Nyhaven

Colors ... it’s what attracted me to Nyhavn.  A lovely district in Copenhagen, Denmark.  It's a charming place to hang out, get a suntan and drink chilled Savignon Blanc.  A lot of images have been captured of this place so I decided to give it a different twist.

Enjoy your day.

We are Family

Still in Scandinavia.  This was taken at a charming tourist shop near Sognefjord where we were headed.  I like taking pictures of cute little shop items that are pretty worthless yet expensive.  Don't know why people buy them.  Maybe because these people are tourists.  So likely they are for souvenirs or giveaways when they return back to their home countries.

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Happy Thursday.  It's my favorite day out of the six days of the week.  Monday is the blues.  Tuesday is moody like the Rolling Stones song Goodbye Ruby Tuesday.  Wednesday is ashen.  Friday is long time a-comming.  Saturday is time for bath.  I sort of lied.  Sunday is my all time favorite.

This Way to Hans Christian Andersen's House

This street art tells the tourist where Hans Christian Andersen's house is located.  A rather brilliant way of directing how to get there since this art work is a graffiti on a temporary wall where construction is being done.  Pretty soon, I'm sure the wall will be removed and so will the graffiti.  Quite frankly, the house is not that remarkable so I'm not even going to post an image of it.

HCA was a prolific writer but better known for his fairy tales like "The Ugly Ducking" and "The Little Mermaid".  The stories are channels of his life.  He was ugly.  And he was gay.

The often melancholic Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard remarks that Andersen is characterized as, “... a possibility of a personality, wrapped up in such a web of arbitrary moods and moving through an elegiac duo-decimal scale [i.e., a chromatic scale. Proceeding by semitones, and therefore including sharps as well as flats, such a scale is associated more with lament or elegy than is an ordinary diatonic scale] of almost echoless, dying tones just as easily roused as subdued, who, in order to become a personality, needs a strong life-development.”  Somebody please explain that to me.  

Hope you are enjoying your day.

Liquid Lunch at Odense

This was at Odense in Denmark.  Home to Hans Christian Andersen.  You know the guy who wrote all those fairy tales.  He was a bit of a fairy himself.  But that's another story.

Restaurant Grønttorvet.  I was surprised that the restaurant had Indian Pale Ale on tap, which I tried.  I think Rose ordered some light fruity beer.  At this time, my mind is foggy about what had taken place.  I also think we shared a salad or something because the service in Scandinavia was very slow and we had to catch our tour bus in less than half an hour.  So for the most part, our source of nutrition was the beer.  An old German guy we met in Munich told us that beer is liquid lunch.  Good enough for us for the time being.

Hope your day is going well.

Existential Thoughts in Oslo

So I have been thinking - like I always do.  Why does the sun shine brighter in Norway?  A country that has a lot of resources.  They are big agricultural producers.  They are sitting on an oil mine. The country is financially the envy of the world.  The Norwegians are one of the happiest people on earth.  Why is it that they get to enjoy all these while the rest of the world suffers.  Surely they are not religious - even though majority of people are register Lutherans but so few ever worship or visit the church.

Then you may ask: What does this post have to do with the above image?  Actually, nothing.  It's my blog so I get to post anything I want.  Heh.

Hope your day is going well.

You A'int Seen Nothin' Yet

Crazy weather in Georgetown, Texas.  It's normal from what I've been told.  It's going to get worse in the coming days.

It was late in the afternoon - closer to the evening, and the temperature was still hot, and yet it was raining, and the thunderstorm are causing the mushrooms to sprout on random places, the critters are looking for shelter.

This morning we found a lazy scorpion crawling straight to our bedroom.  It was a good three inches with its pointy pincher ready to find a soft human flesh - preferably that of a non-Texan native.  Freaked out the rest of the day.  I'm not one of those eco-activist who loves to hug trees and leave the rattle snake alone.  I mashed the scorpion to smithereens with one of my old sneakers that was laying next to it.  So now we are forced to wear shoes inside the house.

Hope you are having a wonderful day.

City of Umbrellas

In my previous post, I mentioned that Bergen is called the City of Umbrellas.  Indeed.  It rains a lot.  This image is proof of persistent rain.  No kidding.  I ended buying a raincoat to get through the rainy weather.

But the moments of intense rain is quickly forgotten when the sun breaks through and the city glows and twinkles.  As they say: get an umbrella, wear water repellent shoes, a light water repellent jacket and a good attitude looking forward the rain. Experienced Bergen-people don't leave home without their umbrellas.

Hope your day is going well.

Still Life with Wild Sunflowers and Glass of Savignon Blanc

Another find at the field near our house.  I decided to place the wild Sunflowers on a nondescript bottle of Savignon Blanc. Lately, I have gravitated towards this variety of wine.  It is refreshing - not as sweet as the California Chardonay and not as dry as other French wines.  Perfect for the hot and humid weather here in Texas.  This one is from Marlborough, New Zealand.  I love the SVs from this place.  The chair on the background was installed yesterday.  It took me a while to assemble it as the directions were in Chinese.  It's a nice looking bar stool but a pain to assemble.  There are two more to assemble.  The setting is at our counter top. Rose and I always wanted to have one where we can enjoy appetizers and wine.  We are loving our home in Georgetown.

Hope your day is going well.

Sven Svenson

A Swedish working man who drove us to Trollstigen, Norway.  His name is Stig.  But we shall call him Sven Svenson.  He doesn't like being associated with the Trolls.  I don't blame him.

Hope you are having a great day.

Wild Flowers Near our front Yard

Picked them up this morning at a vacant lot near our front yard.  Don't know what they are but I thought they looked interesting.  There are plenty of wild flowers growing near our house.  I hope they come back next year.  Although that's highly unlikely.  New houses are being built everyday around our area.  Pretty soon I'll have to hike or drive farther to see the wild flowers.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying them.  

Reminds me when we lived in Southern California.  It used to be all dirt road and wild poppies everywhere around us.  The poppies would even grow on our backyard.  That changed when we left for Texas.  Home developers kept building houses in the city.  The 100 year old oak trees were rooted out and replaced with box houses.  I speculate the same will happen where we now live.  It will only be a matter of time.

Hope your day is going well.

Postcard from Norway

21st Century Scandinavian

21st Century Scandinavian.  He traded his eye contacts for a retro bicycle spectacles.  He quit smoking tobacco on his Danish hand crafted pipe.  Nowadays he just indulge in some rolled up unknown leaves while enjoying a pint of diluted beer.  Memo to self:  Must go back to Denmark to purchase more adult beverages.  He is conscious of his beard.  Memo to self number 2:  Been at the barber two days ago so it’s time to return.  Is it also time to take a holiday to the south?  Memo to self number 3: Check weather in Nice, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.  Life is good.

Garmo Stave Church

Have lost track of our days in Scandinavia.  I do know that at this time we are in Norway.  Lillehammer to be exact.

The image is the Garmo Stave Church situated at the Maihaugen museum at Lillehammer in Oppland, Norway.  It is one of the buildings that Anders Sandvig brought to this place.  We were told that Sandvig must have bought over 20 houses at this place because he can.  Just kidding.  Actually, he did buy the properties in this area but I forgot the reasoning behind his purchase.

A word or two about church life in Scandinavia.  There are lots of churches - mostly State Lutheran churches.  More than 80% of the population chose to be members of the church and yet almost all do not attend worship service except for baptism and/or first communion.  Quite frankly, I find this very strange.

Nota Bene:  A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church building once common in north-western Europe. The name derives from the building's structure of post and lintel construction, a type of timber framing where the load-bearing ore-pine posts are called stafr in Old Norse (stav in modern Norwegian). 

Hope your day is going well.

Bergen Harbor - the City of Umbrellas

Third day in Scandinavia:  Landed in  Bergen from Copenhagen via ferry.  They say Bergen is a City of Umbrellas.  The Bergians are proud of it.  Sure enough it rained the whole time we were there.


From rain to alcohol:

Norway is interesting when it comes to alcohol restriction.  It's hard to buy alcohol in Norway.  Unlike in the States, one can easily buy alcohol beverages in grocery stores.  Norwegian law is very strict.  Perhaps to a point that alcohol consumption is discouraged.  That's why Norwegians go to Denmark to buy wine and liquor.

We had light lunch at the harbor in Bergen, and the only beer one can have in any restaurant is 2.5% alcohol.  That's not even beer in my opinion.  I seem to remember in chemistry class that alcohol has to be at least 5% to be called beer.  I couldn't find wine except at the hotel.  Very expensive.  Like four times the price of a bottle one would pay here in the States.  I suppose that's typical across the board.

Still I think Norway is worth visiting.  The country offers scenic landscapes and fjords.  It's one of the most beautiful places I have seen.  More on this on the next post.

Sofie's Choice

Just give her sunshine so she can get a nice tan.  (Scandinavian women love a nice tan to a point of skying topless.)  She is happy with sipping a mixed cocktail outdoor at Nyhaven, which might just be the convenient place to get a tan.  Maybe a piece of Danish bun.  Or Hygge.  She has a tendency to shut the outside world and commune with her inner self.  A followup coffee from Costa Rica - but don't tell them where it came from.  She a girl from Randers, Denmark.  Maybe somebody could write a song about her.  Much like the Girl from Ipanema.  Life is good.

Quaint Norwegian Village

Charming little village in Geiranger, Norway.  Perhaps my favorite of all the places we stayed at while in Scandinavia.  Serene waterscape with the snow capped mountains behind it.  Fresh heavenly air, green hills and laid back countenance.  Away from it all.  Sooner or later, the solitude it offers will go away.  I try to enjoy it while it lasts.  Later on at night, the cruise ships will start docking.  Then in the morning I'll have to deal with the rude tourists who just arrived.  Suddenly it felt they invaded us with their oversized down jackets and pointy cheese cutter hats and their atrocious manner and ubiquitous selfies. Ugh.  Nothing lasts forever.

Hope your day is going well.

Dapper Danish Mystery Man

He's a mystery man.  He wears his yellow straw fedora slightly tilted so it's hard to see his eyes.   In fact, he has no eyes.  His face turns green just before he disappears from the public view.  He ties his scarf in twirls of eight - only he knows how to do it.  He strides to the rhythm of Mussorgsky.  He is a Dapper Dan.  And he is Danish.

Lovely Oslo

Historical.  The place where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, natives are tall and blond and have blue eyes, herring is a must-eat, pickled herring, herring with mustard sauce, raw herring, a place where everything is expensive, bottled water costs $5, price of diluted beer is not too far from that of water, a glass of wine costs three times the price of the bottle in the States, almost everything is regulated, a farmer cannot just sell his farm to anybody but to the oldest child, the maximum alcohol content of beer is 3.5%, some are less than that, one cannot name their children apart from the list that the government provides, almost everyone is registered Lutheran but never visited a church except a few times in a lifetime such as baptism and first communion, a happy place to be in - if you are a Norwegian.

Wild Sunflowers in our Neighborhood

Just arrived from our 19-day excursion in Scandinavia/California.  It was the first time I didn't bring my pro cameras.  Just my faithful iPhone 7 plus.  I'm actually happy with some of the images I captured but they would require some minor post processing.  I'll try to post some images on this blog as soon as they are processed.

During the entire trip, I felt liberated without a camera strapped on my neck.  As I mentioned in my previous post, photography is a young man's sport.  It requires waking up early to catch the golden hour, a lot of walking while hauling a couple of cameras, maybe an extra lens for backup, photo gears such as filters and cleaning kit, maybe a tripod, more walking -  all of these guaranteed to eventually break one's back as time goes on.  Thanks to advancement in technology, the handy smartphone can capture some decent photos when done appropriately.  But I'm not ready to get rid of my photography equipment.  Not just yet.

This sunflower arrangement was taken with the iPhone.  Found and took some home today while fetching our mails at our mail box, which was a bock away from our house here in Georgetown, Texas.  A lot of these are just wild and they're huge.  As they say: everything is big in Texas.   Hope you enjoy.