spare times) too? It reminds me of the time when some did the same with solitaire when Windows came out in 1991. Some was addicted and of course it affected their work, but they also learned how to navigate in the new graphic user interface too. I seldom see people play card games at work now, but they do other things on the net – at work and at home and even more efficient:-)

24 hours of flickr from Oslo

2007-05-05T22:45:00.000+02:00

Global communities fascinate me – yes, you might say I’m addicted:-). I was invited to join ‘24 Hours of Flickr’, a day-long global photo project. The challenge was to grab your camera and whatever else needed and chronicle the day in pictures.

The event will be commemorated by a companion 24 Hours of Flickr book, which will contain a selection of photographs chosen from the group. Additionally, the group's photos will be featured at Flickr events around the world this summer.

So off I went to Oslo with my Nikon Cool Pix S2, fully charged. I took about 50 pictures touring around, looking for the scoop of the day. I had a great time although I’d hope the weather would have been better. It was cloudy, a bit windy and around 15C (60F). I met a lot of people including a nice, young couple from Poland exploring the capital of Norway and a fan of Roald Amundsen, the Polar explorer and Thor Heyerdahl, our famous ethnographer and adventurer.

Among all the captured impression and adventures of my afternoon trip in Oslo today, I have decided to share a few from a famous Norwegian sculptor; Skule Waksvik:

Skule Waksvik 1989 at Aker Brygge in Oslo

He is born in Strinda on the 22nd of December 1927 and his motive is mostly from nature, animals and women often placed in public places. This sculpture is placed at Aker Brygge; for more than a hundred years a shipyard, but in 1982 the old wharf was turned into a modern place with restaurants, shops, offices, luxurious apartments and leisure-boat docks. On the other end of Aker Brygge square, I found another sculpture of Waksvik:

Skule Waksvik; Lady at the dock

The first picture in this post will be posted at the 24 hours of flickr as only one picture can be presented there. Here at my blog of course I can do what I like, so I’ll share a few more from my day in Oslo:

Sailing ship in front of Akershus Fortress

Oslo Fountain

Just for the fun of it: Do you think I’ve chosen the right pic for the contest, or would you have picked on of the last two?

May 1st empowering the People

2007-05-01T16:48:00.000+02:00

It’s hard not to talk politics at the 1st of May and then in a wider sense of the word. I was in Oslo to get an idea of the atmosphere today, with my Nokia mobile phone on hand of course. I’ll gladly share my experience with you. Let’s dig into the importance and impact of the day as I show you ‘Youngstorget’ (The Labour Square):

People gathering for the demonstration.
Click to enlarge the pics!

May Day refers to various socialist and labour movement celebrations conducted on May 1, unrelated to the traditional celebrations to commemorate the Haymarket martyrs of 1886 and the international socialist movement generally. Some of my American readers might now that May Day in the United States is commonly regarded — at least by certain groups — as a commemoration of the execution of the Haymarket martyrs who were arrested after the Haymarket Riot of 1886 in Chicago, Illinois, which occurred on May 4, but was the culmination of labour unrest which began on May 1. The date consequently became established as an anarchist and socialist holiday during the 20th century, and in these circles it is often known as International Workers' Day or Labour Day. In this form, May Day has become an international celebration of the social and economic achievements of the working class and labour movement.

Throughout Norway on the 1st of May there are parades or to be more accurate: demonstrations – but friendly and calm ones! Let me give you some examples and try to translate their message or slogan:

Yes to ethnical diversity -- Norway be responsible...
Fight racism! - - ... reduce harmful gas pollution!

What makes me so enthusiastic about this is that people and organisations with different points of view and slogans walk together in perfect harmony. They might sing or shout out their message, but without interfering or abusing others. In fact I saw no police around as the demonstration parade, about 5 km long, walked around in perfect harmony. Let me give you some international examples:

Fair treatment in Kurdistan -- Stop mistreating muckrakers! (whistleblowers)

An important part of the demonstration is the Norwegian marching band. I could not resist taking pics of this one with the cutest girls holding the tassels of the banner so proudly:

I can’t think of a better way to end this post than a quote from Evelyn Beatrice Hall, in her 1906 book 'The Friends of Voltaire': "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." To me democracy is much more than giving power to more or less responsible politicians - its about empowering the people!

I made a post about it last year too, when some of my blog friends even suggested that I run for Norwegian Prime Minister!. Like I said then: I was born ultra conservative, love to live in a social democracy and probably will die as a communist:-)

So then I challenge all my blogger friends and new readers as well of course: How was your 1st of May this year?

Trondheim, Norway – The City with a Heart

2007-04-28T00:21:00.000+02:00

My regular readers know I was there last weekend and I’ve promised you a guided trip as always when traveling, domestic or abroad, so here we go:
Trondheim, or Nidaros, is an old city in the mid or centre of Norway. A university dominates the town; its more than 25.000 students add to Trondheim’s 160.000 inhabitants and the resulting economy fuels many local businesses. The city is the oldest of Norway's major and its old heritage can still be traced in and around the city centre. The most famous is of course the marvelous Nidaros Cathedral, the largest church of Northern Europe, so lets start there:

King Olav Haraldsson was buried by Nidelven, the river Nid, after he was killed in the battle of Stiklestad in 1030. Tradition has it that the high Altar of the Cathedral now stands on the exact spot of this burial site. One year and five days after he died the King was declared a saint, and pilgrims began to flock to Nidaros and the King's grave. Here is the outside of the Altar where you can see his face sculptured at the bottom:

When restoration of the West Front started about 100 years ago only a handful of the original sculptures had survived. Most of today's sculptures have therefore been modeled and cut during the 1900s. Have a look:

Trondheim was - contrary to common belief - not so much a center for Vikings but the religious center of northern Europe in the middle Ages and a vital hub for North-Atlantic trade thus giving the town plentiful of characteristic mansions and harbor houses. The inhabitants like to call their town the historical, the religious and the technology capital of Norway. So let’s go take a look at one of the other churches:

This church is the sole medieval parish church to survive the Reformation and the many town fires. One the east wall off the choir is an inspiration telling that the church was dedicated to St Mary and was build by Bjørn Sigvardssson. In the middle Ages, Trondheim had 5 monasteries and up to 17 churches, about half of which where parish churches. Most of these, and the Dominican Monastery, stood in the southern part of the medieval town, like this church. This implies that the population was densest in this part of the town.

The city celebrated its 1000-years anniversary as an official city in 1997. For centuries Trondheim was the northernmost trading city in European civilization, giving it a special "edge-of-the-world" feeling. Its status as a mercantile town also resulted in a more open-hearted, international culture than many other Scandinavian cities at the time, which indeed it has protected. Here you see a picture from the town square with Olav Trygvason on top of the pedestal:

The city boasts a rich, cultural heritage, but is still a major center. Even if the size is modest, there's a lot going on in Trondheim. Music, arts, culture, alternative politics, nightlife, student life... all combines into making Trondheim one of the most exciting city centers of Northern Europe. The buildings of medieval Trondheim were mostly small low timber houses and fires all to often ravaged the town. A disastrous fire in 1681 destroyed most of the buildings, and Major Jean Caspar de Cicignon from Luxembourg was sent to create a new Baroque city layout. Several narrow alleyways have, however, survived to our time and form a marked contrast to Cicignon's boulevards from the 17th century. We had a guided tour when there, so I’ll give you some examples:

Still wants to know more about this City with a Heart? Check Wikipedia or their official tourist guide site.
For those who wants more and from a different point of view; please visit my blog friend TorAa who was there at the same time – at your own risk:-)

A bit tired after the guided tour and want something to drink? Scroll down and have some of the most Viking like refreshment – the beer and even from a local brewery!

Update:
This post has become a part of this years Lifecruisers Cyber Cruise - what an honor!

Be inviting charm of Microbreweries in Norway

2007-04-24T23:18:00.000+02:00

Last weekend I was in Trondheim - mid Norway - the city King Olav Tryggvason of Viking fame founded in 997. I will take you through the street of this ‘City with a Heart’ in my next post. Today I’d like to invite you into a more modern establishment; Trondheim Mikrobryggeri (Microbrewerie), founded in 1998. We were welcomed by the charming staff in an intimate, personal ambiance:

All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone – click to enlarge!

But let’s start with the phenomena; Microbrewerie (from their own website):

Brewing in small batches to serve in own pubs has spread in the past 15 to 20 years around the world. Beer-lovers everywhere have grown tired of industry breweries with their profit focus that continually forces them to cut back on quality-- and this means using inferior ingredients that give beer its special taste: hops and malt.

One of the founders; Mr. Nordmark, giving us a presentation.

Microbreweries, on the other hand, don’t have the same economies of scale such as large industrial groups, and therefore they don’t have much to save by scrimping a little here and there on the ingredients they use. As a result, they can afford to brew a variety of beers of the highest quality using copious amounts of the best ingredients.
In line with this philosophy, Trondhjem Mikrobryggeri uses only the highest quality ingredients. They get their malt from the same Scottish farmers who provide the most famous and revered malt whisky distillers of Scotland. Their hops come from renowned farms in the Czech Republic, Germany, England and the US. In contrast to most Norwegian breweries, they use fresh aroma hops—giving the beer its special, characteristic taste.
All the beer served at Trondhjem Mikrobryggeri is brewed at the pub:

Beer served from a mug …..

….. in a friendly atmosphere :-)

There are around 10 Microbreweries in Norway and Trondheim was the first one who produced ecologic beer. Their yearly production is around 50 000 litre (13 208 US Gallon) pr year. They brew Trondhjem’s Pils, Stout Pale, Ale India Pale, Ale Bitter, Amber and Porter. I tasted them all (a small glass of each LoL) and it was a great variety of lovely tastes. You can read more about it at Wikipedia here. Do you have Microbreweries in your neighbourhoods?

Update 07.04.26:
I had a note from Mr. S. Berg, chairman of the board of directors at Mikrobryggeriet. He was pleased about my endorsement of course. He told me they also own Oslo Mikrobryggeri and that the right name for it in English is 'Brew Pub' - what do you think?

Blogs That Make Me Think

2007-04-19T00:01:00.000+02:00

I have been tagged by two of my blog friends recently and of course I feel flattered and honored. It was Pearl on her Humanyms and Irish Church Lady in her ‘Sláinte! It’s only Me’. It was Ilker on his The Thinking Blog that started it all. Click them all as they are worth a visit if you like something of the thought provoking variety.

The rules are simple:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote.

Of course it’s hard to choose as I have so many lovely blog friends and there is such a great variety of blog sites that make you think out there. Never the less, these are the one that came to mind this evening:

"The Thinker" -a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin.

I’ll start with the magnificent photo blogger; ‘My Sari Sari Store’, Mr. Sidney actually from Belgium who photo blogs about the Philippines. He is a man of few words, although sometimes with interesting stories, but what make you think are the impressive photos he provides you with.

The next pick is Ginnie’s ‘In Sole’ from Georgia in US. She is a great photographer too and takes us around the world with insight and interesting posts. I met her on her blog after (sorry it was not before so that I could have met her!) she had been in Oslo and posted about it. Like I often say: Blogging - connecting people and I do hope she’ll come visiting Oslo again one day!

Then I will draw your attention to Eirik Solheim on his eirikso.com, a fellow Norwegian who has an excellent blog about Home Theatre PC’s, the media industry, travel, food, drink, the universe and everything. I met him when he gave an educative and interesting presentation about blogging for the Norwegian Computer Society. Since then I often visit him if I need thoughts and advice about these kind of subjects.

Italian’s Insight to Travel Italy by David Anderson is a great place whenever you like to know about food, wine, hotels, art, culture, and people in this country. He is actually from US, but has been living in Italy for 20 years and even met his wife there. He always makes me want to visit Italy and experience what he writes about when I visit his blog.

Then we have a fairly new blog friend of mine; Norma from Ohio in 'Collecting my Thoughts' and she shares them with interesting insight. She is an retired Associate Professor who writes and paints and actually has a lot of interesting and thoughtful blogs. You just have to visit her impressive librairy!

And last but not least, is Charles: The Queer Chef. He is a Philippine now studying media in Bergen, Norway. It’s a merged food and personal blog and he always surprises me with recipes mixed from his own and Norwegian food culture. Charles is also my one and only blog designer, so he has giving me not only interesting thoughts about how a nice blog looks, but also given me the proof of the pudding:-)

That was tonight’s votes from RennyBA’s Terella jury - okay, it was six but I could not resist. Hope you’ll enjoy the trip in my thoughtful blogsphere. Tomorrow I’ll be going to Trondheim (mid part of Norway) for the weekend, attending The Norwegian Computer Society’s annual meeting. There might be important discussions about efficient use of Information Technology, so I have to see to that the right decisions are made you know:-)

I Choose April

2007-04-15T20:58:00.000+02:00

One of Norway’s famous author, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832 – 1910), celebrated for his lyrics to the National Anthem and was also a 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate once wrote a poem ‘Jeg velger meg april’ (I choose April). The story says he was writing for a magazine who wanted one poem per month, and April was the one left. He decided to make the best out of it – in an offensive way – and his reason was:
-because it storms and wipes –it smiles and melts –it’s capable and in it the summer comes!

After all, my blog is about Norway, our significant four seasons, so let me give you another example of its powerful change: Today I had another quality time with my wife, and experienced just that and I’ll gladly take you along on our trip:

Children wading at the stony shore.

Remember Norwegians have 4 - 5 months of winter behind us - a wet, cold, windy, snowy season with daylight time down to 6 hours where we live. Don’t get me wrong; my regular readers know I love it; skiing, skating, ski jumping and even curling, all outdoors with crisp fresh air. The best of it though, is the season change and you notice and appreciate it even more when the nature wakes up from hibernation. Let me give you some promising examples:

This years first BBQ among the scilla in the garden.

Blue and white Anemone (Hepatica) – and “hestehov” called horses hooves.

The two last pics are from our trip through the forest to the beach today. These flowers are stubborn as they find their way towards the spring sun through the last year’s fallen leaves. Everything longing for the warm and prosperous season and as you can see in this post’s first pics the youngest can’t resist the first wade of the year.

The smell in the air, the songs from the migratory birds busy making their new homes and also the waves on the beach make you humble. Spring is in the air and soon there will be summer again:

Norwegians exalt the spring!

For those who really like to see the contrast to this spring time, I’ve actually posted from this very beach in the winter time last year: ‘Walking on water’. In a couple of months these people will lay on the sand tanning and even swim or play in the water. Today the water holds around 10C (50F) and in June/July it’s often above 20C (69F). So all of you who are planning for summer; come visit Norway in a couple of months and see how nice, warm and sunny it can be! If you tell me in advance, I’ll gladly guide you around or you can find a lot of tips looking around in my blog of course.

Why do men hate shopping?

2007-04-12T21:52:00.000+02:00

Most of my regular readers know that I’m on a cyber cruise these weeks (see links at the end of this post). Today we’re supposed to go shopping before the cruise ball on Saturday the 14th. That’s a real challenge to me as I 'hate' shopping. Well, I don’t mind buying things and of course I like to get new things (when needed!), but shopping for fun and as an adventure is defiantly not my cup of tee. So all day long, I’ve been debating with myself how to approach this challenge, and I’ve decided to do it my way: to explain why men (at least me – I don’t mean to generalise!) doesn’t shop for the sake of entertainment:

My theory or actually it was my wife who came up with it first: is the different between men as ‘hunters’ and woman as ‘collectors’. Going back to the indigenous people, the men’s obligation was to go out in the wild world to locate, find, kill and bring home food for the family. Women collected berries, herbs and other important ingredients for the household and took time to find the best (not the poison once!) among a verity to choose from. Please don’t think I evaluate one of the roles as a more important as the other! It was more a question of dividing tasks.

So I don’t go out shopping for the entertainment. Window-shopping is for me a strange word. I like to look at ‘nice’ things when I walk around, but there might be other ‘objects’ than things in the windows that catch my eye when I walk around:-) I remember I was in a small town with my wife in US once – it was out of the season – and we asked a local what a tourist could experience there. She said with enthusiasm: we have two lovely, big malls here, you might go shopping!?!

So for me to get the needed things for the cruise ball on Saturday takes about half an hour. Luckily we are not supposed to post the result of today’s shopping as that would spoil all the surprise faces. Since that and because of my attitude for shopping, there is not that much to post about either. So what do I rather do instead then? I mean, I love to go out, to explore and experience:

Alternative to shopping:-)

I’ll rather sit down with a friend to relax, talk and discuss ‘important’ things in life. This picture is of me and my very good friend Gunnar (click to find his blog ‘Backstage’) taken some years ago. For those who want to know more about what I do when my wife goes shopping; take a look at the posts ‘Boy’s at play while wives are shopping’ about what my friend TorAa and I did in Sweden at Christmas time.

This might be a different kind of post about shopping and not the kind my fellow cyber cruisers might expect, but at least it was honest and as always I’m anxious to read your comments :-)

Bonfire at the Easter Egg hunt

2007-04-09T22:40:00.000+02:00

To me Easter Holiday is family time full of childhood traditions. The top of the cream is the yearly Easter Bunny Egg hunt in the woods near my parent’s home. It’s also normally the first taste of spring where you really can smell nature awakening and see the early stubborn flowers peeking up from the recent thawed soil in the woods. If listen carefully, you can also hear the first songs from the migrant birds who have returned from southern Europe. Yesterday was no exception and I’ll gladly take you along. Lets start with childish anticipation; will the Easter Bunny be there and lay eggs this year too?

This is a tradition passed from generation to generation in my family. Going out in the forest Sundays at all seasons was a habit, but the first day of Easter was special because we were on this special expedition; has the bunny been there – will I find my egg – what will be inside this year?

The hunt - and the yummy treasure.

For those who haven’t heard about how and why the Easter Bunny laid eggs in the forest, please click to read my post from last year. This year I will invite you to sit in and eat with us at the bonfire with a special Norwegian recipe:

The Pinnebrød dough - Grilling the sausage and the bread

My sister always makes this dough called ‘pinnebrød’ (branch bread) which you can roll around the stick or around the sausage stuck on the branch. The recipe: 250 grams flour, ½ ts salt, ½ ts baking powder, 1 table spoon melted butter or oil, and 1.5 dl melk, make a simple dough of these ingredients and we like to add sunflower seeds for extra flavour. It is fast cooked on the fire and taste just lovely.

It was fairly cold this year, actually close to freezing and with light snow in the air. This didn’t stop us from our yearly adventures of course and most of my regular readers know our saying: There is no such as bad weather, only bad clothes. Besides, the bonfire keeps us warm along with the greatest company and of course storytelling (my sister’s of how the bunny started laying eggs is a must!):

Please click on the pics to see details as there are numerous ways to cook your sausage. This year I made a relatively thick pinnebrød and made it like a hot dog roll. My wife likes to wrap the dough around her hot dog and cook them together; others cook the dough on the stick and slide the hot dog in the hole. Some taste a bit burned of course, also a bit smoked and those who have problems with a bit of dust and ashes on your fingers have a problem – we don’t, but then again the closer to the natural elements, the better we think. By the way some of my readers asked if it was hard to be a vegetarian in Norway, my niece is a vegetarian so we bought some soy hotdogs for her to eat too…so everything is possible you know.

Picking spring flowers

Going home, with the stomach full of sweets (I prefer chocolate and marzipan) and of course home made hot dogs, the anticipation is fulfilled. Then almost out of the forests, I found my niece picking Anemone nemorosa (white flower and proof of spring in Norway). She picked a bouquet for grandma as we all went to my parent’s house for dinner. 10 were people sitting together talking about the lovely day and this great tradition and with the spring flowers as a reminder, decorating the table. The older you get, the more important those quality times are and even the youngster says they wouldn’t miss it next year for anything either:-)

Warm summer memories from Norway

2007-04-04T13:01:00.000+02:00

My regular readers know I am on Lifecruiser Cyber Cruise for the time being (see links below). Today’s challenge for the A-Team Cruisers is to put up a memorable photo from a place we have strong memories of. It’s hard to choose, but since my blog is about Norway, our culture, traditions and habits and also the significant four seasons, I’ll take one from a summer holiday at a cottage by the North Sea:

The evenings catch:-)

This is from the stairs of a cottage we rented at Risør (200 km south of Oslo) at the beginning of august 2003. We’d heard from the local fishermen that mackerel had invaded the fjord and of course we had to try our luck at fishing. We used fishing equipment called a ‘harpe’ with 6 hooks in a row and there were three of us fishing with these at the time. In less than an hour we had around 30 fish (mackerel, cod and coalfish). Sometimes we got 4 or 5 fishes on each harpe and your might say it was very lively in the small rowboat. At one point my wife said: ‘If any more fish want to come in this boat, they will have to take a number!’

In the last post, I told you about the Norwegian tradition of going to the mountains at Easter to enjoy the last of the ski season. In the summer time, most Norwegian families travel to the shore of our extremely long coastline, to enjoy the beaches, boating and the summer sun. Many families have or rent simple cottages near the ocean to spend their vacation.

This kind of experiences really takes me down the memory line. I’ve been boating (I build my own small sailing boat when I was 10) and fishing since I was a little boy and made my own equipment, experimented with hooks and bait both for salt and fresh water fishing. Very soon I learned to clean the fish (feeling like a surgeon) and often we built a bonfire on the shore to grill the fish.

A nice swim - Boiling a fresh caught crab.

The areas around the cottages are usually quite private, so it is not unusual to simply go skinny dipping. It saves us the trouble of changing, and why fuss with all those wet bathing suits anyway:-) But you have to watch out when you are doing your skinny dipping, as you can see above, fish isn’t the only thing to be caught in these waters!! Fortunately this fellow is rather shy around swimmers.

Opening of Nordic golf season

2007-04-02T22:30:00.000+02:00

Since the Easter holidays run from the coming Thursday until next Monday in Norway, quite a few take this week off for Easter vacation. Most of us head for the mountains to get the last taste of winter and snow. Weather in the south part of Norway is perfect; a bit below freezing, sunny and enough snow for both cross country and downhill. In the news today, we saw young people having fun on snowboards in bikini:-) Yes, I know: we are the crazy Vikings!

Our family, however, headed over the Swedish border to our summer paradise in Mariestad. Spring has arrived early this year, the birds are singing, the crocus is blooming and most important of all; the golf season has begun:

The seasons first swing:-)

This morning, my wife and I opened the golf season with a good round in fantastic sunshine and good spirits. Our game might not have been perfect, but everything else was. A hole in one of spring experiences - the last round was in October last year! I know some of you don’t play golf at all or you might play it all year long. To a Scandinavian, after a cold and snowy winter season, it is like braking out of hibernation to see green grass and a lush putting green. The only trees that are green are the pine trees, but you can almost smell the growing buds on the birch trees:

Nordic golf course waking up from hibernation.

Walking around in a crisp wind and in temperature around 18C (64F) was so refreshing. I started with a wind proof jacket and ended in a t-shirt. I had both my Nokia mobile phone and a step counter on my belt. Click to enlarge the pics and I can tell you we walked almost 12 000 steps so it’s a great workout too!

The charming couple - The club house.

Golfing is one of the most social activities you can ever do. In a flight of four we met a nice and charming Swedish couple from the local area. He was a history teacher and we exchanged and discussed a lot of mutual Scandinavian history. Remember; Norway has been in union under the Swedish rule (1814 to 1905), so it’s always interesting to share opinions and knowledge. To a certain extent, that is what golf is all about.

Talking about history, experiences and culture of the Nordic countries; would you like to know a bit about Iceland too? Well then you are welcome to join us in Lifecruisers Cyber Cruise as we are in Niceland today. Click here to explore together with us!

Trash People at Piazza del Popolo in Rome

2007-03-31T15:21:00.000+02:00

Most of my regular readers know that I was in Rome last week – please scroll down if you haven’t red my two posts! On Saturday I had the most adventures walk in the city close to the Vatican. Walking towards a big town square I saw a huge amount of statues in rows. Curious as I am, I had to check it out and this was the first view:

All pics taken with my Nikon CoolPix S2 - click to enlarge!

The Piazza del Popolo is one of the most famous places in Rome. Starting from the Middle Ages it was the main entrance to the city from north. It was the main meeting place of the foreigners, rather than of Romans. The place was turned into a square by Sixtus V, who erected in the middle of it a 24m high (with the basement 36m) Egyptian obelisk (13th-12th centuries b.C.). The name in modern Italian literally means "piazza of the people", but historically it derives from the poplars (populs in Latin, pioppo in Italian) after which the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in the northeast corner of the piazza, takes its name.

This piazza served as an exposition hall, a stadium, and a theatre for popular plays. The face of the piazza changed a great deal from the 1400's to the 1800's, with the reconstruction of the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo (to the right in the picture above), the placement of the Flaminian obelisk at the centre of the piazza, and the addition of neo-classical elements by Giuseppe Valadier.

So what I saw while entering this square was actually HA Schult's famous exhibition; ‘Trash People’:

Not since the invention of abstract painting has any art form been as thoroughly discussed as action art. Abstract art had a profound impact on thinking and creating during the first half of the 20th century; and now many aspects of action art have likewise passed directly into everyday life.

It was a reminder of that everyday element has been influencing art more and more strongly, and art has been responding to everyday life more and more quickly. In no other era has there been anything like this dialogue between art and everyday life. The range of materials used in art has never been so wide as today. Anything can be made into art. Mankind's confines have narrowed; the freedom of art is unlimited. We live in the trash time: we produce trash and we become trash. Therefore HA Schult's 'Trash People' are images of ourselves.

In 1996, when HA Schult has installed one thousand life sized 'Trash People', in the Amphitheatre of Xanten, the idea was born to send them around the world. Like the pyramids of Giza send messages to us from times past, HA Schult's 'Trash People' will travel as a 'now time expression' to the world's most important spots. As far as I know, the next place is Placa Reail in Barcelona, Spain and then New York and then in 2008 in Antarctics. If you have the chance I would say: Carpe Diem!

Listen to this post

Lifecruisers Crazy Hat Parade

2007-03-28T20:31:00.000+02:00

Most of my regular readers probably know that I am participating on an exciting Cyber Cruise these days. For those who don’t you’ll find links for more cruise information below – you are welcome on board any time!

Today we are qualifying for the Crazy Hat Parade and of course as one of the cruise’s A-Team member, I’ll give you my contribution:

I’ve ‘made’ my own hat of course and this is very dear and special to me – my Pin Hat. I started my collection of pins at The Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, 1994. Since then I’ve been looking for special pins all over the world. My total collection now count more than 40 pins, some very valuable, some with more affection value as it means something special to me. If I should point out one of the dearest to me, it must be the blue pin on the left (with the ski jumper) from Lake Placid, US. My father in law and his wife took me to Lake Placid last fall and to a Norwegian it gave me a thrill, money can’t buy:-)

The Hat itself is a gift from my sister. It’s a special traditional hat from Telemark, my home county/province :-)

Do you have a pin collection? If so, which are you dearest and why?

Lifecruiser Cyber Cruise in Technorati

Click to listen to this post!

Palatium in Rome – a cultural gastronomic sansation

2007-03-25T22:42:00.000+02:00

After a tour in Rome to see some of its lovely sights and great architecture it is time for a special treat. For those who haven’t yet; please scroll down to the last post to see The Spanish Stairs!

So I’ll take you to ”Palatium”, The Regional Wine Cellar. It’s a place dedicated to wine and food of the Lazio Region. Let’s have a look at the region before we go to dinner:
In the heart of Italy and along the Thyrrhenian Sea, Lazio is the centre of the Italian political life thanks to the presence of the government and Parliament; it is the Catholic world centre since there is the Vatican, and a favourite destination of tourism for the innumerable monuments of the Roman civilization and, along the Northern Tuscan border, of the Etruscan civilization.

All pics in this post taken with my Nokia phone. Click to enlarge!

Inside this gorgeous building, you’ll find, in a modern atmosphere, all kinds of typical products and information about them. It is promoted by the Region of Lazio and made to promote traditional and typical products. Window exposure of over a thousand traditional products is a multifunctional establishment which provides many different activities, like meetings, seminars, wine tasting courses and social or cultural events. While wine is the primary focus of this place, it is not the only one. You can try all delicacies of the region in a comfortable and informal atmosphere.

Are you ready for the dinner?:

Starter: Chicory hearts salad with fried fresh anchovies from Gaeta.
Wine: Chardonnay o5 Volpetti

Pasta: Paccheri (organic durum wheat pasta) with Amatriciana sauce (tomato, onion, chick pork, pecorino cheese).
Wine: Cesanese “Colle S. Quirico” 04 Cantina Terenzi

Main course: Breaded lambs chops seasoned with hazelnut from “Monti Cimini”.
Wine: as with pasta.

Dessert: Pure chocolate mousse with hazelnuts waffles from “Monti Cimini”.
Wine: Moscato di Terracina “Templum” Cantina Sant’ Andrea.

As a Norwegian, it has been a pleasure to have you all with me one day in Rome. Especially thank you to all Lifecruisers – you are all jolly good travel fellows! I do hope you’ve also had your DIY Brazilian Wax treatments by aka R’acquel today. Tomorrow we’ll go to the Dominican Republic with Coffee 2 go. See you there!

Ciao:-)

Listen to this article

The sheer imperial scale of Rome

2007-03-25T07:45:00.000+02:00

Visiting Rome, it's hard to say what you'll find most breathtaking about the Eternal City - the arrogant opulence of the Vatican, the timelessness of the Forum, the top speed of a Fiat Bambino, the gory resonance of the Coliseum, trying to cross a major intersection, or the bill for your caffe latte. Let’s start with the gladiator himself:

The founding of Rome is enveloped in myth: the story goes that the first city centre sprang up in 753 B.C. on the Palatine hill, built by Romulus after he had killed his twin brother Remus.
Romulus was the first of the seven kings of Rome, who started off the basic characteristics of this city that would go on to make Rome powerful throughout the ancient world: public works, institutional reforms, aqueducts.
With the arrival of the Republic, Rome increased its expansion policy and after the Punic Wars, Carthage, Corsica and Sardinia were all annexed to the Republic.
The end of the Republic determined the beginning of Silla’s dictatorship (82 B.C.)
The dictator Caius Julius Caesar oversaw a period of heavy expansion overseas. He was assassinated in 44 B.C.
The Emperor Octavius Augustus brought Rome to its “golden era”: a lengthy period of peace and stability, which was celebrated with monumental works of art. Todays attraction will be: Piazza di Spagna, or the Spanish Steps:

Upstairs - Downstairs

Piazza at the foot of the Spanish Steps, "Scalla di Spagna", also known as the "Scalinata della Trinita dei Monti". Design of the steps finished by Francesco de Sanctis after generations of controversy. The church at the top of the Steps is the Trinita dei Monti, founded by the French in 1495.

The fountain at the foot of the Spanish Steps, in the shape of a boat, is known at the "Barcaccia". It is said that Pietro Bernini, Gian Lorenzo's father, who created the fountain in 1627-29, got the idea when the Tiber overflowed its banks and a boat was stranded in the square.

As I started; it’s hard to say what is the most breathtaking about Rome. As you walk around you see beautiful places and sceneries or other candy for the eyes:

From the intimate detail to the great city:-)

From the efficient to the extravagant

Let me end this guided tour for all readers and especially the Lifecruisers Cyber Cruise with a gastronomic excitement – an Italian delicacy:

Open your suitcases and bring home some cheese, sausages, pasta or whatever – it’s irresistible. I knew it would make you hungry, and of course we’ll have a dinner later on tonight before we leave Rome. So stay tuned - come back - for a sensational dinner with wine from the district of Lazio!

Equinox – a season turning point

2007-03-21T05:20:00.000+01:00

Today at 00:07 AM (GWT) it happens: The sun will be directly over the equator and the day and night are equally long – all over the world!

In a wider sense, the equinoxes are the two days (in Marsh and September) each year when the centre of the Sun spends an equal amount of time above and below the horizon at every location on Earth. The word equinox derives from the Latin words aequus (equal) and nox (night). Furthermore, the atmosphere refracts light, so even when the upper limb of the Sun is below the horizon; its rays reach over the horizon to the ground.

In Norway it means a lot as only three months ago had 6 hours daylight – today we have 12 – and in three month almost 24. Well up north in June, the sun doesn’t set at all – the land of the midnight sun you know:-)

If I in a simple way should explain what it means, I’ll show you with some pics from my garden:

Snow bells - Scilla

It means spring is in the air. It means that plants are waking up from hibernation and some even more stubborn than others. It means warmer weather – from -21C at the coldest in Oslo this winter to +25C or more in the summer time. It means less clothes and longer nights (romantic ones as well:-) It means warm enough temperature in the water to dive in and opportunities to enjoy a cold beer on an outdoor restaurant with good friends. It also means more people out and here you see a bunch of mothers enjoying the spring weather in Oslo:

All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone - click to enlarge!

So what does Equinox means to you?

Btw: I’m off to Rome for a couple of days. Business and a bit of pleasure and also to contribute with a short stay in Italy with the Lifecruisers Cyber Cruise (click to see the route!). So forgive me if I’m not that much around visiting and commenting!

Lifecruisers took Oslo by Storm

2007-03-20T21:12:00.000+01:00

As you know (if not, scroll down!) there is a Cyber Cruise going on, and what a party it is! Mrs Lifecruiser, now better known as Jacquotte The Horny is inviting you all to a world round cruise. Last Saturday we were in Oslo with TorAa and me, and we had a jolly good time taking the passengers shopping! They all shopped till they dropped in the small charming shops of Oslo, emptying their credit cards and the stores inventory as well! As I went through the streets this morning, I could see they even emptied the shop windows. This is what I call windows shopping LOL:

Pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone - click to enlarge!

aka R’acquel from Australia (we’re going to visit her the 31st of March) missed the cosmetics shop and if some of you other did as well; here you can see for yourself. My wife loves Chanel and is good at emptying my credit card too!

We’ve had an exciting, and educational trip so far, exploring exotic places and the hottest spots in each port. From Stockholm, to Oslo, then Waterloo and Barcelona, and today we wake up at The Irish Church Lady with a Pirate Attack! A tourist’s agency could never have done this better. It’s the ultimate proof of the power of blogging and another example of my personal motto: Blogging connecting people and the blogsphere as a cultural sharing vault.

Of course we would like to invite new passengers along for the trip, so just take a look at The Cyber Cruise Scheduled ports. Don’t miss this chance to see places you’ve never been or enjoy experiences you’ve never had!

Tomorrow we are going to Berlin, to meet Sanni – don’t miss it!

Lifecruiser cyber cruise

Cyber Cruise party in Oslo, Norway

2007-03-17T21:03:00.000+01:00

TorAa and RennyBA would like to welcome you as host on this cyber cruise. Today the destination is Oslo, Norway and we’re having a party. We hope you all have a pleasant stay and are enjoying the cruise with us:

This post will be updated during the evening and we love to hear your comments and suggestions for what you want to do!

The first post – please scroll down – was about shopping in the charming Oslo. Both I and TorAa are hosts, so please visit his blog too for more adventures and excitements!

Update #1:
Tor's wife Anna, is serving the most delicious dinner tonight. Please sit in:

Smoked and warm fumed trout as a starter!
All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone - click to enlarge!

Pan fried white fish - Cheese and wild strawberries!

Hope you all enjoy the dinner!

Update #2:
Thank you all for visiting and being such great party companions when visiting Tiger City Oslo, the capital of the Vikings! It has been a pleasure to guide you around - to be shopping with you and to serve you all the food and drinks!
All things must pass, and so is the stay in Oslo for now - but the cruise will go on and I gladly pass you over to Gattina and are looking forward to visit her in Waterloo tomorrow!
Let me send you away out of the Oslo Fjord in the sunset:

Good night fellow bloggers - wherever you are out there in the world:-)

The Cyber Cruise Scheduled ports
Lifecruiser Cyber Cruise in Technorati

Oslo – Shopping with a charming atmosphere

2007-03-17T00:24:00.000+01:00

Welcome all Lifecruiser’s passengers and others who want to participate in this cyber cruise. What jolly good time we’ve had since boarding the ship in Stockholm last night! I’m honored to welcome you to Oslo, Norway together with my blog pal TorAa!

Oslo, the capital of Norway - 548,617 within city boundaries - is the seat of the Norwegian Government and Parliament, and the Royal Palace is situated at the end of Karl Johan Street - the main street of Oslo (click pic on the left). The city’s many astonishing features are unusual for a European capital. The city limits encompass wilderness areas as well as an array of restaurants almost unparalleled in Scandinavia. In winter, the city has an artificial skating rink only a stone’s throw from the National Theater and the University. Oslo City Hall is located in the city center only a few hundred meters from the city’s main street and overlooks Oslo Fjord filled with moored pleasure craft, shrimp trawlers, cruise ships, charter boats and ferries to all the islands.

Oslo is considered to be one of the most leading shipping cities in the world. During peak season, many cruise ships dock at the quays that are still within walking distance of the city center. It is only a ten-minute drive from these same quays to splendid bathing beaches with clean water.

While here, I suppose you like to go shopping. Therefore I’ve brought my wife, originally from US, who can help you explore from an expert shoppers point of view. But first: you might be hungry, so let’s start at a trendy little Café called Café Sør. Sør means south and this café has a southern Europe flair to it. Decorated it warm Spanish mosaics and terra cotta coloured walls it has a warm and trendy atmosphere and serves a fabulous caffe e latte:

All pics taken with mine or my wife’s Nokia phone (click to enlarge)

Greek and chicken salad at Café Sør

Then let’s take to the streets for some shop till you drop window shopping. There are few malls in Norway; most of the shops are still small charming little boutiques which each present their own specialty. I think it is so much more fun to wander along the streets and see in all the pretty windows, stopping to look a bit here and a bit there. My wife and I prefer that to the large chain stores where everything is exactly alike no matter which city you live in. Here you go to the pharmacy (chemist) if you need to buy medicine, the fish market to buy seafood, and the cosmetics store if you want to buy cosmetics.

The oldest pharmacy – a little side street café

Exotic fun if you like – fresh fish of course!

There is a rich assortment of street side cafes, outdoor flower shops, clothing stores, and interior decorating boutiques. If you are coming here to go shopping though, you should bring a lot of money. The quality is good but the prices are high. The prices reflect the income here so don’t go into shock when your caffe e latte costs you the equivalent of over 4$ or a bit less than 4€ or a paint of beer: 8$!

Street side flower shop – Nordic designs if you like

Norwegian products, wool sweaters and reindeer fur as well as blown glass

Still hungry for more shopping or sightseeing in Oslo? Here are a few of my posts around the year:

* Blizzard networking in Oslo
* Preschools exploring Oslo
* Holmenkollen: Oslo cultural highpoint
* Cultural diversity in Oslo
* Wikipedia about Oslo

And then I highly recommend you to visit the other host of Lifecruiser’s cyber cruise while anchored here in Oslo. The one and only TorAa at his mirror!

Welcome to Lifecruiser Cyber Cruise!

2007-03-16T14:29:00.000+01:00

To all regular and new readers: As an A-Team cruisers, I’m delighted to welcome you all to a free cyber cruise. The Captain is Mrs. Lifecruiser and the journey starts today at Stockholm’s charming harbor. It’s a great opportunity to meet new people and explore new places. Where else can you get an offer like this: A free, guided tour all around the world? The boat is of course a first class sailing ship with commodore class cabins and all the luxury you can ask for:

During the coming weeks there will be many fantastic destinations such as: Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Alaska (!), US, Italy, Dominican Republic, Australia and other mystery destinations! On board we have The Lifecruiser’s Casino, small shopping arena and even The Nad’s Naughty Bikini Wax Salon for both men and woman. Gourmet meals will be served from the most famous and experienced Chief cook and The Electric Lifecruiser Orchestra will be playing all night long!

So don’t hesitate. Click here and get on board – we are sailing from Stockholm today! Tomorrow you have to come back here as I will be the host for an exciting stay in Oslo together with my friend TorAa!

Do we need a Second Life?

2007-03-14T00:12:00.000+01:00

I was at a very exciting First Tuesday Norway meeting tonight and of course I will share it with you. As I call myself a network evangelist and am curious about new technology, I just had to attend since the subject was a new phenomena; Second Life (SL). Some of you might know about it as there are 4 mil of us out there already. It’s not just another web based videogame, but an internet based virtual world. There were several speakers who told about their experience in SL. Big companies like Adidas, Toyota, Dell, Routers, Universal Studios are represented with offices within SL. IBM has a big head office simulating branch offices in several countries and their own organisation for IBM employers. Business Week had a interesting article about it way back in Mai 2006.

I was fascinated and of course I had my Nokia mobile phone on hand to capture some of the speeches. Sorry for the quality, but the lighting wasn’t like bright daylight (so please click to enlarge):

Power to the people; we are talking about user controlled content!

Commercial at SL – U2 gave live concert!

Advertising agencies: Design Containers - Maximilian Milosz from Norway.

The last pic on the right side is a Norwegian furniture carpenter who has made his living from SL since November 2006. He is not only making and selling furniture’s anymore; he can build your own dream house or office on SL. His name is Maximilian Milosz.

This was only a few examples of how this community is growing and what’s going on in there. If you like to meet me, I have my own avatar (nick name) and it is RennyBA of course. In SL you also have a last name (you have a list to chose from!) and mine is Janus. See you there?

Speaking of internetworking and current activity in blogsphere, my blog friend Lifecruiser has chosen me as one of her A-team cruisers. The cyber cruise starts on Friday and on Saturday, me and my blog friend TorAa will welcome you all to Oslo. So stay tuned if you are an internet globetrotter – its free of charge you know:-)

Update:
Maximilian Milosz's blog - go visit!

Climbing the Memory Lane

2007-03-09T23:56:00.000+01:00

Driving down to Porsgrunn, my home town, always brings me down memory lane. I did it last week and the same thing happened. The closer I get, the more the memories come – when I was young – when life started – when the whole world was mine – unexplored and full of new adventures – good and bad – exciting but also scary. Everything is running through my mind like pictures or videos with sounds, feelings - I can even smell it, I can hear it; it’s like a revenue or a déjà vu. Of course I have been here before – many, many times, but even if it’s a long time ago, the old experiences are running like a movie in my head.

20 Km (12 miles) before home, I came to this valley: the one where we tested our very first family car. It was my grandfathers and the whole family was along for the ride in the early 60s. It was a station wagon with 3 adults in the front seat and 3 in the back seat and then me, my sister and our two cuisines way in the back. Safety in cars was not thought that much about at that time: no seat belts and we where just sitting on a blanket on our knees pressing our noses to the windows to see – to almost literary driving the winding road, first down to the bottom and then up again. The valley is still there of course, but the excitements is wiped out by a modern bridge:-(

Yesterday I was at a meeting at the Norwegian Computer Society hosted by Oslo Collage University. The subject was digital story telling and I was of course very inspired. So this post is my very first attempt to explore this fascinating phenomena and I combine the story above with the pictures I took as I exited the new highway to climb the old winding road – like climbing the memory lane. I had my Nokia mobile at hand of course and as a first time user of Windows Movie maker I made this movee (it goes with the music of the Norwegian composer Edvard Gried: “In the hall of the mountain King”):

I challenge my readers:
This is an experience: To me the examples they gave at the meeting of very good stories told in a digitalized way, was a monolog. I was immediately thinking that brining it out to the blogsphere gives the opportunely of a dialogue. So I need your help to prove I’m right about the power of blogging: Please comment this movee and tell me: 1: What did you think when you watched the movee. 2: What did you like the best and 3: How could it be improved?

Norwegian Family Tradition with Rakfisk

2007-03-06T22:15:00.000+01:00

Traditions are important to most people. Something taking place regularly and started as a special occasion a long time ago, becoming a yearly event. To me family traditions are even more important and this post will be about one of our more precious ones. Last Saturday my wife and I were at the family’s yearly RakFiskLag (Fermented Fish Dinnerparty). For me it was the 15th in a row and it just gets better and better. The food is important of course and I’ll get back to that later. Sitting around the table with family, talking, discussing and sharing thoughts and ideas is even more special. Some of them you don’t see that often, but of course it is like yesterday when you meet again. Everyone is one year older than the last time and with something interesting or exciting to share and eager to tell about. Listening, talking and exchanging some important things, some not, but always nice to involve our loved ones and bring us even closer together. Some say blood is thicker than water, but also you have to take care of the bones as well and see that it grows. These gathering do this. I often tell you about quality times with my wife – this one was with the family then:-)

Nothing dramatic or strange or whatever was reviled, but what we where talking about stays in the inner circle. What we had to eat – and what we eat every time – I’ll gladly share with you though. A very old and traditional Norwegian food: Rakfisk. So let me invite you to join the party, showing you the table before I go on with the fish:

Welcome to the table!

Plate, glasses and napkin.

The china different from time to time and this year we had some very appropriate for fish: a fish plate and of course with matching napkins. Speaking of that: the hosts said this was the last they had and don’t know where to buy more. Could anyone help them?!?!?
The big glass to the left is for beer. The other one is kind of special: a shot glass on top of a jug who holds the special Norwegian schnapps; aquavit.

Rakfisk; fermented fish and of trout.

To the left you see it on the service plate (even that shaped as a fish) and also with all that goes with it (except potatoes): sour cream, butter as well as onion and eggs.
To the right you see my dish – are you tempted to dig inn?

After sitting around the table for more than three hours enjoying each others company and not to mention the fish, we where invited into the living room for some refreshments and after a while the dessert:

The dessert served on traditional Porsgrund Porcelain of course!

The hosts lives in my home town: Porsgrunn and of course the china is Porsgrund Porcelain (I’ve turned the cup so that you get the proof by their trade mark – the anchor). Like always the dessert is served in this very special kind called 'Fauna'. There is a different special flower painted on each set. The one on mine is a special mountain flower (sorry I don’t know the name!).
To the right you see the dessert: Cloud berries cream and Krumkake (a waffle kind of biscuits in shape of a cone) and of course I had cognac.

Some of my regular readers might recall that I have talked about this fish and the traditions before. You can read about the last year’s event by clicking here!

Norwegian Ice Rose – A frozen work of art

2007-03-01T21:46:00.000+01:00

In the weekends, you find the Norwegian enjoying the outdoor life. At this time of the year, normally on skis, but last Sunday they made an exception – at least most of the people in Oslo. In celebration of our King Harald’s 70s birthday, there was an art attraction on the castle grounds. My wife and I had a Sunday afternoon date and decided to see this art work in ice. We had seen it on the TV when the entire Kings guest at the royal ball took in the sculpture. I had my Nokia mobile phone on hand of course, and gladly share to give you an idea of the crowd and the fascinating Ice Rose:

The Ice Rose is made by Peder Istad and his group of artists ‘Minus’ from a town on the west side of Norway; Molde. It took 100 tons’ of ice, 45 kilo (99 pounds) per brick – totally 2000 bricks - to make this rose. The installation is 15 meters (49 foot) wide and 4,5 m (15 foot) high, integrated with coloured light and sound (compost by Jon Balke).

There where hundreds of people on the castle grounds and they all wanted to walk through the rose labyrinth. It was interesting to listen to all the dialects and languages spoken between the ice walls. It strikes me how ‘international’ Oslo has become.

Cute fingers just had to touch:-)

In the centre of the rose are the King Harald V and Queen Sonja’s monograms engraved. Let me remind you of that Queen Sonja also turn 70 this year, so the whole week of celebration is a joint adventure. As the matter of fact, she is born the 4th of July. So now you American friends and readers know why you have fireworks that day:-)

When we where there, there was also the daily change of The Kings Guard (taking place every day at 1:30PM). If one didn’t feel safe enough with the guard, we also saw mounted policemen on the main street up to the castle. It was a lovely Sunday outdoor experience and another lovely quality time with my wife!

To my regular visitors and friends: I’m rather busy this weekend. We are going to my home town Porsgrunn for the traditional yearly ‘Rakfisk lag’ (click to see from last year!). So please forgive me if you don’t see me that much commenting around the next days!

Networking in a Blizzard

2007-02-23T22:27:00.000+01:00

We’ve had the most lovely winter weather lately. Temperature around -10C ( 14F) +/- 5 and with light, occasionally heavy snow throughout the whole week. The other day, I was attending a meeting early in the morning and while walking back through the street of Oslo, I felt this fresh, crisp air almost biting my nose. You feel alive and are reminded of the significant four seasons in Norway. Never is a warm and sunny summer better than after a cold and crisp winter. You can’t really have one, without the other :-)

While walking and observing the scenery, of course I had my Nokia mobile phone on hand and would like to give you some examples:

Off from the network meeting.
All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone – click to enlarge!

In transit over the cold Oslo fjord to work.

Some are just stubborn – others walk.

Regarding this posts caption, you might wonder what this has to do with networking. Well - this morning meeting was a BNI (Business Network International) meeting. I am a stand-in for a colleague of mine and he was visiting his family in Canada this week. As I call myself a network evangelist, I just love attending. It gives great opportunities to interrelate with other networkers who want to share references and open doors to new clients and customers. Like blogging, this is a givers gain. The more you help others to make business the more help you get to your own.

Mostly I explore my personal life and the Norwegian culture and traditions. This is about my professional life. I have the privilege of working at The Norwegian Computer Society - an IT-professional network, but also learn to take advantage of net based communities and networks. Blogsphear is for me one of the most important and never have I met so many lovely, caring, friendly and interesting people then since I started blogging. But there are others so let me take you with me in a round trip:

I’m registered at LinkedIn as well as Xing and Ziggs and Ryze. Click on them to see my profile and if you are a member, please invite me as your contact!

It’s all about sharing and pictures often say more than a thousand words. My membership on Flickr has given me a lot of new friends as well as opportunities to deepen the friendship among bloggers. For those of you, who haven’t visited, please click to take a closer look:

Happy networking weekend everyone – whether in a blizzard or not:-)

King Harald V of Norway’s 70th birthday

2007-02-21T22:22:00.000+01:00

Our King is celebrating his 70th birthday today. Having a blog about Norway, our culture, traditions and habit without mentioning this would be a disgrace. Most of the Norwegians are happy to have a monarchy, including me, so I’ll gladly provide you with a post dedicated his Royal Highness:

The King and The Queen at the Castle this morning.
Pic from Aftenposten.no

King Harald ascended the throne after the death of his father, King Olav V, on 17 January 1991. Like his father and his grandfather, King Haakon VII, he adopted the motto "All for Norway". The birth of a prince is always an historic event. However, it was a particularly special occasion for the Norwegian people when an heir to the throne came into the world on 21 February 1937.

You can of course read a lot about King Harald V on the net. Click here to the Royal familie's website. As far as I know it was first sat up by IMT in Boston as a gift when he visited the university in mid 90s. No pics from that, but The King and Queen, greeted by Laura and George W. Bush at the White House during the March 2005 State Visit to the U.S:

I take it you can tell who are who:-)

Btw: The Crown Princess, Prince Harald and his two elder sisters, Ragnhild and Astrid, lived just outside Washington, D.C. during the second world war.

So let me tell you something you may not know: His Majesty has made a name for himself in a number of national and international sailing competitions. As Crown Prince, he represented Norway several times in the Olympic Games, won the Gold Cup Races in 1968, and took first place in the Kiel Week Races in 1972. He was number two in the world championship in the half-ton class in 1982. In the summer of 1987, he won the world championship with his new yacht, the one-ton "Fram X", which was a gift from the Norwegian business community on his fiftieth birthday. The following year the yacht and its crew won a bronze medal in the world championship in San Francisco. As far as I know, he is the only living King who has been a world champion.

My regularly readers know I normally document my post with pictures from my daily life taken with my Nokia mobile phone. Well, I didn’t bump into His Majesty today. I’ll keep you posted next time I do:-)

Fastelavn in Scandinavia

2007-02-18T23:08:00.000+01:00

Today is Fastelavn Sunday. I remember this day so well as a child and how we prepared for it when I was young. The Sunday' before Lent is a holiday which boys and girls await with great impatience you know:-) At preschool we made Fastelavensris (se picture to the left!) with great artistry. Sometimes we tied the switches together and decorated them with sparkling tinsel and paper streamers of red, orange, yellow, or green. Also we tied a small doll with stiff outstanding skirts to the topmost branch, and sometimes they decorate the twigs with bright collared paper roses or other flowers.

Following old tradition the children rise at daybreak, arm themselves with Fastelavnsris, or decorated birch branches, and go about the house trying to switch all the "lazy" people they can catch lying abed. This curious custom of switching with branches doubtless originated in an ancient pagan rite of bringing into the village the fruitfulness of spring.

Fastelavn Bolle and coffee for the growing up:-)
All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone - click to enlarge!

Top of the cream was literary the baked good associated with the day; Fastelavnsbolle or Fastelavns bun and also known in English as "Shrovetide bun" or "Lenten bun". A round sweet roll often covered with icing and filled with cream. I know similar buns are eaten in other northern European countries, for example the Swedish Semla and then in Norway bolle.

The dough - the result - the treat.

We had a young girl visiting us today and my wife was so kind as to bake the traditional bolle. It’s amazing how seeing the dough and after that smelling the buns baking in the oven reminds me of all my childishly joy. Looking at our young guest eating the bun with the cream and all, gives a vision money can’t buy:-)

I know Fastelavn originates in the Catholic tradition of Carnival, and the name derives from German Fastelabend ("night before fast"). It used to be a large feast to celebrate the beginning of Lent. But how about you and where you live - is there similar traditions going on? It would have been nice if you filled us in with a comment, to deepen this subject!

Norwegian Salmon – a delicacy

2007-02-15T23:50:00.000+01:00

We had the loveliest dinner the other day and while deeply involved in preparing, it took me down the memory lane. Since I was very young, I’ve always liked fishing and from the start even more than eating it:-) As a scout I always had a knife in my belt and of course we had to clean the fish. My wife knows this of course and that’s why I was nicely invited to make the dish. For me it’s not a big deal, but since it tells a bit about our culture and tradition or at least habits in Norwegians home, I was thinking why not share the moments with you. Nowadays I don’t have a knife in my belt, but my Nokia mobile phone to document things for you. So let me first show you the result and invite you to sit in:

Click all pics to enlarge - Bon Appetite!

The fish was bought frozen in the local grocery and defrosted overnight in the fridge. Like I said; laying it on the kitchen counter and finding the right knife brought me down memory lane. How we made our own fishing equipment and how exciting it was to see who could catch the first one and the biggest one. Then cleaning it, feeling like a surgeon, and with curiosity finding what was in its stomach. Sometimes a small crab, sometimes sardine, starfish or even sometimes a sea urchin. Then we sometimes lit a camp fire to grill the fresh caught fish. We felt very grown up, self sufficient guys – almost like Robinson Crusoe.

Back to our dinner and the preparation; above you see the whole fish and then clean without the head and fish guts, ready for the final touch.

We have found that the easiest way to make a good salmon dinner is to fill it with butter, some slices of lemon and sliced leek. Then we wrap it in aluminium foil and bake it in the oven for an hour or so. You’ll have to scroll upwards again, to see and enjoy the result - Bon Appetite.

I know my regular readers like to learn something from Norway reading my blog. So let me add that fish is our second biggest export article after oil and gas. Not only because we have the North Sea on our doorstep, but also because fish farming has become big industry in Norway. In its natural streams, Atlantic salmon are considered a prized recreational fish, pursued by avid fly anglers during its annual runs. The rest are commercially farmed. Sport fishing communities, mainly from Iceland and Scandinavia, have joined in the North Atlantic Salmon Fund (NASF) to buy away commercial quotas in an effort to save the wild species of the original fish.

So next time you by salmon: look for the Norwegian one and check back on this post to see how easy it can be served as a delicacy:-)

I’m an A-team Cruiser in Cyber

2007-02-13T23:38:00.000+01:00

Quite a while ago, I met a new blog friend, Mrs Lifecruiser from Sweden. She’s one of the funnier and creative types of blog friends with a lot of crazy ideas. The other day she was holding an admission round for becoming a Team Cruiser. As a network evangelist and still curious about what blogging might bring me into, I could not resist to apply. You know what: I made it into the A-Team! I know some of my regular readers know Mrs. Lifecruiser very well, but some might not. So let me introduce you to the Captain:

About her you can read: I’m the human hedgehog in Sweden that loves the summertime, who have very many spines out sometimes, wandering around the world searching for food, collecting it especially before the winter and in the nights, drags my legs behind me, have a long nose, I am slurping loudly when I eat, scratching myself like I have a lot of fleas. She even tells us she love yummy frogs:-)

She also assure that there will still be some first class tickets and many ordinary tickets for our cyber event later on, but it demands that you’re on our A-Swab Team at least. So go visit and apply if you dear!

So now I am looking forward to a relaxing, exciting, exotic and entertaining journey to where I don’t know. But who care with that kind of a Captain. So stay tuned as I will keep you posted of course!

Btw: From all of me to all of you; Happy Valentines day ;-)

Preschools exploring Oslo

2007-02-10T23:03:00.000+01:00

As I’ve reported earlier, we finally got wonderful winter weather in the south east part of Norway. Since this blog also is about our four seasons, I’m happy to tell this time of the year has become more normal too. I just love it! Around -10C (14F), light snow with nice, crisp fresh air. On the express bus to work - when I slowly tried to wake up - I was thinking of my childhood and how much I loved to go skiing, skating or even ski jumping. I remember when in middle school, we used to ski to school. We could take a bus and got free tickets to ride, but it was much more fun to go skiing. Besides, we where training for the local championship. I came in second the first year: the world was mine:-)

When I get off the buss, a preschool group caught my eye. They came from Oslo central railway station and were on their way to explore Oslo. They where lined up so nicely, holding hands and probably have gone through this routine plenty of times before they took this big step. A small step for mankind, but a big step for them:-). One of my saying is: There is no such as bad weather, only bad clothes. Do you understand this looking at these well dressed children?

All pics taken with my Nokia mobile - click to enlarge!

Aren’t they cute – ready to explore the capital of Norway – ready to take the city by storm. I was thinking of the first time I came to Oslo. I was from a small town, Porsgrunn, and for me the capital was huge, scary and mysterious. I was around 7 and never had seen street cars or trolley, never seen a traffic circle or even a mall. Do you know what; the mall even had an escalator! Not to mention that I had never seen the Kings Castle with my own eyes. If we went there, could we see the King and the Queen in their window?

The entrance of Oslo main street - Karl Johan.

I don’t know if that was what these children were thinking, of course I had to run to the office, so I didn’t check. They went up Karl Johans – Oslo’s main street and to be honest: I would have loved to go with them – to explore Oslo through their experience. I’m to dull though, so I went to the office and back to my daily routine. Thinking of it: it was a lovely, wintry, crisp fresh morning though.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is the same good old winter weather and I have a date! I’ll take my wife for some quality time in the winter wonderland. Stay tuned if you want to go with us:-)

Norway from the ice age on

2007-02-05T23:20:00.000+01:00

This post will be the last in a trilogy from when we took my father in-law and his wife around in Norway while they where visiting from the US to celebrate my wife’s birthday. Scroll down to see the two other ones!
On our last day in Lillhammer we went to Maihagen museum to see an exhibit on Norway’s development from the ice age on. The exhibition is called “We won the land” in English. I like the Norwegian exhibition label directly translated better; “Slowly the land became our own”.

The exhibition is a journey through 10,000 years of Norwegian history. It is not a history of kings and great battles, but of the everyday life of the Norwegian people. We meet them in the dioramas – the woman of the Stone Age, the Viking age boat-builder, the home struck down by the Black Death, the woman who has to emigrate to America and a despairing man on the dole in the interwar years. Let me show you an example from a painting:

We can contemplate the people, their homes and their workplaces. In our imagination we are with them and learn their stories. Let me give you some examples:

To the left you see a Norwegian horse called ‘Fjording’ with a plough struggling to cultivate new land.
To the right you see a logger. Forestry work was hard and labour-intensive. Many of them were tenant farmers. They rented farms and worked off part of the rent in the forest. Logs where hauled by horses to rivers and watercourses and floated downriver to the sawmills.

I mentioned emigration to the US earlier so let me give you an example:

Many went to America in the 1800 in search of a better life. The harvest was poor and also a lack of fish in the North Sea which led to great famine. By the First World War, 775.000 Norwegians out of a population of just over 2 mil had immigrated to the USA, settling for the most part in the Midwest states. Only Ireland sent a higher percentage of it’s population to America.

The encounter with these contrasts ends with the modern person of the Norwegian welfare state – the package tourist and the old-age retiree, the problems of affluence and the environment. Let me end with a couple of more examples:

Motorized society - Open wide!

To the left you see one ready for a holiday with the “Beetle”. In post-war Norway former luxuries become part of everyday life. After the automobile rationing was lifted in 1961 the car quickly became common property, changing living habits both before and after work.
To the right: the school dentist, every child’s nightmare, was part of many national health care services build up after the Second World War. Regular examinations and better treatment, together with public campaigns, to improve nutrition and dental hygiene, led to a strong improvement in dental health.

Next stage was the oil age from the beginning of 1970s which has given the Norwegian a fortune for generations. That’s another and a new story though – you can’t expect to get every detail from a 10 000 year history in one post!

Lillehammer, Norway – Winter Olympics 1994

2007-02-01T21:59:00.000+01:00

Going to Lillehammer (three hours drive north of Oslo) always gives Norwegians good vibrations. This time kind of special to me, as we had my wife’s dad and his wife (here from the US to celebrate her birthday) visiting - a return of a favour from last fall when they took me to Lake Placid, NY. After that trip he said he had never seen a grown man so exited before. By taking him to Lillehammer, I wanted to show why. Winter sports and the Olympics is something that are near to Norwegians hearts and in 1994 it was a success, not only for the sports events, but because it was a blast of a folk celebration. 16 days in the loveliest winter weather in a small, charming and cosy town:

The city of Lillehammer (ski jump in the background).

The city centre is a well-preserved late 19th c. concentration of wooden houses, which enjoys a picturesque location overlooking the northern part of lake Mjøsa and the river Lågen, surrounded by mountains. The main street is excellent for people-watching, shopping and dining.

Main street of Lillehammer by day and night.

The area has been settled since the Norwegian Iron Age. It is mentioned in the old sagas as "Litlikaupangr" ('the small trading place') and as "Litlihamarr" ('the small Hamar' - to distinguish it from the town and the bishopric of Hamar). It is also mentioned as a site for council in 1390. It had a lively market by the 1800s, and obtained rights as a merchant city on August 7, 1827, at which point there were 50 registered residents within its boundaries.

Norwegian athletes were very successful in their home country. They won the most metals of any country. They won ten gold metals. Johann Olav Koss, a speed skater, set world records in three long-distance events. Visitors today can tour most of the facilities of the Olympic Park. Lillehammer opened an Olympics museum in 1998 to provide a history of the Olympics from 1896 to 1994 (some example pics):

Left: Winter Olympic flag from Oslo, Norway 1952
Right: Post from Lillehammer 1994

Lake placid - the only place hosting two winter Olympics!

I can’t give you a look back on 1994 without showing you the speed skating arena, the Viking Ship. We wanted to show the Norwegian heritage in architecture too of course. For those who haven’t read my post about these ships, please scroll down two posts or click here!

On the picture to the left (click all to enlarge!), you see the official banner for 1994. On top it symbols the Northern Lights and you can read more about that by clicking here!

The 1994 Games were extremely well organized and the Norwegian host's natural love of winter sports added a refreshing purity of spirit. We have received much praise for the organization of the Olympics, its sportsmanship, and its hospitality. Athletes from sixty-six nations came to Norway in 1994 for the Seventeenth Winter Olympics and we never forget the words from (IOC) president J. A. Samaranch at the closing ceremony: ‘The best winter games ever!”. Then again Norwegian organizing committee’s slogan was: “They said we couldn’t do it, so we did”:-)

Update:
A very good friend reminded me of that Innsbruck, Austria also have hosted Winter Olympics two times; 1964 and 1976. Thanks TorAa - I never want to mislead my readers!

The Old Rural Collection in Lillehammer, Norway

2007-01-28T23:28:00.000+01:00

As promised, here is the next post from guiding in-laws around in Norway. We where in Lillehammer (winter Olympic city in 1994), three hours drive north of Oslo. There are so many great things to explore there. In this post I would like to give you some samples from the rural community, hundreds of years old, in the Gudbrandsdalen Valley. It can be seen at Maihaugen Folk Museum. Here you can find the timber-build farms, the stave-church, the summer-pastures and the lumber-camp.

All pics taken with my Nikon CoolPix cam - please click to enlarge!

Let me start this trip with the proof of that winter has finally found it’s way to the south-eastern part of Norway too. Above is a special kind of a Norwegian Church called a stave church.

Same church from different angels.

A stave church is built in the stave construction, which consists of a timber framework of corner posts filled with planks. The corner posts are called staves. There were no windows in a stave church, except for round peepholes high up on the wall, as there are in the Garmo church, built around 1200.

This Rural collection’s founder was the dentist Anders Sandvig. From the very beginning he was interested in the concept of the Home – homes furnished according to local and traditional custom, timber-built and the interiors created by local carpenters. His dentist’s trips up the Gudbrandsdalen Valley gave Sandvig much knowledge of cultural history. He understood that objects and buildings out of context would not tell people enough. Now he wanted to show complete farm complexes with dwellings and outbuildings, tools and all the objects that belonged there. Since this time is out of the season, we could not get in, but I do hope you’ll get an impression out of these outdoors pics too:

Moving entire farm complexes to a museum was a new and untried thing, and the moving of e.g. Bjørnstad’s was seen as a triumph. Twenty-one buildings were dismantled and then carried on horseback – up to 20 horses – from Lalm to the station at Otta, from where the state railways had promised free transport to Lillehammer. The houses were built from mid 1600 up to the beginning of 1800.

The next post will be about Winter Olympics in 1994, but please be patient as I also have work to look after:-)

The Norwegian Viking Ships

2007-01-23T23:57:00.000+01:00

Regular readers know that we are celebrating my wife’s birthday and the guest of honour is her father and his wife coming over from the US. This gives great opportunities to explore Oslo area and the landmarks. In this post I have the pleasure of taking you with to The Viking Ship Museum. It displays the large Viking ships Oseberg, Gokstad and Tune, as well as founds from the chief grave at Borre in the Vestfold district. The three ships are the best preserved Viking ships known, found in royal burial mounds in the Oslo fjord. As burial ships, carrying the dead over to “the Other World”, the ships were equipped with unique treasures such as wagons, horses and especially textiles which are seldom preserved from the Viking age, now on exhibit at the museum. I had my Nikon Coolpix cam with (click to enlarge the pics!) and here are some of the highlights:

The Oseberg Ship was found in a large burial mound at the Slagen farm in Vestfold and excavated in 1904. The ship was built in around 815-820 A.D. and had been used as a sailing vessel for many years before it was put to use as a burial ship for a prominent woman who died in 834. Under the ship was a thick layer of blue clay, while the mound itself was built up of turf. This explains the excellent state of preservation of the ship and the other objects of wood, leather and textiles.

The ship, built of oak, was 22 meters long and 5 meters wide. The 12 strakes were secured with iron nails. The ship was designed for both rowing and sailing. With a square sail of about 90 sq. m., it could reach speeds of over 10 knots. The top strake had 15 oar holes. The crew probably sat on their ship's chests.

The Gokstad ship was found in a large burial mound at the Gokstad farm in Sandar, Vestfold in 1880. The ship had been built around 890 A.D. and later used in the ship burial of an important chieftain who died in or around 900 A.D. The preservation conditions in the Gokstad mound were as favourable as at Oseberg. The Gokstad ship, built of oak, is 24 meters long , 5 meters wide and is the largest of the three ships in the museum. It could accommodate 32 oarsmen and was much more sturdily built than the Oseberg ship. The Gokstad ship, although not as luxuriously outfitted as the Oseberg ship, was by far the more seaworthy of the two. It was demonstrated when a copy of the Gokstad ship sailed the Atlantic from Bergen to the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893.

The Tune ship, from a large mound at Haugen farm at Rolvsøy in Østfold, was excavated in 1867. It was built at about the same time as the Gokstad ship, around 900 A.D. It was later used as a burial ship for a powerful chieftain. The burial furnishings are not preserved, but the dead man was also placed in a timber burial chamber. The ship itself was badly damaged. It is displayed in the museum in such a way as to show the construction details of ship building in Viking times.

The burial chamber, two of the small boats and two tent verge boards from the Gokstad burial are displayed in the Tune wing. This burial chamber is the oldest example of the lafting technique known in Norway. Large sections of the roof were hacked away by the grave robbers. The small boats resemble boats still used in western and northern Norway, and testify to a long tradition of Norwegian boat building. Some of the other objects from the Gokstad burial are to be found in the artefact collection wing, such as bedposts with animal head ornamentation and fragments of a sledge. Horses and dogs were also part of the burial gifts. The harness and bridal mounts are of the finest quality. The most unusual item is the remains of a peacock, an exotic element in Norwegian Viking times. Fragments of gold thread woven into textiles found in the Gokstad burial are displayed in the textile room.

Our knowledge of daily life in the Viking Age comes mainly from archaeological finds. The graves contained not only jewellery, weapons and vehicle tools, but also other tools and household goods. These finds are exhibited in the museum.

The animal head post were found in pairs. Some of them had a rope running through the mouth when they where found. Their use is not known, but they may have been carried in religious processions. Some other objects, such as the elaborately decorated bronze bridle mounts and parts of a sledge’s shafts are also to be seen.

Still busy guiding the in-laws and our next stop will be the city of Lillehammer where the winter Olympics took place in 1994, so stay tuned!

Celebrating my Terella co-poster’s birthday

2007-01-21T22:50:00.000+01:00

This post is dedicated to my wife and for a lot of reasons. Firstly because she turns another decade the 23rd of January and of course that calls for a celebration. Secondly because a lot of my regular readers have met her in several posts on my blog and I know you want to greet her. I’ll get back to that.

Diane is from NY, US and we met about 10 year ago. My Internet curiosity took me to newsgroups where I found her among hundreds of thousands others – or maybe it was she who found me:-) Then it was mail, then chat and at last I came over to see you and the family. You might say it was love before the first sight. She came over and we got married a bit more than 7 years ago.

Congratulate my colorful wife!

Among a lot of things, this has given me the opportunity to re-experience Norway, our culture, traditions and habits. At the beginning every place we went were new and places we went where I had been millions of times all of a sudden was experienced as exotic. This was an eye opener for me of course, and I often was surprising myself when she asked me about things in the Norwegian society that I had never really thought much about before. I was (am) able to learn a lot more about the American society in return, of course, and that was quite an eye opener too. Often for instance, we talked about Norwegian food and asked what typical American food was. Then I realised it isn’t that easy to compare because there is very little that is purely American. America is a society build on immigration, mostly from Europe, so there is mixed culture and traditions from everywhere. Well of course there are always Mac Donald’s and pizza and that might be typical, but not necessary traditional.

Then again you regular readers have had the privilege to see Norway through an American’s eyes as my wife occasionally is a guest poster. Her most famous or most read posts are from her trip to the typical Norwegian mountains and what are the cultural differences that she has been most charmed by. I do recommend you read them all by clicking here:

Warm and charming Norwegians
On top of Norway's mountains
Wild mountains of Norway

So all you readers of my blog have had the advantage of my wife’s contributions to describe my blogs theme: Norwegian culture, traditions and habits. If any of you want to send her a birthday greeting, I’ve had her open a new gmail account: deedeeamundsen@gmail.com. All contributions will be appreciated and I do think she deserves a lot of mail – what do you think?

Please remember that we still have guests from the US so there might be fewer posts than normal the coming week.

No nakedness on Nordic cruise ships

2007-01-16T23:19:00.000+01:00

From Norway to Sweden, Denmark, Germany and for that matter to Great Britten, you can travel by boat. Some call them cruise ships, I call them ferries. Since there are a lot of tourists, you often find signs in different languages. When we went to Sweden in the Christmas holidays, the picture to the left caught my eye. Direct and good translations can be difficult. Even if you use the ‘right’ words, the interpretation might give a wild association. On top of the pics (click on it to enlarge!) in red letters it says in Norwegian first: ‘All bruk av åpen flamme forbudt’, meaning: ‘No open flames allowed’, but as you can see the words in English are: ‘No naked lights’:-)

One of those ferries captures with my Nokia mobile phone.

When my wife first came over from US, she started to read the signs and tried to understand what they meant. The one to the left was one of them (click to enlarge!). The pictures shouldn’t give you any wrong ideas: In some areas they want you to slow down, so they put speed bumps on the road. In Norwegian speed is ‘fart’ and to slow is ‘dempe’. Sometimes you also run into speed control and in Norwegian that would be: ‘Fart Kontroll’. My wife always thought this was pretty funny. So when your visit Norway, ask before you get the wrong idea of what’s going on.

Speaking of the language, as I know my regular readers like to learn something from my posts: Norwegian is a Germanic language and is closely related to and generally mutually intelligible with Swedish and Danish. Together with these two languages as well as Faroese and Icelandic, Norwegian belongs to the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages). Due to isolation, Faroese and Icelandic are no longer mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form, because mainland Scandinavian has diverged from them.

As established by law and governmental policy, there are two official forms of written Norwegian — Bokmål (literally "book language") and Nynorsk (literally "new Norwegian"). From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Danish was the standard written language of Norway. As a result, the development of modern written Norwegian has been subject to strong controversy related to nationalism, rural versus urban discourse, and Norway's literary history. Historically, Bokmål is a Norwegianized variety of Danish, while Nynorsk is a language form based on Norwegian dialects and patristic opposition to Danish.

Let me end this post with another confusion you might have if you are visiting a certain place in Norway called Hell; a small village with a population of 352. It has become a minor tourist attraction because of its name: people like to take the train there to get photographed in front of the station sign. What was possibly Norway's most popular postcard, at least among English-speaking tourists, showed the station with a heavy frost on the ground—Hell frozen over in fact, though there was no caption to make the point. Visitors to Hell can even stay at the Hell Hotel. The pic to the left is from the old warehouse in the Hell Station there is a sign "Gods-expedition", an old spelling of the Norwegian word for cargo handling office. The name Hell stems from the Old Norse word hellir, which means "overhang", "cliff cave". The Norwegian word 'hell' can also mean "luck". A yearly blues festival, the Hell Blues Festival, takes place in the area around Hell each year. The festival changed its name to Hell Music Festival in 2006 to open their doors for music other than blues.

Have I made my point: Don’t judge Norwegian by signs as it can be much more pleasant than you think:-) Even if it is Hell on earth LOL!!

Warning: We are celebrating my wife’s birthday this weekend and even the in-laws are coming over from the US. So there might be less posts and comments from me the next 10 days!

Update: My blog friend Mrs Lifecruiser had a similar post about the Swedish language once. Take a look!

Finally snow in Oslo, Norway

2007-01-11T22:40:00.000+01:00

Since my blog also is about the four seasons in the Nordic countries, it’s about time for a weather report. Let me start with a couple of pics from the neighborhood taken last Sunday mid day. This is how I like it and how it should be from mid November until spring. Well, maybe a bit more snow - I like it when it’s more than one meter (3.2 feet) like I posted about last January - but as long as the ground is dressed in white, its okay:

Taken with my Nokia mobile phone - click to enlarge!

Given the fact that we have around 6 hour’s daylight this time of year, snow gives us a much lighter effect. Even better it invites us to lovely outdoors activities like skiing, sledding or even making snow angels. I know some think its cold, but then I like to remind you of one of my slogans: there is no such as a bad weather, only bad clothes

In this part of the world everybody talks about the weather and this winter season we’ve had a lot to talk about. There has been much more precipitation this autumn and even in the winter months of October, November and December. The average temperature in December was 6 degrees above normal, meaning above freezing most of the time. It’s hard to get any snow then you know! Well, we had some in the end of October which lasted a few days and then again last Sunday as you can see on the first picture, but that was also soon washed away by rain a couple days later. I got new hope this afternoon though when snow was finely cheering up my bus trip back from the office. Here are a couple of pics from the neighborhood before I entered our house to have some quality time with my wife making dinner together:

I don’t try to make a big deal out of this. I know temperatures and precipitation vary a lot from time to time. If you check my post from January 2006 in the ‘Archive’ link, you find a lot of nice snow pics from last winter. I think the tendency is kind of strange though. Looking at it with a good sense of humor, they say that Norwegians are born with skis on. I sure hope they won’t be changing that to born with rubber boots on their feet. How about you, regular and new readers: have you experienced wired weather this season? If you’ve had a post about it recently, I gladly update this post with your link - for the record.

I know my regular readers like facts and figures about Norway and the Nordic countries. A friend of mine has a web site with temperature development on earth the last 250 years with information from more than 900 selected locations worldwide. So click here and check for yourself – all over the world!

Update:
A new blog friend, Pasticciera, now living in the Italian alps have a no snow post from where the last year Olympics took place. Take a look!

Norwegian Sea Food dinner

2007-01-07T21:41:00.000+01:00

After all this Yuletide posts full of calories, I will end this Christmas time food feast with seafood. It’s typical Nordic country traditional New Years Eve food, especially in Sweden. No wonder since the North Sea is full of it:-) I must admit I love all the home made Norwegian Yule food like, Pinnekjøtt (Rib of Lamb), Ribbe (Roasted ribs) and all the cold cuts at Christmas Day buffet (click ‘Archive’ to find more details on my December 2006 posts!), but after all this fat food, sea food is a delightful change. So sit down and let me serve you a lovely, tasty and joyful dish:

All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone - click to enlarge!

My wife has become artistic in garnishing the platters! No wonder our mouths where watering when we sat down at the table. I like to see a table well decked and of course we used our best china and glasses for this feast. The china was my grandmothers and dates back to around 1920. White wine glasses for the adults of course and one of my contributions is to provide wine with the right temperature; 18C (64F). We had Plaisir de Merle from South Africa. A chardonnay wine, my favorite grape!

This time we decided to have it all. Lobster is my favorite though and it is more than 10 years since I last had some. No wonder since it is very expensive in Norway - around 200 NOK (35$ or 40€) pr. kilo. A sea food delicacy if you ask me and very tasty, especially if you have the right wine with it.

But of course, there are other very good seafoods too: like craw fish and crabs. Nothing is more delicious and enjoyable than sitting around the table and digging the delicate white meat out of the claws and legs. Okay, your fingers get sticky and it takes some napkins, but that is part of the charm. We had this at New Years Eve, the very best end of 2006!

While I’m at it: let me reveal my wife’s surprise when I came from the office last Friday. Since all the kids where out, she had planned for a romantic dinner for two. She knows that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and we had steamed clams with Fettucini Alfredo. She had even bought the same white wine as we had New Years Eve. I am the luckiest husband on earth, don’t you think? :-)

Happy New Year from Norway

2007-01-04T21:08:00.000+01:00

Belated greetings to regulars and new readers, wishing you all the best for the year to come! This will be a short note to tell that we had a wonderful New Year Celebration in Mariestad, Sweden. A traditional Swedish seafood dinner in the evening and then all the four Norwegian apartment houses in the neighbourhood gathered to ring in the New Year. There were a lot of fireworks at midnight. Yes, my firework box was great too (find more information about it in the previous post!). I had my Nokia mobile phone ready of course – bear with the quality, but what can you expect – and here is the best shot from the evening:

There where around 30 people gathered at the midnight celebration and we had Christmas cookies and cake served with coffee and avec of course. I was so happy to celebrate the end of one year and beginning of a new together with good friends. Of course I saved my best cigar for the evening too:-) It’s a lovely community with people in all ages and I could not resist taking a pic of the youngest ones in their best New Year outfit, while firing a sparkler:

I haven’t forgotten the sea food dinner of course and took a lot of nice pics of the lobster, the crabs, the craw fish and the shrimps. I promise to share it with you in a day or two. That is if you’re not full with all the Nordic Yule dishes LOL!

Launching New Year’s Fireworks in Norway

2006-12-31T12:38:00.000+01:00

It’s time to wrap up the year 2006 and welcome the new one. By this the last chapter is written and I’ll start with a blank sheet and a sharp pen in 2007. It’s been a wonderful blog year for me, I’ve met a bunch of lovely people all over the world and have shared and exchanged interesting facts and thoughts about culture, traditions and habits with you all. Thanks to all visitors and commenter’s who have made this year an educating eye opener for me. I’m pretty sure you have learned something about Norway and the Nordic countries too:-) I’ll summarise with my mottos: Blogging -Connecting people and -Bridging the cultural gaps! So lets all go on: -Make Blogs, not wars!

You know I always like to give something special from Norway and the Nordic countries so let me introduce my last story this year with this picture:

All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone - click to enlarge!

Every year we buy our own fireworks and its big business in the days before New Years Eve. I can’t remember doing it when I was young, but ever since I have had children of my own, we’ve had fun with it. They were always exited of course and every year they helped me build a ramp with snow and ice to secure a safe launch. We often had a party with friends in the neighbourhood and one year I remember one of the fathers launched fireworks for almost an hour. That year it was – 20C (-5F) and since we stood watching so long, the champagne almost froze in the glasses. You see one pic from this hilarious evening at left!

This year we are in Sweden, just so that you know they do this here too. As you can see in the pics, there are plenty to choose from and the clerk is eager to demonstrate, showing the fireworks effect on the monitor. One can stay there for hours just to watch and build up the anticipation.

This year I’ve chosen a box which has a great variety of effects. I didn’t want single fireworks on sticks, because there is no snow to build ramps right now. With this package you just light the fuse and move away, the fireworks light themselves one after another as you watch from a safe distance. If you look at the box, it says: ‘Cocktail’, so cheers and Happy New Year to you all!

This evening there is lobster, crab, craw fish and shrimp on the menu, so we’ll have a seafood extravaganza to celebrate 2006 and welcome 2007:-)

I’ll end this year with greetings to all my lovely blog friends in your own language:

Happy New Year:
Danish - Godt Nytår
Dutch – Gelukking Nieuwjaar
Finnish - Onnellista Uutta Vuotta
French - Bonne Annee
German - Prosit Neujahr
Indonesian - Selamat Tahun Baru
Italian - Felice anno nuovo
Japan - Akimashite Omedetto Gozaimasu
Norwegian - Godt Nyttår
Philippines - Manigong Bagong Taon
Spanish - Feliz Ano ~Nuevo
Swedish - Gott nytt år!
Thai - Sawadee Pee Mai
Vietnamese - Chuc Mung Tan Nien

Norwegian Christmas Day Smorgasbord

2006-12-29T13:58:00.000+01:00

My Christmas posts have been a lot about food, but then again it is an important part of Norwegian Yuletide. This will be the top of the cream as I will share some old home made food traditions. These are recipes passed down for many generations and I consider myself lucky having a mom who still holds on to them. From my childhood I clearly remember the smell of Christmas in our house weeks before the Holiday. It was a hectic period of course, as everything should be ready, clean, fresh and prepared. My mom and grandmother did most of it in the kitchen with fresh meat coming directly from the butcher. And then of course the cookies - 7 types at least - and the marzipan and other types of confect. It all shows up at our First Christmas Day smorgasbord at the traditional family gathering. Smorgasbord is actually a Swedish word so in Norway we call it buffet (or actually cold cuts table). Let me give you an overview and then to the details, hoping that pictures say more than thousands words:

Bone appetite - click to enlarge!

We start this buffet around noon and it lasts until 6PM at least. We are eating all the time, but most of all talking and enjoying each others company. This is the time when we share and remember the passing year and keep each other updated on plans for the year to come. Grandpa and Grandma is curios about their grandchildren’s future dreams and ambitions as well, of course:-)

Roasted ribs - Salted ham and pressed layered pork

Rolled lam and tongue of beef - Liver pate

Fried pork patties - smoked salmon

Home baked bread

You might think that we are finished with the food shown above, but no. There are all the cookies and sweets you know – an important part of Christmas treats too, especially appreciated by the children. On the left, you see Kransekake (literally "wreath cake"). It takes the form of a series of concentric rings of cake, layered on top of each other in order to form a steep-sloped pyramid. It is made with ground almonds, sugar and egg whites (marzipan) the ideal Kransekake is hard to the touch, yet soft and chewy. Obtaining such a consistency can be difficult, because, although simple in theory, the preparation of a Kransekake is very delicate. Normally it is decorated with Norwegian flags and “crackers” (a toy which you pull on and it pops). This year mom did it differently as she loves to surprise us, and here is the coffee table with all the Christmas cookies:

Dessert table with home made marzipan e.g.

I do hope you’ve enjoyed these Christmas food feasts as much as I’ve had eating and sharing them. It reminds me of a saying: ‘You are what you eat’, but don’t judge Norwegian only from Yuletide! and also, as I hope you’ve noticed; it’s an important part of our culture and traditions.

Soon it’s New Years Eve and we will shoot up our own fireworks. Tomorrow I’m gone to buy them and soon I’ll show you – so stay tuned!

Lutefisk – Nordic traditional Yule dish

2006-12-27T14:15:00.000+01:00

There are still more Christmas food to explore from the Nordic countries. These are traditions from thousands of years back and an important part of celebrating the winter solstice. Today I will serve you Lutefisk. It’s made from stockfish (air-dried whitefish) and lye. In Sweden, this food is called lutfisk, omitting the medial 'e'. In Finland the same dish is known as lipeäkala. The direct translation is lye fish, owing to the fact it is made with caustic soda or potash lye.

Lutefisk is usually served with a variety of side dishes, including, but not limited to, bacon, green pea stew, potatoes, meatballs, gravy, mashed rutabaga, white sauce, syrup, geitost (goat cheese), or "old" cheese (gammelost). Especially in the US (a lot of Nordic people in the Upper Midwest you know!), it is usually eaten with lefse. Even if the common denominator is lutefisk, side dish varies greatly from family to family and region to region and is a theme of recurring controversy when different "traditions" of lutefisk-eaters meet and eat together. Let me serve you the way I like it (with aquavit and beer of course) and then give the recipes:

How to make it:
Saw the fish in suitably sized pieces or leave it whole. Put in water. Leave in water in a cool place for 5-6 days if cut in pieces, 8 days if the fish is whole. Change the water every day.
For the luting use a plastic or stainless steel or enamelled tub (the enamel must be unchipped). Wooden vessels, china or stoneware may also be used.
Place the fish in the tub with the skin side up. Dissolve caustic soda in the water, pour over the fish until covered complete by lut water. Leave the fish in a cold place for 3-4 days.
When the fish is completely luted, it will be well swollen and you should be able to put a finger through it. Rinse the fish and leave in cold water 4-6 days. Change water every day.
If the fish stays in water for too long after the luting it may be soft and difficult to boil. When you boil it, it might also get even softer. My American wife has found a way to avoid that as she ‘bakes’ the fish in the oven. Before it goes in, it looks like this:

You may also click her to find The UNofficial Lutefisk Website:-)
So now you’ve had some of our traditional Yule and Christmas dishes (scroll down if you haven’t had it all!). There are more though as I haven’t served our Christmas Day smorgasbord yet. So stay tuned and if you’re still hungry, there will be more traditions and food in a few days!

Norwegain Christmas Eve dish

2006-12-24T13:31:00.000+01:00

As you know from my previous posts, food is an important part of the Yule traditions in Norway. Christmas eve is the time for the family gathering and holiday dinner. Church bells throughout the land are ringing in Christmas at 5 o’clock and then the great celebration starts. I remember so well that time when I was a child. How we all sat around the coffee table and the children were delirious with anticipation. We had to eat dinner – that was a part of the ritual – but what we really were waiting for was the chance to open the presents. Every year one of our uncles would dress up as Santa Claus and sneak out of the house and come again to the door and deliver presents to all us good boys and girls, and you can believe we were GOOD just then!!
Growing older, I also learned to really enjoy the food too and today I’m going to share a very traditional Norwegian Christmas Eve dish: Pinnekjøtt (rib of lamb). On the net, I’ve found that 56% of the populations eat Ribbe (roosted rib) and 31% eats Pinnekjøtt. As you can see in the picture to the left, the dinner is served. So why don’t you sit in while I tell you a bit about this dish from the start until it’s served:

Soaking in water - The sticks form a rack.

Pinnekjøtt (literally "stick meat") is actually traditional in the western parts as they have a lot of sheep. I’ve eaten it for the last 20 years though, as I think Ribbe is a bit too fatty. Pinnekjøtt is salted, dried and sometimes smoked lamb's ribs which then are steamed, over birch branches, and served with potato, mashed rutabaga, beer and aquavit. One debate is if it is called stick meat because of the visual nature of the individual rib bones or from the birch sticks which are made into a steaming rack in the kettle. I’ll go for the last explanation and as you can see in the kettle above, there are sticks (a bit modern nowadays as we don’t cut and whittle them ourselves, but buy them in the grocery). You have to soak the meat in water over night to take out some of the salt and make it tender again.

Bon Appetit

The picture above shows my plate and how I like it. You see the potatoes, Pinnekjøtt, mashed rutabaga and Brussels sprouts (my favourite) and on the lower part of the plate, you find lingon berries. The beer and the aquavit is a must too, of course:-)

Yuletide is full of food traditions in Norway and the Nordic countries, so stay tuned as there will be more culinary posts to come! Until then: I wish you all a Happy Holiday Season:-)

Winter Solstice and Yuletide

2006-12-22T21:53:00.000+01:00

Having a blog about Norway, the Nordic countries – our culture and traditions – it would be a shame not to mention one of the most important milestones; the return of the Sun. So let’s forget Christmas for a while, or actually; this has a lot to do with Christmas or Yule as we call it in the Nordic. Before I give you some history, let me first show you a picture taken yesterday morning (8 AM) to show you Oslo at dawn:

Oslo fjord at down - please click all pics to enlarge!

Yule was the winter solstice celebration of the Scandinavian Norse mythology and Germanic pagans. In Germanic Neopaganism, this celebration is largely reconstructed to various extents by various groups. In the northern hemisphere ca. December 21st and in the southern hemisphere ca. June 21. “Yule" and "Yuletide" are also archaic terms for Christmas, sometimes invoked in songs to provide atmosphere. People unfamiliar with ancient Norse mythology's pagan traditions will not distinguish between Yule (Joul) and Christmas. This usage survives in the term "Yule log" (it may also persist in some Scottish dialects). In Sweden, Norway and Denmark, the term "jul" is still the most common way to express Christmas, or "joulu" in Finland.

What is certain is that Yule celebrations at the winter solstice predate Christianity, and though there are numerous references to Yule in the Icelandic sagas, there are few accounts of how Yule was actually celebrated, beyond the fact that it was a time for feasting. 'Yule-Joy', with dancing, continued through the Middle Ages in Iceland, but was frowned upon when the Reformation arrived. It is, however, known to have included the sacrifice of a pig for the god Freyr, a tradition which survives in the Scandinavian Christmas ham.

Many of the symbols associated with the modern holiday of Christmas such as the burning of the Yule log, the eating of ham, the hanging of boughs, mistletoe, etc. are apparently derived from traditional northern European Yule celebrations. When the first missionaries began converting the Germanic peoples to Christianity, they found it convenient to provide a Christian reinterpretation for popular feasts such as Yule and allow the celebrations themselves to go on largely unchanged, versus trying to confront and suppress them. The Scandinavian tradition of slaughtering a pig at Christmas, and not in the autumn, is probably the most salient evidence for this. The tradition derives from the sacrifice to the god Freyr at the Yule celebrations. Halloween and Easter are likewise assimilated from northern European pagan festivals.

So with this Nordic history in mind, let me show you some pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone the last days. With 6 hours daylight, we enjoy the lovely view and the significance of this season. Within 6 months we will have almost 24 hours of sunlight and I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world:

No snow yet, but frost:-)

Christmas street decoration in Oslo.

Skate rink and a fountain in Oslo.

You might also like to read about my Yule post from last year or how we celebrate it.

From all of us to all of you: wishing you a joyful Holiday season!

ABBA at the Christmas Party Factory

2006-12-20T20:36:00.000+01:00

Typically at this time of the year, people in the Nordic countries have their Christmas party called Yule table. It seams to have roots back from the Saturnalia feast at which the Romans commemorated the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn, which took place on 17th of December. Over the years, it expanded to a whole week, up to 23rd. So we are talking about winter solstice festivals from a couple of thousands years back. Of course the Vikings held their winter solstice festivals too and they were wild and crazy parties. Who could blame them for celebrating the return of the sun in a dark (up to six hours daylight in the south of Norway and zero hours in the north) and very cold period? It’s all about a food and drink feast and inn the Middle Ages it became normal to let it stay on the table the whole Holiday season so that the poor and the nomads could help them selves. The modern Yule party is from the last turn of the 1900’s when the service business and tourism started in northern Europe. It became more popular among the middle class people to travel at Christmas time so hotels and restaurants began serving Yule food on the menu. After the Second World War it has more and more become a party arranged by the company for their employers.

I have a mixed feeling about these parties as there are so many of them and they often overdo it. The ultimate example this year was our own companies Christmas party was held just over the border in Sweden. I supported the idea of course as we got a feast and a night at a hotel, with breakfast the day after for a price of 1100 NOK (190 $ or 135 €). We had a jolly good time and I enjoyed the company of my co-workers as well as the food and the free drinks, let me tell you more about it:

The Christmas Party Factory :-)

It was held in a sports centre and there where more than a thousand people attending (from different companies not just mine). Sorry for the bad quality of the pictures but it is taken with my Nokia mobile phone from the bleachers. There you can see the tables for each company party from the smallest for around 10 people to the biggest around 100.

The buffet - Please click if you want a closer look!

We where served a buffet with all the Christmas food you could imagine, at least for the Nordics and especially the Norwegians as we where the majority of the guests. Again my apology for the bad quality in the pics but I hope you get the idea.

ABBA show at the Christmas party.

As if this wasn’t enough, there was a show after the dinner. A local singing group gave us a musical tour of ABBA’s fantastic carrier. The Swedish wanted to show their very best you know:-) It was quite funny to get close to the stage and capture them with my mobile phone as they where very photogenic. After the show a typical Swedish ‘dance band’ gave me the chance to cut the rug with my female colleges. So even if I am tempted to call this a sort of Christmas party factory, we had a very good time. I can’t remember when the party was over, but we had a night cap afterwards, so I guess I was in bed around 4 in the morning. A more sensible college called it a night much earlier though and I was glad because he was the one who was driving home the next day. On our way home we bought Christmas food in a mall. You might call this an ultimate ‘Harry’ tour (a local expression for Norwegians who travel to Sweden to fill up their cars with inexpensive food).

Christmas surprise from Motivated Motion

2006-12-17T21:19:00.000+01:00

I love surprises, especially at Christmas time and this is one of the most precious I’ve ever received. When I checked my snail mail box yesterday, I saw a silver envelope covered with snow flakes. On the back side I saw it was from my blog friend Lynn at Motivated Motion. I ran into the house because it was also addressed to my wife and I wanted us to open it together. Inside we found the loveliest Christmas decoration and an extra metal snow flake – take a look – isn’t it lovely:

We were really touched by this, not only because of the decoration, but for the warm thoughts behind it; from one blogger lighting up the Christmas season for another. As I always say; ‘Blogging connect people’ and ‘Make blogs not war’. This greeting from Lynn is an ultimate example of the spirit of blogsphere!

Adding to that, she wrote this on her last comment on my Christmas shopping post: ‘I had a little talk with Santa. We had snow here and all.... I told Santa that RennyBA needs some in Norway. I made a deal with him. On the day he delivers my posted snow to you Norway will get snow.’ We are very close – at least it is below freezing and the ground is covered with a glowing white layer of frost…so I’m sure it will be a white Christmas in Norway, thanks to Lynn! See picture on the left taken from our living room this morning – at least we’ve got the Christmas frosting:-)

So now I do hope you’ll go and visit Lynn’s Motivated Motion. She has a great post showing her Park and Festive Advent Calendar Table with a Christmas Cactus – a must see and of course it would have been nice if you tell her how great it was of her to brighten up our Christmas spirit.

Boy’s at play while wives are shopping

2006-12-15T22:53:00.000+01:00

Shopping isn’t really my thing. Well, I don’t mind buying things, but then I know what I want or need long before I go into the shop. Let me tell you a story to explain my point of view: I was in Cape Cod in Massachusetts once. It was in the autumn and out of the seasons for this summer town. In the morning I went to the reception and asked what to do when I wanted to explore the area. She said: “You might go shopping!!!” Ehhhhh – do you get me?

So when my friend TorAa and his wife were with us to Mariestad, Sweden, last weekend of course, we went down town on Saturday. The wives went shopping and we had fun:

All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone - please click to enlarge!
Update: RennyBA playing with Lego and stuff:-)

Above you see an excellent example from a woman’s wear shop. I found a toy box full of Lego and stuff and started a serious construction project. As you can see, Tor was amazed and impressed by my hammering skills. The clerk and the customers didn’t even seem to notice us in all their busy shopping activity :-)

As you can tell, we where polite and followed our wives in most of the shops and had a lot of fun talking to the staff about Christmas, the lack of snow and other subjects. In one shop they impressed me with having a sewing machine for adjusting the length of the jeans. The clerk willingly offered to demonstrate her skills.

Besides fooling around, talking to people, enjoying our company and having serious talks with the staff, we tried to get the in Christmas spirit as well. In spite of missing the snow – it should be snow this time of year but the whole Europe is experiencing the mildest winter season for hundreds of years - we succeeded somehow. Santa was in the video store and a Christmas billy goat was placed in the town square (Swedish tradition).

We also had fun posing beside two of the traditional wooden sculptures in Mariestad which gave some Christmas spirit. You might also ask: Did I buy something? Yes! I needed a couple of t-shirts. So I went to the men’s wear and bought them – took me 5 minutes:-) and I even got a 10% discount LoL!

One more thing: I’ve met a new blog friend from Sweden: Mrs. Lifecruiser. She runs a ‘Crack me up Friday’ party tonight and I do hope this post qualifies. Take a look at her post and vote for the sake of Friday craziness!

Rakfisk – a traditional Norwegian Yule dish

2006-12-12T22:27:00.000+01:00

I have the pleasure of inviting you to one of the most traditional Norwegian dishes: Rakfisk. The first record of the term Rakfisk dates back to 1348, but the history of this food is probably even older. A meal served in the dark winter time around winter solstice (long before the fridge was invented!). This is the kind of food you enjoy together with good friends like we did last weekend when my blog friend TorAa and his wife visited us in Mariestad, Sweden. Let me invite you to sit in before I give more details:

Dinner is served!
All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone - please click to enlarge!

The word "rak" comes from the word "rakr" in the Norse language, meaning moist or soaked. The word descends from Indo-European "req", which mean source or drop which is also related to the word rain. Rakfisk is put into a tub and then fluids are formed - it is brined. In the oldest sources, on the other hand, the Rakfisk is mentioned as "brine-cured fish". Originally the fish was buried or put in underground cellars. The supposition for this conservation method is an even soil temperature at about 4C (39F) and that's why the tradition is found around the polar circle at the northern hemisphere. We know of raking of salmon, herring and shark in addition to the gwyniad and trout/char that are the most commonly used today. Ours was a trout of course.

A convenient thing is that it does not need cooking since you eat Rakfisk as is. It’s usually served sliced or as a fillet with raw red onion, lefse (a traditional soft Scandinavian flatbread made out of potato, milk or cream and flour, cooked on a griddle), sour cream and almond potatoes. Some also use mustard-sauce, a mild form of mustard with dill. There is different traditions from every part of Norway – and don’t argue with them! - on the table above and in the rest of the pics, you see how we do it:-). Although not an everyday meal, approximately 500 tonnes of Rakfisk are consumed in Norway annually.

My plate - Butter with the cheese slicer.

Again, a good meal is only fulfilled if eaten together with good friends or family. The traditional food in itself invites talk of about good old days, traditions, Christmas time or Yule (click to read my earlier post for more information) and enjoying each others company. In that way TorAa and his wife was a perfect match. Another important accompaniment is what you drink to this dish. It has to be traditional too of course and then we are talking about the Scandinavian distilled beverage; Aquavit and beer. TorAa wanted white wine though (to save his stomach:-) Hi also introduced another great way of using a cheese slicer (cutting butter) as you can see above.

Since we were in Sweden eating and this blog is about culture in the Nordic countries I should mentioned: Rakfisk dish is related to their Surströmming and probably shares its origin in Scandinavian culture. I’m sure some of my Swedish readers can comment on this!

This is post two of a trilogy about TorAa and his wife visiting us in our vacation home in Sweden this weekend. The last one will be about the hilarious time we had Saturday when our wives went shopping. So stay tuned!

Muhammad Yunus awarded The Nobel Peace Prize

2006-12-11T23:06:00.000+01:00

This evening I had the great privilege of being invited to an event celebrating the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank, which immediately preceded the Nobel Peace Prize Concert. It was a great thrill to hear his speech on how Micro-credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions. Economic growth and political democracy can not achieve their full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equal footing with the male.

All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone - please click to enlarge!

Following the winners speech, we heard a presentation from some of the clients of Grameen Bank who told their personal and moving stories of how small loan to by e.g. sawing machine, material, or even a cow, enable them to start small businesses which eventually allowed them to work their way out of extreme poverty and even employ others within their villages. My wife remarked that this must be true feminism. I do agree as it is a big difference between women fighting for their place in management and woman who are fighting for their family and villages survival. It really shows that little people with a good idea can achieve great things.

At the end of the event, we heard music from the African drum player George Kitogo Sferunjogi from Uganda. He uses the earnings from his performances to give Micro-credits to the people of his homeland.

Of course Norwegians are proud to have the honour of presenting The Nobel Peace prize every year. Due to this we’ve had winners visiting Oslo like Mother Theresa (India), Lech Wałęsa (Poland), Elie Wiesel (USA), Dalai Lama (Tibet), Wangari Maathai (Kenya) among others.

Referral links:
The Nobel Peace Prize, Grameen Foundation, The Norwegian Nobel Institute and Nobel Peace centre in Oslo.

PS: For my regular readers: I will serve you Rakfisk tomorrow:-)

Crazy blog weekend with TorAa

2006-12-10T22:10:00.000+01:00

For a while now, a very good friend of mine TorAa and I have talked about getting together with our wives and doing something fun the four of us. We finally made it this weekend in our vacation home in Mariestad, Sweden. It’s a long time since I’ve had such an enjoyable, relaxing, lively and fun weekend. It’s seldom you find a more perfect match of people hitting it off right from the beginning. The whole weekend was like a symphony of happiness. To make it short; our definition of the good life is very much the same and that happened to be the same for our wives too. So I would say it was a perfect match.

Tor I and met quite a few years ago in The Norwegian Computer Society as we share an interest in strategic use of information technology among other things. The last year, Tor has become more and more interested in blogging and started his own blog the 31st of August. So now we are blog friends too:-) Let me then give you a peek into our hilarious Friday evening:

The Bloggers - Taken with my Nokia mobile phone.

As we have a wireless network in our apartment, there were at the most three computers connected. This picture is from late in the evening where we had coffee avec and a cigar each when surfing around, checking other friends (a lot of them mutual) blogs, commenting and enjoying cyber space together. We even migrated TorAa Mirror into beta blogger so he is ahead of me now:-)

With the introduction of this post, you might ask if that was the only thing happening this weekend. It was not! When was arrived, we had a lovely meal of Rakfisk (fermented fish) and I will tell you all about it in the next post. Saturday we had the most fun time shopping with the wives in charming Mariestad (I’ll tell you all about it in a couple of days!) and in the evening we had another quality time including a trivia contest until almost morning.

Blogging connecting people:
This weekend was to Tor and me a blogger’s gathering too and to be honest, I could tell our wives felt a bit neglected sometimes. They where very patient though and we tried to make it up to them Saturday night - and succeeded:-). Anyway I think it’s wonderful to meet other bloggers and have posted about it before, like when I met Charles in Bergen and Mark in Oslo. When surfing around on Friday evening, Tor found a post from a mutual blog friend Ghee in Japan who was suppose to meet Yorokobee in Tokyo. Blogging sure is connecting people!

See you next time when I will serve you Rakfisk - a historical culinary sensation from Norway!

The Christmas Fair in December

2006-12-06T19:16:00.000+01:00

Inspired of all the visitors and interesting comments on my last post when I declared Advent time begun, I’ve decided to give you a bit more from our first Sunday of Advent adventure. The Christmas Fair at Norsk Folkemuseum (the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History) is Oslo's largest pre-Christmas event. At the fair you can experience: The Open-Air Museum with historical houses decorated for Christmas according to the traditions of the buildings' early inhabitants. Christmas market gives you 120 old fashioned stands selling handmade products, arts and crafts, Christmas ornaments, speciality foods and other holiday treats. You’ll have entertaining family programs featuring concerts, folk dancing, children's choir, Santa's Workshop and more. There is also Church service in the 12th century Stave Church from Gol in Hallingdal.

To get into the right mood, we started with the concert given by the famous Norwegian choir; Boys of Silver (Sølvguttene). They got their name primarily because of the shiny, silvery uniforms that were acquired in the beginning (for lack of other, more subtle materials). Later the name has been attributed to the special sound and clarity of boy’s voices, voices of silver. The choir has been an extremely popular institution in Norway, with its many performances on radio and television, in addition to concerts all over the land. The choir has toured internationally, and has frequently visited other Scandinavian and central European countries. Sølvguttene has visited USA and the former Soviet Union on several occasions. Last Sunday they gave my wife and me a wonderful Advent introduction as they song the traditional Christmas songs. All in Norwegian, but some are quite international like: ‘Silent Night’, ‘Jingle bell’ and ‘A child is born in Bethlehem’.

All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone - please click to enlarge!

Another attraction for children (well, adults like it too:-) is the horse and carriage. I so much remember when I was there as a child how I loved to ride that and also when my own children loved to do it. This day I was laughing to myself as I debated: ‘Am I to old for this?’ I didn’t do it though, there was so much else to see and experience LOL

I mentioned the old buildings, so maybe I should give you an example. The one above is probably from the 17th century, with its very special construction and the grass on the roof. There was even a man playing an accordion to give us the right atmosphere. The weather for the time being is unusually mild with a lot of rain. Folkemuset gives what’s needed of course, as we normally have temperature below freezing and some snow this time of the year. See how well the children are dressed for outdoor activities and also how they are drawn to the fire:-) Actually, if there is something missing in Advent this year, its that we don’t have any snow:-(

I’ll end this story with some more examples of Norwegian hand craft and maybe the most Norwegian you can ever find: ‘Ostehøvel’ – the cheese slicer! It was invented and patented in 1925 by Thor Bjørklund, a carpenter from Lillehammer, Norway. Its mass production started in 1927. Cheese slicers are very common in the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Switzerland. The success of the cheese slicer in these countries is due to the fact that cheese is eaten mainly on bread and that most traditional cheese varieties in these countries are hard enough to be sliced. It’s a must tool on every breakfast, lunch or almost any table in Norway. How else could we have our piece of bread with the brown or yellow cheese? I actually hired one of Bjørklund’s grandchild on a job once, and I did not have to dig into her references that much as I know she came from a good family:-)

Please scroll down to the next post if you haven’t read all about the quality time I had with my wife at the first Sunday of Advent. I do hope by this I’ve set you into the right mood for the wonderful season to come!

Advent time in Norway

2006-12-03T19:38:00.000+01:00

It’s about time to get back to the main theme of my Terella; sharing about Norwegian culture and traditions. Nothing to me is more traditional, a time filled with expectation and anticipation, than advent time. Not that I consider myself especially Christian, but when the first Sunday of Advent appears, a lot of lovely memories are running through my head. Advent of course refers to the four weeks before Christmas – the final count down:-)

To get into the right mood, I had another quality time today with my wife At ‘Norsk Folkemuseum’ - the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History – where you can experience and learn about traditional Norwegian culture and history. Walk with me down the memory lane while I show you some of the pics we took (mostly with a Nikon CoolPix cam. as it’s quite dark in Norway at this time of the year you know).

Let me start with a Christmas house entrance decorated with garland and of course ‘Julenek’: A symbol of Christmas in Norway. It is a stalk of oats tied to a pole. Traditionally, it was good luck if birds ate from the juleneks. It symbolized hope for good farming. Today, people throughout Norway hang juleneks as a general symbol of hope.

Norsk Folkemuseum gives excellent insight in how people lived hundreds of years ago. So let me take you into a Christmas decorated house from the 1890s. In the living room, the table is sets with the family’s best china. There are seven children in the house, and several of them sleep on the floor. The only way to have room for the Christmas tree is to hang it from the ceiling. The Christmas decorations are home made of course, some from glossy paper and some from newspaper. I was fortunate enough to live in a bigger house and had only one sister so we had the tree on the floor. I do remember though, that most of the Christmas decorations were home made. I have some of them on our Christmas tree still, but I have to get back to that as the tree mustn’t be decorated until the day before Christmas Eve you know!

Another interesting little thing caught my eye when we went through all this old building, a cradle hanging from the ceiling and with a child inside. This child is ‘reimet’ as you can see which means to wrap the child’s legs with a wool cloth and tie a ribbon around the outside. They did that for practical reasons up until the beginning of the 20th century. It was impossible for mom to keep an eye on the little one while preparing for Christmas with all the cooking, baking and cleaning. They also thought the babies would get stronger and straight legs by doing that. I’m glad they didn’t believe that anymore when I was a child:-). My grandfather was ‘reimet’ though and he lived to 97 years of age. So it obviously wasn’t too bad anyway.

The Christmas marked at the museum is a collection of Norwegian hand craft and our food tradition. Let me give you some examples:

Christmas market at the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History
(Taken with my Nokia mobile phone)

The four Sundays of advent are often traditionally celebrated with four candles with one to be lit each Sunday. Each candle has a specific meaning associated with different aspects of the Advent story. The first one almost always symbolizes expectant hope sometimes associated with prophecy. I’ll end this post with another Norwegian hand craft example:

So today at dinner, our advent wreath was at the table with one candle lit. By this I declare Advent time begun and I hope I have infected you with some anticipation. There will be more of this in the next four weeks, so stay tuned as I’ll love to share with you!

In the Name of Science - The Speed of Meme

2006-11-30T22:30:00.000+01:00

Today I came across an interesting post. It's a grad student Scott Eric Kaufmann, at his blog Acephalous where he is making a test of how fast a meme travel through our blogssphere. As an Adjunct (part time) Lecturer I cannot resist giving him a hand. Pleas go over to his post, link it to your blog to participate and make blog history! When you're done, ping Technorati!

While I'm at it: My partner in Lynn's Three Pin Shuffle is KnitOwl from TN, US! How very exciting! I've sent my pins to her today. Be nice and go visit her blog too:-)

Update Dec. 1st:
The one and only; Barefoot Mistress at 'Susies The Boss' is celebrating her birthday today. Susie is a blog friend who challenged me by grilling me in July this year. Please visit her blog and wish her well!

Brussels, Belgium – another culinary sensation

2006-11-28T21:57:00.000+01:00

Thanks for all your comments on my last post from Brussels and especially those of you who could add some more information about the places I was visiting. A good example of how educating blogging is and how much comments can be enriching. I promised to tell you about the dinner we had on Saturday and since the last one was so long, I will make it short and sweet this time.

We where staying at Jolly Hotel du Grand Sablon, so it was just a nice five minutes walk to the restaurant (actually quite close to Grand Place too):

The restaurant - visit their website!
All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone - click to enlarge!

On their own webpage they say: Les Brigittines "Aux Marches de la Chapelle" offer you a pleasant Art-Nouveau setting with restful, dark-green walls and wood panelling. The original paintings, clever lighting, elegant Art-Nouveau objects and, in particular, the magnificent wooden bar ensure a nostalgic conviviality that in winter becomes even more agreeable when the fire is lit in the big open fireplace.

The menu:

Aperitif:
Crémant d’Alsace – a lovely start and appropriately dry I think, just to wake up your appetite:-)

As a starter:

Chicken Soufflé, butter sauce with chives. We had Mãcon Villages – Joseph Drouhin and this white wine tasted perfect to the chicken.

The main dish:
Fillet of lamb with tarragon, market vegetables. We had Cõtes du Rhõne – Paralelle 45 Paul Jaboulet and this red whine tasted lovely to the lamb with a rich and very flavour taste.

For dessert:
Ice nougat, very sweet and tasty and I had coffee avec with it – a habit of mine:-)

This was of course tasty and very delicious. What made it an even more perfect evening to me was to share this with my friends within CEPIS – Council of European Professional Informatics Society. We were about 30 people all together and from all over Europe. At my table there were representatives from Finland, Poland, Slovakia and Hungry. We talked about the food and the wine of course, but also about culture and traditions of our countries as well as the history and the development of Europe. For sure our part of the world has opened up after the fall of the Iron Curtain. It was very interesting to listen to their experience and observations before and after the fall. So I learned a lot from my European friends that evening as the atmosphere around the table was very enlightened and like a consciences sensation. That is an important part of a culinary sensation too I think. Dinning is not all only about food – its about socialising too, you know:-)

This was the same society fellows I was with in Sofia, Bulgaria six month ago. Click here if you like to see a Bulgarian culinary sensation from that stay!

Brussels, The European Capital

2006-11-26T00:19:00.000+01:00

I just love Brussels and so will you after I’ve given you a peek into this wonderful European town. I was there in a meeting last weekend and on Sunday I was walking around on my own to breathe in the cultural atmosphere. Let’s have a quick update of the country: The Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe bordered by the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and France and is one of the founding and core members of the European Union. Belgium has a population of over ten million people, in an area of around 30,000 square kilometers (11,700 square miles). And then the city: Brussels is the capital of Belgium and the administrative center of the European Union. This has earned the city the title of the Capital of Europe. Brussels has been given its character by the coexistence of French and Flemish culture, and it is nowadays home to nationalities around the world, adding a cosmopolitan flavor to its atmosphere. The vibrant atmosphere of Brussels is further enhanced by picturesque medieval streets, lively squares, beautiful boulevards, impressive monuments, spacious parks, cosy cafés, interesting restaurants and an active cultural life. I had 50 pictures in my Nokia mobile phone camera after walking around in the city center and here are a few to give you an idea:

All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone - please click to enlarge!

Let’s start with this famous boy: Manneken Pis ("little man piss" in English), is a Brussels landmark. It is a small bronze fountain sculpture depicting a little boy urinating into the fountain's basin. Similar statues can be found in the Belgian towns of Geraardsbergen, Broksele and Hasselt. Manneken Pis means as much to Brussels as the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty mean to Paris and New York. The tiny statue was cast in bronze in 1619 by Jerome Duquesnoy but was unfortunately destroyed. Another was cast to replace it in 1630. Seemingly destined to doom, the replacement was repeatedly attacked by the English and the French. The spirit of the tiny boy could not be annihilated however, and his remaining fragments were gathered up and used to form the mould from which today's Manneken Pis was cast. During high season, visitors from around the world gather to see the little; weeing statue's ever-changing wardrobe. This day he was wearing a uniform and I’m sorry I don’t know exactly what kind – could anybody help?

Of course one cannot talk about Brussels and Belgium without mentioning their lovely chocolates. To the right, you see a shopping window just five steps away from Manneken Pis. Brands of Belgian chocolate, like Neuhaus and Côte d'Or, are world renowned and widely sold; even the cheapest and most popular brand, Leonidas, has earned a reputation for its quality.

Five minutes walk from there you find The Grand Place, the central market square of Brussels. It is surrounded by guild houses, the city's spectacular Town Hall and the Breadhouse. The square is the most important tourist destination and most memorable landmark in Brussels next to the Atomium.

In the 13th century the predecessor of the Breadhouse was a wooden building where bakers sold their bread in a covered market: the Dutch name Broodhuis recalls this function. It was replaced in the 15th century by a stone building for the administration of the duke of Brabant; when the duchy fell to the Habsburgs, the Maison du duc (Duke's house) became the Maison du Roi (King's house). In 1873, the city entrusted architect Victor Jamaer to restore the battered structure in neo-gothic style.

When looking around in the crowed, I realised there was a lot of scouts. In groups they where gathering all around the place. To the right you see a group having their lunch in a very scout way I would say – very cute:-)

Belgians have of course a reputation for loving waffles and French fries (both originated at Belgium). The national food is steak (or mussels) with French fries and lettuce. Even more interesting I think, is that Belgium produces over 500 varieties of beer. Belgian beer comprises the most varied and numerous collections of beers in the world. Belgian beer-brewing's origins go back to the Middle-Ages, when monasteries began producing beers. Unlike in other European countries, Belgian beer production remained alive due to the 1919 Belgian "Vandervelde Act" that prohibited the sale of spirits in pubs, inducing the market to produce beers with a higher level of alcohol. The Vandervelde Act was lifted as late as 1983.

If you like to have a taste of Belgium beer, Le Roy at Grand Place is a must. I remember last time I was in Brussels was for the European football championship in 2000. I was then in Le Roy after Norway’s lost and was out of the tournament. Never has a Leffe tasted better:-)

I had to go in this time as well of course, and taste some of the variety they can offer. If you like beer, this is the ultimate place. If not, you’ll have a lovely view of Grand Place!

I’ve decided to end up with some beautiful Belgium art tradition; their special hand craft of lace and embroidery. Again not far from Grand Place, you find this shop covered with this traditional sewing art. I met a nice, young woman in this shop who showed me and told about this wonderful tradition. The pattern various from district to district, but I hope you understand: it will take to long to go into details. So for now, just enjoy the pics taken by mo Nokia mobile phone.

I do hope you’ve enjoyed this post as much as I have when writing it and searching the net for backgrounds and detailed information. It might have become a bit too long, but I wanted to give you a peek you know:-) This post is also dedicated to a special blog friend of mine, Sidney from Belgium, who has a wonderful photo blog posting from the Philippines (I didn’t mean to make you homesick my friend!). Please visit his blog by clicking here as he is a brilliant photographer.

We had a lovely meal on Saturday at Les Brigittine’s too. My next post will be about that special and culinary sensation!