Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Feigefossen and Lustrefjorden

Still working on pictures from May ;)















Sunday, July 13, 2008

If you go on a journey...

... something MUST go wrong otherwise it would not be fun eh?
Well the good points first - I am in Vancouver, it is fantastic here and now the fact why I am still awake after 24 hours - I am waiting for my bag.
Sure, I got this Overnight Kit from Air Canada BUT I will not find any solution for contact lenses in there ... and putting them in chlorined water - no thank you.
I always used to bring a bottle in my backpack but because some shithole thought it was a fantastic idea to forbid all fluids and nowadays they even check small stuff I just don't do that anymore. In addition I want my hiking boots for the field trip tomorrow ... we are going to a mine and sandals are not really fantastic.
So I am waiting for my bag which I still had in Calgary and it takes them about 6 hours to get the bag on the next flight and bring it to me, although I was told at 7 p.m. at the airport that the flight the bag is on will arrive at 9.
So whoever wonders why I didn't fly with my bag ... that is very simple - the whole day I had flight of immense delays. If you think 2 hours of stay at the airport is enough - don't count on that, might get really tight.
It all started with a sick passenger (why did the intelligent person board the airplane anyway?)who needed medical treatment when the machine was about to take-off in London, so they had to go back to the gate and couldn't start in time for Oslo, where I was waiting for the flight. When they finally were in Oslo, they were not allowed to start because of heavy traffic and then they were not allowed to land in London because of ... guess .. .heavy traffic. Fortunately, I was not the only one who wanted to catch the flight to Calgary (and the transatlantic flight was the most important one because I had a field trip the next day and I didn't want to miss it). Luckily it was the same terminal in London, but it was a lot of walking and going through security again and walking and walking. We made it finally 10 minutes before the flight was supposed to start - the airplane was fully ready when we arrived BUT ...heavy traffic. So we did not arrive in time and I had just one hour in Calgary which was almost used up with the delay - not talking about having to go through customs, waiting for my bag to arrive and checking it in again and then finding the gate. So they put me on a waiting list for all flights going to Vancouver. I almost gave up on the next one because they said it was full and then they put me on in the very last minute. I was already in the plane when they informed me, that my bag could not be put into the plain but I just had to fill out a claim in Vancouver and it will be on the next flight anyway.
At least people were quite friendly .. but please I want my bag !!!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Urnes Stavkirke

The stavechurch of Urnes is not only one of the oldest in Norway but also one of the Unesco world-heritage sites. The fantastic wood carvings are thought ot be of a former building which dates back to the 11th century. The animal-ornamentation is quite unique because it represents Viking art on a Christian building.







Sognefjellvegen - 'Road over the roof of Norway'

The road goes from Lom to the Lustrafjorden along the border of Jotunheimen National Park. The highest point is at 1434 m height and the view would probably be even better if one could see more of the highest mountains of Norway ;)













Thursday, July 3, 2008

Lom Stavkirke

Just one picture - we didn't go inside since we had to continue driving.



It was constructed form 1170 on and there were some additional parts added in 1634.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Strynefjell

May in Norway ;)
Green in the valley:



Up in the mountains - foggy on one side of the tunnel:



Sunny on the other:



The road to Geiranger ... mother doesn't believe that there is a road ;)



And because it is so nice:



Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Euro 2008

Honestly, I love soccer (I keep it to this word not that Americans think I am talking about American football which of course is rugby in GB ;)) and usually I try to watch most of the games. Sometimes I do not make it to all of the games in the first round because I cannot stop to work at 6 pm for more than one week. Anyway, the last games of the first round and the games further on are an absolute MUST for me - I just want to see the teams playing. Just watching games where Germany is playing is absolutely ridiculous for me. Either you like soccer and you watch or you don't like it and don't watch but not liking soccer and watching only German games - how can people then ever judge how they play in comparison to other teams?
Anyway, this post should actually be about the differences between watching soccer in Germany and in Norway. Generally it doesn't really matter if one doesn't understand all what the commentator says - on Norwegian TV there are always two.
What I really had problems with was the 15 minute break which was filled completey with commercials - horrible. In Germany, you get either the Delling-Netzer team (sorry link is only in German)on ARD or Meyer/Klopp together with Kerner on ZDF. No matter what team is on, there will be a review of the best scenes, the goals and some debatable actions of the referee or the players. I like that a lot because there are always some things to learn about soccer and I really missed that a lot.
In my opinion, we finally got a european champion who deserves it - Spain was just at its very best - they had speed and accuracy and managed a very constant performance throughout the tournament.