Far Far Away

I have just returned from a week away in Belgium and London. Technically it was to attend a workshop and a day of lectures but most of the time was really spent sightseeing, which I enjoyed immensely. The first few days were in a city in Belgium called Leuven, which had the most amazing town hall I think I have ever seen!

It also had a fabulous cafe culture and I think I spent almost 80% of the time I was there sitting in one cafe or another drinking the fabulous belgian beer, even one that was pink and cherry flavoured if you can believe that!

In my wanderings around the city I came across an old church that was boarded up and appeared abandoned. After photographing it from all kinds of angles I learnt that they had been working on restoring it for the last 100 years. Holy cow hey! I thought it was still really beautiful even though it was apparently a wreck.

I have to run into town to meet friends for dinner (Friday nights really are my favourite!) but I promise to post more pics from Brussels and London soon. XXX to all....

Stones to Ocean

Last weekend J and I were invited to join a Lithuanian couple from our Norwegian class (and their teenage son) on a trip to 'the ocean'. It was wonderful to get out of the city and to explore some of the surrounding landscape. We began by hiking out to one of their favourite spots on the rocks...

It was a really strangely rocky and barren landscape but also really really beautiful, with little villages and snow covered mountains visible off in the distance.

We settled down on a perch overlooking the water, chatted in our broken english and norwegian, watched the rock climbers and began some lunch preparations. The Norwegians are big on these things called 'one time grills'. They are basically small aluminium trays filled with heat beads and a grill cover. The idea is that you take them out to a picnic spot, have a little BBQ and then throw them away. As our Lithuanian friends (Ramundas, Auschra & Motiejus) have been in Norway for years rather than months like us, they are integrated enough to use these things. So we had a small BBQ overlooking the North Sea, which was all very lovely. Across a stretch of water from us we could see a tall rock tower. Ramundas told us that it was a viking version of a lighthouse, that they used to light a fire on top of it to help guide ships in. Of course we then had to work our way over to it to check it out!

It was a really amazing area with inlets and islands everywhere.

The tower was basically just a pile of rocks but we certainly felt the weight of history upon us as we stood beside it!

After hiking around, BBQing on the rocks and checking out Viking towers, Motiejus decided it was time to do some fishing, and what do you know, he actually caught something.

So all in all, you could say it was a truly wonderful day! XXX

Pretty Park

I recently found a new park in our general neighbourhood (i.e. somewhere between our house and the city!) At first I thought it would just be a pretty place to hang out with J and the hounds, but it turns out that the place actually has historical significance. It represents one of the last preserved pieces of the original mail route between Oslo and Bergen. You can see part of the route in the back of this first photo.

It is also one of the last places in Bergen where you can find a real troll hole, as evidenced in the second photo. Okay, so I made that bit up, but you have to agree that if you were a troll, this is exactly the kind of hole you would love to live in! Trolls are a really big part of Norwegian mythology and you find them everywhere - in stories, in parks, and of course in souvenier shops. If I was a betting woman I would say that you would also find one here if you came after midnight on the first full moon of a new season. I must check sometime!

The park also had a couple of other lovely features that I have included pics of below, just to make sure you have pretty park picture overload!


I will leave you with one of 'Kurt's crazy but worth trying exercises' that I actually did on the day I went to the park and took these pics, hope you can find time to try it too sometime.

"On the day before you go on a long journey, find a small stone to bring with you. Keep the stone with you at all times during the journey. When you return home, put the stone back where you found it." xxx