A Humane Turtle

Christmas is the one time of the year where I get to see family, where all siblings are back home at the same time. That is what Christmas is for me: family time.

Oslo’s ‘Norsk Teknisk Museum‘ was the host of a LEGO festival for the last two weeks. Yesterday, the last day of the said event, I went there with two friends, to do some serious LEGO building ourselves. The goal was to contribute something to the collaboratively built LEGO City Of The Future. It was great fun!

First up: Torgeir’s creation. I’m not exactly sure what it is, a watchtower or someting? It sure looked very slick!

Here’s João’s pirate ship. There are mermaids swimming in the water. Not pictured: the dinosaur on top of the the mast.

I was thinking practical that day, so I figured: every city needs public toilets (I’m surely not the only one thinking that way: Friedensreich Hundertwasser built public toilets in Kawakawa, NZ). Here’s my public toilet project.

The woman has her pants down (don’t ask me why she didn’t shut the door), and there’s some seriously impatient people waiting in line. Just outside of the toilet, there is a fountain sculpture, inpired by the works of Gustav Vigeland. There’s at least one “person” admiring the sculpture, as you can see:

And, last but not least, here you can see parts of the city in which our creations ended up:

In other news: the LEGO patent expired last week.

End of September 2001, ten years ago, I was 17 years old. I had recently broken up with my first boyfriend, was just about to start university, and was going to move out of my parents’ place for the first time. I was ready to leave the nest and start my own life. Just before I left, I went on a hiking trip with my dad (and our late dog Lucy), to a nearby hut. I had always loved the amazing view  over the Salzach valley from up there. It was a cold and rainy day; not the perfect weather for a trip like that, but it didn’t stop us. We made our way up the mountain, and stayed over night. It was incredibly cold that night. It was so cold that we woke up from the chattering of Lucy’s teeth. She was still wet from the rain and didn’t manage to warm herself up enough, so dad put a thick sweater around her. In the morning, we saw that it had been snowing over night. The way back down turned out to be a bit of a challenge, given that we had opted for sneakers instead of proper hiking boots. All in all, it was a very memorable trip, dear to my heart.

Last weekend, exactly 10 years later, dad and I made the same trip again. This time we were blessed with beautiful sunny weather, and not even cold.

The hut: Werfenerhütte, 1969m altitude.

Dad and I, in front of the hut.

The valley, with my parent’s place and Hohenwerfen castle.

The last tiny bit of sunlight.

Dusk.

On our way down, looking back up to the hut and the peak above it (Werfener Hochthron).

A few more pictures are in the Flickr set.

Beauty is what makes me smile
The ordinary with a twist
Like Lithic Lady, for a while
With her avine accompanist

Both look out onto the sea
Away from crowded cobble lanes
While volatile it is to be
A photo memory remains

Last Wednesday, a friend and I went on a bike trip after work. Oslo is awesome that way: leaving town after 6pm you can still have an amazing time out in the nature. I took a few pictures with my phone, which I think produces OK-quality images (I didn’t do any post-processing).

Our destination was a hut called Skjennungstua, about 5km air-line distance from town into Nordmarka. On the way up to our destination, we had a remarkable view down to a lake called Skjersjøen, but I didn’t take a picture from there. I took our first pictures when we reached Skjennungstua.

We were the only people there, it must have been too late for other people. We did see others on the roads though.

Then we took a little detour to a “secret” cloudberry place.  Cloudberries are rare in Norway (not so much in Finland, it seems, where it is featured on the 2€ coin), so it is usually hard to even find a few.

Here’s one cloudberry in all its glory.

We did find a handfull of them.

And I enjoyed walking barefoot though the swamp. Not sure that was a very good idea (you never know what kinds of animals you could step onto), but it was big fun, and everything went fine.

On the way back, we went past the Tryvann lakes, and the reflection of the clouds there was incredibly beautiful; so peaceful and quiet.

After we reached Frognerseteren (the last metro stop, where Oslo city meets Nordmarka), we took another little detour to have a nicer view of the sunset over Oslo. It was totally worth it. This shot, towards Oslo and Oslo Fjord, reminds me of Greece for some reason.

Looking toward lake ‘Bogstadsvannet’.

There was also a statue of a very proud-looking man. Turns out it is Hans H. Krag, Director of Road Construction.

I’ve been to UPA 2010 in May, it’s about time that I post some pictures from the trip to almost-home. UPA was by far the most friendly and social conference I’ve attended. Most inspiring presenter: Daniel Szuc. He taught me to “look at the bright spots”: If you’ve got a vision, focus on making the things visible that are already a step in the right direction. Make people feel good about good choices, rather than criticizing the bad ones.

More pictures from the conference can be found on Flickr.

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