I cannot remember when men first landed on the moon, in 1969. I was alive and old enough to remember something like that. We had a TV. That is to say, my granduncle had a TV—up on the old farm, in a little valley above a fjord. There was nothing on it until 6 pm, […]
Apples makes me think of the old gold mining town of Julian in Southern California, a charming and tiny place that today specializes in apple pie. Warm apple pie with cheddar cheese on it is a wonderfully delicious combo! Lasers make me think of when laserium shows were new. There were shows in Los Angeles, […]
If you follow me on Instagram, you will recognize some of these photos. Leaving the good stuff only to IG isn’t fair to my blog only readers, so here you go! First up is from earlier this fall, in the neighborhood of our university, at Øysteins gate. I think Øystein was a king. We have […]
Here’s a blast from the past (September 13 2008). I love the play of shadows and the blue reflecting in the water. Somewhere-north-of-here fjord I actually did not recognize where the above was until I looked at some of the other photos from the same day: This was from an overnight trip with my then-department. […]
The final day of being lyrically challenged (in more ways than one), thanks to one of my inspirations for blogging, Paula at Light Motifs. If you’re feeling inspired, please do your own challenge and let me know about it! And now for the third song with lyrics I not only paid attention to, but also […]
It is Day 2 of the song lyric challenge that Paula at Light Motifs has lobbed at me. With friends like that, et cetera. So I mentioned yesterday that I’m not really aware of what people are singing because not enough enunciation. (By the way, I was double-checking that I had the right word, and […]
I have been challenged by Paula at Light Motifs to do three days of song lyrics. I thank Paula for making me update my blog (no, really, I needed this) but I have no one else who is actively blogging to pass the challenge on to. That doesn’t matter. I don’t do anything that reminds […]
I belong to the generation that followed the boomers. No, not Generation X. That other generation. The small one that is considered boomer but really isn’t. We’re just the tail at best. We aren’t the ones that rebelled. As my high school history teacher said: We’re the nothing-happened generation. There’s a lot of good to […]
So, I’m busy downloading old photos from my Flickr account because Flickr is being sold and I’m tired of dealing with various TOS. ‘Sides, I’m paying for Dropbox. And digging through the old stuff, here’s one from 15 years ago: The weekend I was a professional astrologer. Giving an astrological reading at the Bergen New […]
When I read that Bergen was getting ready to celebrate 950 years in 2020, I suddenly felt old. I remember when this plaque was new: Stones from all the counties of Norway were used to create this commemorative plaque for Bergen’s 900th anniversary in 1970. The caption reads “1070 Bergen City 1970 / Norway’s cities […]
I don’t often post about politics. Mainly, it’s because I don’t have the intellectual capacity to understand and engage. I therefore understand those who vote with their gut, because I do, too. But I do get impressions from the world around me and right now, it looks like it is reenacting “Animal Farm”. I know […]
We’ve had one of the wettest and coolest summers ever in Bergen in Norway this year—rainy enough to have us wondering if we will break a record. The current record for the most rain in one summer is from 1964. That’s the record we’re trying to break this year. Actually, we’ve been very against breaking […]
Wordless Wednesday MS Bruvik On Saturday, I took a tour with the MS Bruvik, the same boat that once ferried me to summer camp when I was about 10 years old. Back then it was just a boat ride. Now it was a historical adventure in several ways. I live close to the city center […]
Pest. Another “false friend“. A pest in English can be a bug or a rat, or a very annoying person. But “pest” as used in Norwegian changed the destiny of Bergen. “Pest” in Norwegian means the plague. The plague or Black Death (in Norwegian, Svartedauden) was first registered in Norway in Oslo 1348, and the […]
Living in Norway means living with all kinds of traditions, some ancient, like bonfires on Midsummer’s Eve, and some much newer, like Valentine’s Day. Here in Bergen, the joke is that if you do something twice, you’ve created a tradition. Celebrating Halloween is becoming a tradition, one for the 21st century, and has been supplanting […]
It’s 10 AM and I’m watching a memorial ceremony on TV from Oslo, reading the names of the 77 who lost their lives 6 years ago in what has been called Norway’s 9/11: The bombing of a government building, and the shooting of young people attending a political camp on the island Utøya on July […]
Ole Bull, violinist and considered Norway’s first “rock star”, had quite the flare for the dramatic and the mysterious. This last was why he was drawn to the island of Lysøen, where he built his last home. Portrait of a more mature Ole Bull next to flag gift from USA How famous was Ole Bull […]
Lygra As Eddie and I carefully set our feet down between sheep droppings, we caught a whiff of fresh manure. Instantly, I was transported back to my childhood in Norway, spent in the country with a potato field in front of the house, a couple of steers grazing in a pasture next to the carport, […]
I hear Americans go on about a war on Christmas because someone says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. Bizarrely, Norway seems to be showing up the Americans on how to actually wage a war on Christmas. There are some true and some fake stories about a war on Christmas here in Norway. From a […]
“On the 6th of June 1944, on the beaches of Normandy, over 10,000 young soldiers paid for our freedom.” From a bronze plaque showing the invasion It’s 72 years since D-day, the landing of allied troops on the shores of Normandy, France, in a no-holds-barred attack on the occupying Germans. I visited the pock-marked, bomb-scarred […]
A Roll in the Universe 