We just passed it ... 66 degrees north.

40 minutes ago, we passed the Polar Circle and in 15 minutes I am due do be picked up here (on the ocean) by a boat that will take me, and many others, to Svartisen. That is Norways second largest glacier. Later on we will be picked up by a bus that will take us to Bodø to meet the ship again 6 hours from now.
All is well, the food is just a little bit too good. Just a small luxury problem, that's all :)
I do miss Ásta and Anna and Rebekka........
Hugs and kisses.

Can not upload

Sorry folks. There will be no pictures from the cruise for now. Only a screen and a keyboard here, no usb, no cd-rom, no nothing.
We started out from Bergen at 8pm yesterday. Had a fantastic dinner a little later and then I went to bed, absolutely finished after a long day. To flights, first to Oslo and then to Bergen. For some odd reason we had to fetch our luggage and go through customs in Oslo. Took some time and out flight was delayed leaving Copenhagen.
The taxi I had ordered never arrived, one that could take all of us plus the wheelchair, but I spotted another big one from the same company and he saved us.
We are here now. All is well and we are sailing on Geirangerfjorden at the moment.

Turning Torso

When the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava sent in his idea for a bridge between Denmark/Copenhagen and Sweden/Malmö, a picture of his sculpture "Twisting Torso" was in a brochure he enclosed. The bridge that eventually was built is not his creation, but the people involved found the torso interesting and obviously kept it at the back of their minds.
The Kockum shipyard in Malmö is closed and has been for many years and the huge Kockum crane that has been Malmö's landmark for decades has been removed. Needing a new hallmark, The Twisting Torso became The Turning Torso. It opened in 2005, 54 storeys in all - rising 190 meters high and thereby one of the highest residential buildings in Europe. The building turns 90 degrees around it's own axis so this is no photoshopadventure you have before your eyes. Offices on the first 14 floors or so and from there and to the top, apartments.
I have been wanting to take a shot for some time now, and last week I did. I think this building is a fantastic idea, if not genius, and seems well executed.

Our "Hurtigruten" on MS Trollfjord

Well, there you have it - our itinerary for the trip to Norway. We are leaving on June 26th and will be back on July 7th.
Now all I have to do is pack. There is a washing machine on board, so we can be light travellers. The hard decision is what reading material to bring along. On WWTTA (link on this page) we will be reading a wonderful collection of Virginia Woolf, 6 titles in all and I will bring one book from that list. Other than that title, this is the current shortlist that I will be making much shorter in a day or two:
Suzanne Brøgger, Sejd is a collection of essays, excellent on a trip.
Ida Jessen, Det første jeg tænker på, published earlier this year.
Katarina Mazetti, Grabben i graven bredvid, Swedish but in an Icelandic translation, done by my good friend Hildur. (Already started, might even finish befor we leave).
Zadie Smith, On Beauty. (Have read a few pages, it is promising).
Mozart's letters in a collection from last year. But I am afraid it is too heavy.
Karen Joy Fowler, The jane Austen Book Club.
Any ideas from YOU are more than welcome.
I'll be packing my mini-scrabble and playing cards. The others are planning on taking Cranium and TP.
I will be taking my camera and everything that goes with that. I'll even bring the old Nikon F80 along, IF..... It's a film camera, but even if Janke's Point&Shoot is ok, it's not as good as either of mine and my lenses fit on both cameras.
In seven days, we will be on our way to Kastrup.
We: Gunnild, Henry, Ulla, Janke, me, Pia, Peter, Ida & Jarl from Copenhagen and Charlotte, Klaus and Jakob will join us in Trondheim on Day 3.

Happy Birthday Gunnild!

Yesterday was Gunnild's birthday, 80 years old with the energy level of a toddler. The family met at a restaurant downtown for a typical Danish frokost (lunch) and then we sailed on the canal, a small rehearsal for the 12 day cruise coming up very soon (I am actually finding it hard to sleep, very excited about the whole thing). After that we went to Ego and Ásta made us some hot chokolate and her's is about as good as it gets. A good day in good company and I think that Gunnild enjoyed her day and that is the most important thing. She is one of a kind.

Yes, Salt Cedar can be found in Scandinavia

We decided to celebrate Janke's birthday this Monday by crossing the bridge to Sweden. It was a wonderful sunny day and we visited a place not far from Staffanstorp that sells plants and herbs and has a café and a wonderful old fashioned garden were we enjoyed our food in beautiful surroundings.
Salt Cedar or Tamarix Ramosissima (hope I have spelled this correctly) is not a common tree/bush in Scandinavia, but there it is, in bloom. Pink tiny flowers in May/June so we were indeed very lucky.
A good day and tomorrow a new birthday, Janke's mother will be 80. I will be taking the camera along and hopefully I'll have a nice shot to publish in a day or two.

I Can Read

This shot did well on dpc, I was actually a little surprised, but then again, that crowd is impossible to figure.

Do YOU have a Dream?

Maybe a book you want to write, a film to make, a picture to take, a woman/man you want to marry (or divorce)? Is there a house you want to live in? A job you would love to have a go at?
I have not got many dreams or wishes. The biggest one for years has been to have a day of from chronic pain; I still dream and hope that one day it will go away, for ever and a day or just for a day. I dream of taking a vacation from being me. Why doesn't some travel agent specialize in trips away from who we are? Ok, there are drugs that I am told can do that, but I'm not travelling down that road.
Then I have a dream about countries to visit and for years, actually since I was a teenager, I have wanted to travel by boat and see almost the entire Norwegian coast. It's called the Hurtigruten and the home page is here . I really didn't think it would happen. But, against all odds, I am leaving on June 26th; my mother-in-law decided a few years ago, that for her 80th birthday she would take her clan on a Hurtigruten cruise.
We will be sailing with MS Trollfjord and you can at any time find us by checking here
I am really looking forward to this trip and have been for a long time. As it is a dream come true, very unexpectedly so, the thought of going is a bit unreal. Maybe it will become real when I am standing on deck with my camera, shooting away. There is an Internet room aboard and I will try to post while we are travelling, here and/or on flickr.com, the link to my pictures on flickr is among the links at the top of this page.

It is important to have dreams, to set goals. I for one need to remember that.

Whitsuntide in Copenhagen is Carneval Time

For 25 years, this weekend has been Carneval-weekend here in Copenhagen. A long weekend, often sunny (as this year) and in Parken there are many colourful costumes, fantastic music, good dancers and everybody having a good time. The summer is here at last, so this young woman didn't have to freeze - after all, she is not wearing anything that keeps her warm. She was a member of a group from Sweden. Somewhere along the line, her ancestors probably came from Brazil, who knows. It was enjoyable to walk through the park, a colourful day.

A Recent Self-Portrait

Yet another photograph for a DPC-challenge. Never done a self-portrait before and it was actually fun. Difficult to keep all 6 pairs in place and go back and forth for each shot, but I made it.

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.

Busy Busy Busy

These past weeks I have been kept busy. I had two series of photographs to deliver for RYK! Magazine with a deadline tomorrow on May 1st. I actually like deadlines and I do tend to keep them. I even prefer to stay ahead of them and have time to correct any mistakes or deliver new things if necessary. I'm not posting any of the pictures for the magazine here, but it is a magazine for people with spinal injures. I really like the challenge and feel that I am getting a little better at capturing pictures that fit the articles being written.
Yesterday i finished processing the last photographs, and that gave me time off to go out into the world and take som pictures for myself. Luckily, there is an open study 48-hour challenge going on DPC, and I took some shots for that one. This is not the photograph I will be submitting, the focus isn't good enough, but I like the colours. It is from the Nyhavn area downtown and shows reflections in the canal.

Ásta Sólveig & Rebekka Sóley

It has been a hectic week and I have had no time to do much blogging. Rebekka loves taking pictures and she tood the one of me here below. I thook this one of her and her aunt, my youngest daughter.