Fiordilatte

29 mai 2013

Bosnia - feels like home

From Konjic, Bosnia-Herzegovina

This is Bosnia-Herzegovina and the landscape I found on the road between Sarajevo and Mostar. It felt like coming home. The green water flowing from the snow covered mountain, the villages and towns, the roads - it was all so similar to the landscape I find when I drive home to the west coast of Norway. Even Sarajavo reminded me of Bergen with its green hills, or Mostar with its strong stream flowing through the centre like in a mountain village in Norway. Now I understand better the people who escaped the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina to stay in my home town Ålesund during the early nineties. They named the bridge there Mostar bridge.

Landscapes in Bosnia-Herzegovina

31 desember 2012

Runde Island

Some photos from a late December trip to Runde Island. A lighthouse, and a landscape in light.

02 august 2012

Ukrainian food

Since I arrived in Ukraine I only got good food. I have off course tasted the Ukrainian borsch-soup, red and made with potatoes and onions. I also love varenyky, a kind of dumpling filled with either meat, vegetables or fruits. You find this also as pancakes. This morning I also has the greatest oatmeal, with the porridge filled inside an apple, and with some caramel-sauce to make it sweater. Delicious.

Art Nouveau in Odessa

Art Nouveau is found everywhere in Odessa, and it seems the city had some blooming years around 1900. The Odessa art nouveau is characterised by its massive use of ornaments and sculptures in the facade. Some of it is clearly in the German/Austrian tradition as I recognise it from my hometown Ålesund. But much of it has roots in the baroque style, with it use of organic and symmetrical motives. You will also find wonderful houses inspired by Arabic architecture, as a confirmation of this city's position as a cultural melting pot by the Black sea.

It is clearly a challenge now to keep these houses with all its details, as many of them are in a very bad condition. Many houses has hole in the wall, missing parts of balconies and pieces falling down. Maybe this is more a result of how housing is managed in Ukraine than about the economic ability? Still Odessa is an architectural stimulation to the eye.

Russian in Odessa

Odessa is a great place to get to know the Russian language. I am in my third week now, at the MacMillan language school. I came with very little experience. I had a simple course at home some years ago, and I knew the Cyrillic letters. Now I am able to read (very) simple texts, and I manage to order in cafe's and pay on the bus. Out teacher has given is parts of the structure of the language and essential vocabulary. She is still has some surprises for us, as I have seen in some other Russian language pages on the Internet.

Here is my school: http://mlc-russian.com.ua/
And a very good Russian language resource here: http://www.russianlessons.net/

My notebook on the café-table

22 juli 2012

To Odessa!

I left home by bicycle, I took the train to the airport, I flew to Krakow, I slept on the night train to Lviv and I took another train through the hot summer night to Odessa. Here I will stay for 4 weeks working on my Russian and meeting new people. Привет Одесса.

11 november 2011

Salzburg, the boy and the castle

Art in Salzburg

At last in the alps, and it was a joy to enter these Mountains. I hadn´t realized until now seeing it for real how the plains of Southern Germany are related to this wall of mountains towards the south. It was like architecture, the green floor and the dark wall. Entering the mountains was also a spatial experience as mowing through a gate and becoming part of the shapes, the valleys always leading you further into something new, and not least tempting the curiosity about the places seen just in a glimpse from the train, a sidetrack climbing a mountainside before it enters the hole of tunnel, but where does it come out?

Istanbul fashion

Posters on an Istanbul wall

Turkey is the land of contrasts. And how the woman dress can be a good example of this. Some are as the girls you find elsewhere in Europe, with short skirts and long hair, but many are wearing their headscarf with pride, no hair is shown, and accompanied with a long dark coat.

Visited countries by the age of 41

visited 32 states (14.2%)
Create your own visited map of The World or Free ipad travel guide

After an inter rail through Europe I needed an update of this map.

The Blue Mosque

The ceiling in the Blue Mosque

I didn´t come to the blue mosque with any expectations, but what I found was truly beautiful, the patterns making the stone wall soft, the complexity of the construction and the variations of space. Alltogether this was amazing.