Monthly Archives: May 2015

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Tour des Fjords

Starting area

Starting area

This weekend there has been a lot of people in town. The weather has been lovely and there was quite a lot going on. The biggest event was a cycling race called Tour des Fjords. Norway is a country where cycling has gotten quite big over the last years. Mainly due to the fact that we’ve had a few good cyclists making it on the international scene. For those of you that follow cycling Thor Hushovd, Edwald Boasson Hagen and Alexander Kristoff might be familiar names. The former just made headline news when he was asked if he was moving away from Norway to not have to pay Tax on his earnings and answered that he wanted to stay in the country and didn’t mind paying his taxes because he was getting the benefits of having a good welfare state.

Tour des Fjords is a cycling event that goes over stages. It’s set in the region where I live and they cycle past the fjords and mountains close by. There are also stages that begins that begin and end in my city Stavanger and the neighbouring city Sandnes Most people here root for the local cyclist Alexander Kristoff who won last year. Plenty of people showed up to cheer for the cyclist as they went past and a lot of people were watching on the big screen put up in the town square and on TV. Showing of our lovely nature on TV like that is really good for tourism, so we were lucky the sun decided to pay us a visit.

Car with extra bikes

Car with extra bikes

I’ve spent a bit of the weekend enjoying the weather and the forecasts tells us that we’ll soon have the temperatures to match the calendar. I’ve also attended an enjoyable house-warming party at a friends new place. I got a bit of laundry, tidying and cleaning done. And I also got to do a bit of writing and reading. So all in all this weekend has been really good.
Hope you all had a great weekend. How did you choose to spend it?
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Witsun at the cabin

Flowers from the garden

Flowers from the garden

I spent this Whitsun at our summer-house. The weather was not the best when I drove in after work on friday, but the rain wasn’t too bad. I woke up quite early on saturday and after a nice long breakfast I drove to Jørpeland, the nearest small town. I picked up some groceries we forgot, had a walk around town and enjoyed a nice ice cream.

View of the harbour in Jørpeland

View of the harbour in Jørpeland

The rest of the day the sun was out and I got to work on my tan even if it was a bit cold. I also helped my dad out with a bit of work needed at the cabin. I also got a long walk in so I could clear my head and enjoy the lovely view.

View from the island in the sun

View from the island in the sun

The next day the weather had turned again and the rain was pouring down again. There was more work to be done and we had a long visit from some of the neighbours that came to help out. I really like to have good and kind neighbours that lends you a hand when you need one and that you can help out should you be able to help them with anything. I don’t know why it’s like this, but somehow that’s easier at the summer-house in the country than home in the town where I live in an apartment in the town centre. Granted i don’t need any help from the neighbours at home, but I hardly know them. And it suits me fine to have it that way at home. At the cabin everyone stops to chat, helps you with stuff and Knows more about each other and I like that it’s like that there.

Going home

Going home

All good things must come to an end and as the weekend ended we headed home to visit my granddad for his birthday. Hope you all had a good weekend!

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Coffee berry

Coffee berry

Coffee berry

As many of you have probably figured out I’m a coffee person. I need my coffee in the morning and I love a nice cup of coffee during the day. As a treat we went out for one of the newest coffee place in Stavanger, Coffee Berry a few day ago. It’s a very cosy place with furniture and atmosphere from a home in the 60-70’s. They have very good coffee and they do nice little cakes and treats. They also have a few Norwegian “smørbrød” (open-faced sandwiches). I tried some of the macaroons in the colours of the Norwegian flag and my better half had a raspberry cake.

Sweet little treats

Sweet little treats

I really like the beads on the candle holders, the 70’s patterns on the plates. Not to mention the phones in the first photo, and the phone furniture they are standing on. I have a suspicion that many of the kids today would not know what those were used for and are wondering why the phones have cords on them even when it looks like they’re not charging.

We have a lot of new coffee places opening in Stavanger at the moment. Starbucks is opening a shop in Stavanger after having searched for a goo spot to open up since they opened their first shop in Norway in 2012. So these are good times to be a coffee lover in Stavanger if you like to have many options to choose from. Having a coffee at a coffee place isn’t very cheap in Norway so going out to have a cup isn’t something I can afford as often as I’d like, but I do like to treat myself from time to time.

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Photos from Yesterday – I’m a survivour!

I survived the 17th of May. All the marching, playing, the rain and sunshine. Even the part of the day where I was locked out of my apartment after being so tired I had returned the car and the keys to my home and got back with the keys to the car (luckily I got in after about an hours wait). Below are som photos from the big day:

Ready to march

Ready to march

The start of the day was so wet I was afraid to get the camera out

Parade in Gjesdal

Parade in Gjesdal

For the second parade in a tiny place called Gjesdal the sun was shining. And the view was lovely. There is never many people watching the parade there because almost everyone is in it.

Third stop Gilja

Third stop Gilja

The third parade is the one furthest away, there was a combination of sunshine and rain, so you both got wet from the rain and from th jacket getting a bit clammy. But fantastic scenery and people were so grateful we came.

Oltedal has it's own sign in the hillside

Oltedal has it’s own sign in the hillside

Forth parade was in Oltedal the valley with its own “Hollywood sign” if you look closely you can see it on the hillside.

Bottom of the valley

Bottom of the valley

Then it was of to eat in Kongeparken, an amusement park in Ålgård. We ate and had a small parade in the park.

Friends of king Brumle in Kongeparken

Friends of king Brumle in Kongeparken

Last on the programme was a small parade on to the new football stadion in Ålgård, but by now it was raining so much I didn’t want to get my phone wet, so no photos.

I got an ice cream in the end!

I got an ice cream in the end!

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Norwegian Island Idse

View of sea and mouintains

View of sea and mountains

Our summer-house, that I wrote about in the previous post and a few others. Is as many of you have gathered a place I come to relax. It is situated on an island close to the quite famous Lysefjorden where you can find the pulpit rock. I find the scenery quite beautiful and dramatic. The photo above is taken from the bay where our summer-house is. The name of the bay is Kjeksevåg which translates to Biscuit Bay

Small house

Small house

The island’s name is Idse and it’s not a very large island, but not too small either. You have a few people living there and there are a few farms and quite a few summer houses. There used to be a school here but now there aren’t enough children on the island to keep the school and with the bride going over to the mainland it’s not a very long bus ride over to the nearest school.

Small farm with horses

Small farm with horses

I love how I can be this close to home and still get away to a quiet life with beautiful nature and where you can slow down and not stress. Some of the houses and farms are very picturesque and you feel like you’re in a very different time and place then when you’re in Stavanger. And it’s just an hour 15 minutes drive or a 30 minutes boat ride away!

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Hyttetur (cabin trip)

Waiting for the ferry, looking at the fjord.

Waiting for the ferry, looking at the fjord.

A while ago I was going to our summer-house to rest and enjoy the very good weather. But sadly an illness stopped me. Earlier this week I got to go in for a little while and even if the weather was not very good it was a peaceful relaxing break.

Not the best weather, but we enjoyed

Not the best weather, but we enjoyed

The cabin trip contained eating nice food, reading and going for walks when the rain didn’t pour down. Very good for the body and mind.

Brook was quite active as the rain had done it's magic

Brook was quite active as the rain had done its magic

It didn’t rain all the time we were there. Most of the time it was overcast, and there wasn’t much wind. Despite this I decided against going out fishing. I’ll have to go back and do that later.

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Lovely sunset

The time to return to the city came all to quickly, as these things often do. I was sad to have to leave, but I came home with my batteries a little bit more charged.

Waiting for ferry going home.

Waiting for ferry going home.

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The Year I Was Born 1986

I was reading Good Woman’s post about the year she was born, and I found it very interesting. It gave me the idea to write a post about the year I was born 1986.

First of, at the same day I was born 26th of April 1986, the terrible Chernobyl disaster occurred. Everyone was scared about the effects that this nuclear power plant blowing up would have. In Norway it meant among other things that it was un safe to eat reindeer meat for quite some time. But the effects in areas closer to the accident has been a lot more severe.

Other bad stuff was the murder of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, Challenger exploded 73 seconds after take-off killing all the 7 people on board. It seems there was quite a lot of fires, boats sinking, earth quakes and bombings this year too.

The year wasn’t all bad even if there was a lot of bad stuff going on. On a more positive note. IBM showed the world their PC Convertible, the company’s first portable computer. Spain and Portugal joined the EEC. Pixar Animation Studios is opened. The 27th Congress of the CPSU opens in Moscow. The General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev introduces the keywords of his mandate to the audience: Glasnost and Perestroika. Breakthrough in US – USSR Arms Talks between Reagan and Gorbachev leads to commitment to disarm thus ending a long period of instability caused by the Cold War

Some of the leaders around the world was: Jacques Chirac was elected prime minister of France. Dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier  “Baby Doc”, fled Haiti. Ronald Reagan was president in the USA, he made the decision to bomb Libya this year and the Iran-Contra affair was known. Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister in Great Britain. In Norway the Willoch government abdicated due to a question of raising the tax on gas and Gro Harlem Brundtland had her second period in office. And one must not forget that Clint Eastwood was elected Mayor of Carmel California!

Entertainment and sports: In one of the most famous FIFA World Cup matches, Argentinian football player Diego Maradona scores one handball goal (nicknamed the “Hand of God”) and then dribbles past the entire English football team to score a second goal (nicknamed “The Goal of the Century”) with Argentina winning 2-1 against England.Mike Tyson wins his first world boxing title by defeating Trevor Berbick in Las Vegas. Sandra Kim from Belgium wins the Eurovision Song Contest in Bergen, Norway with her song J’aime la vie. Matt Groening creates The Simpsons family.

Sources: Wikipedia and the people history