From the Underground

I met Anna and Rebekka at Nørreport today. Anna had an appointment and Rebekka and I went for a ride in the Metro. We both love sitting in the front seats, so much so that we decided to ride one station too far and then take the next one back again. There were a lot of reflections from the windowpane, but at last I managed to "seal" those of with my hands.
We then went to visit Ásta at work and as luck would have it we got to taste some wonderful food because the restaurant changed the menu just recently and there was a photographer there to shoot the different dishes. Probably the most luxurios leftovers we have had.

.......... pssssst

I was still waiting for spring when summer suddenly arrived last week. The sun has honoured us with it's company every day since and the weather has been fantabulous. Met this mother of two yesterday, we went out to a nursery to buy some plants for the greenhouse, needed additional peppers and eggplants. We found 4 different kinds of eggplants and it will be interesting in a few months when we have actual eggplants (each plant is really tiny at the moment). I am not your average fanatic "earth-person", but for an Icelander, it is pretty fascinating just to go out into the garden or green-house and pick up your meal from there.

Empress-Dowager to be buried in St. Petersburg in September

Danish Princess Marie Sophie Frederikke Dagmar, daughter of Danish king Christian IX, left Denmark in September in 1866 when she was 18 years old. She moved to Russia and was married to prins Alexander, 21 years old at the time. He later became zsar Alexander III and Dagmar Empress-Dowager of Russia. Alexander died in 1894.
In 1919, two years after the Russian revolution, she fled to Copenhagen and died in Denmark on October 13th. 1928. She was buried in Roskilde where almost all Danish Kings and Queens lay buried. In September 2006, 140 years after she went to Russia for the first time, she will be laid to rest beside her beloved husband in St. Petersburg in Russia.
Her Russian name was Maria Fyodorovna. She was the mother of the last Russian zsar Nicolai II.
Her father, Christian IX is sometimes called Europe's father in law. His daughter Alexandra was Married to King Edward VII. Thus Dagmar/Maria Fyodorova was George V's aunt.
This is a photograph of The Russian Church in Copenhagen, built in her honour.

I Love Water

The canal here in Copenhagen is getting cleaner year for year. This is taken on a sunny day recently. Couldn't post it here as I had entered it in a DPC challenge.

Danish Architecture

This apartmentbuilding is just around the corner from where I live, right next door to the local library.

The Wonders of Photoshop

The challenge here was to take a picture and make it negative. I tried and tried, but none of the pictures were any good when I had inverted them, that is what it is called in Photoshop when you turn the colours around so to speak. I then took a bunch of older pictures stored on my pc and inverted them, just to see if I could figure out what would look good in negative. No luck.
So, I asked my team-mates on Team Nikon and they said to go for flowers. I knew just the place, The Botanical Gardens where Janke and I took Rebekka a few weeks ago. With my photo bag packed and a smile on my face, I hopped on a bus. I can't go wrong now can I, lots of beautiful, exotic flowers in the greenhouses there. The sign said: Closed on Mondays.
I had an errand to run downtown, so I continued on the next bus. When I was about to change to the Metro, I saw this ocean of colours on the other side of the street ... a florist of course. Asked permission and took a lot of shots. This one above is not from there but another florist. The roses are pink on the original, and then I cropped the picture. Why don't I post the other one too, that could be fun. This is almost the same crop.

Solidarity

In Scandinavia, May 1st is still a day to remember and to celebrate and in Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden it is a holiday. In Denmark some have the afternoon off.

It is first and foremost the International Worker's Day. Through many decades, the social democrats have been the party of the working classes here and have dominated the worker’s unions. That has changed a bit now, but they are still very visible during May 1^st activities. I have been a part of a union all my working life; it’s a sign of solidarity in Europe, not necessarily communism or socialism.

There are parades/protests, there are speeches. I live very close to the big park, were the meetings are held here in Copenhagen and there were many people there yesterday, a huge crowd. For the younger generation, it is a day to get drunk. But in all media, there are political articles, discussions and debate concerning wages, men and women (not) getting the same wages for the same jobs and talks about the welfare society and where we are headed.

In Iceland, the feminists take part in the parades/marches in a huge way. And this year feminists in Iceland, men and women, made it their business to point out how little many Icelandic women are earning. The Feminist Group that was established 3 years ago was rewarded yesterday. They got the Reykjavik Equality prize for outstanding work toward equality for men and women. In the speech that was given, it was mentioned that this group has made a new women’s krona, it is called a ¾ krona, because that is what Icelandic women get paid, compared to what men get. Last time we got a new prime minister, the group filled pink wheelbarrows with feminist literature and gave to him. They give advice to advertising agencies, trying to get all the soft porn out of advertisements. They have a formidable website that I take part in, with lively discussions at all times. There are very many men that are members and they are very active. I am very proud of one of my nephews, he takes part in all they do, and is in the front line of their anti-rape activities.

Apart from the countries I mentioned earlier, May 1^st is a holiday in most European countries; Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Austria and all the countries of the old Eastern Block. Not sure about the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

I might be highly educated and not a member of the working classes, but solidarity with those that are less fortunate is important. We can do a lot of good in the world on our own, but together we can change it.

While astronomical amounts of money are being spent on war in the world, at all times, Iraq is our best example, people are starving. If this money was spent on food for the starving and on developing other fuel systems for cars, there would not have to be any oil-wars, with or without weapons.

Seeing the news from Darfur these past few days is really, really infuriating. And May 1^st is a reminder that all is not well in our world.

Peace to all.

Guðrún

I thought you might want to see the park after the festivites so I went there this afternoon where workers were cleaning up and birds enjoying the leftovers. There is food for all of us and all of them.

Framed Window in Window Framed

I got lucky when I went fishing for a fitting image to submit in a challenge called "Window Framed". This one I called "Framed by the Windowdresser" and it did good. My learning curve is healthy at the moment, i.e. the DPC learning curve. It isn't always the best pictures that make the top 10 list, there were some very good photographs in "Studio Portrait" that didn't do well at all.