posted on 21st November 2011 under Fall, Habits
Swan Lake worked its magic on a fall color photo hunt on the Oslo Fjord. At our favourite beach the history of Tchaikovsky’s symphony steeped in myth as the story itself when a herd of swans showed up on shore. The ballet’s scenario was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer’s curse. The ballet was premièred by the Bolshoi Ballet in 1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, billed as The Lake of the Swans. This is the scenery we got when approaching the beach on a Saturday a few weeks ago when we wanted some outdoor recreation adventures:
I don’t think I’ve seen so many swans at once before and of course I was happy I had my Nokia N8 at hand, to start shooting photos – I mean the hunting was done and it was just to click and click and click ….. I believe I took more than 50 pics and at least some came out well. I think they are a bit fuzzy though – maybe because the white swans are in contrast with the water.
This beautiful scenery attracted others too of course and sometimes it was more interesting to see others watching and feeding then the swans themselves. People all ages were fascinated, but the youngest was the cutest I think : -)
My Nokia mobile phone can make panoramic photos too you know. This might explain to some extent at least, why I associated the scenery with Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” – or what do you think:
The Golden Beauty of Fall:
I told you this happened when my wife and I was out photo hunting. To me, nothing is more recreational than hiking in nature – besides; I need this kind of exercise stimulus to keep my Parkinsonism under control too. Adding to that; I love being outdoors in all four seasons and fall is the most colourful – don’t you think? – That’s why I call it “The golden beauty of fall”:
Outdoor Recreation:
My wife and I had what I often call a magic moment this wonderful Saturday. Being out in the nature, seeing how it changes through the seasons. Noticing the scenery, the smell and the beautiful colors is what I call recreational! And my regular readers know that I also have a wonderful wife to share those magic moment with and she makes them even more enjoyable and magic with her special treat; always something good in the backpack – I just love those sandwiches & the coffee, and it tasted heavenly eating outdoors like this:
If you want to charge your batteries, and like me, to keep my Parkinson’s in check; there is nothing more inspiring and recreational then the nature which is all around us. November is more than half over now and our darkest period is upon us – hope you have enjoyed the fall as much as we have!
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posted on 16th November 2011 under Food, Habits
Restaurant Cru Wine & Kitchen in Oslo reflects a French wine term: Traditionally translated as “growth” it’s often used to indicate a specifically named and legally defined vineyard or ensemble of vineyards and the vines “which grow on a reputed territory; by extension of good quality”. Growth, quality and wine for that matter, gives a perfect frame for the reason of the visit:
As an active member of The Norwegian Computer Society, I am involved in several workshops, for example “IT Strategy and Management”. At the end of each season of intense teamwork to provide our members with a variety of cutting edge sciences, we believe that we deserve a social gathering. What’s better than a culinary feast and trying a new restaurant in Oslo? You’re welcome to join us while I tell you about this place and our 7 course gourmet feast:
Let’s start with the wine; Cru is a place where the waiter carefully describes the wine and the food before serving.
The guests swirl the wine in the glass, as in wine tasting, and you smell the bouquet of the wine before drinking it. However, With Kari Innerå, Nordic Chef of the Year 2007, in the kitchen, there is all reason to have great expectations for the food too. The griffin menu shows the way: three appetizers (12 € each), two main dishes (28 €), cheese and dessert for around 10 €. One can eat quite reasonable, but if the occasion calls for something special, it is possible to put together menus of three, five or seven dishes. We went all the way on the gourmet adventures road – here is our seven dish feast along with our waiter’s wine recommendation for each of them:
Left: Caviar of Lavaret, blintz, sour cream, dill & radish – Wine: Sancerre Domaine de la Rossignol 2010
Right: Artichoke, caramelized puree, glazed macadamia, soup & artichoke chips & black truffle – Wine: Alto Adige – Südtirol Manincor “Réserve della Contessa” 2009
Left: Skin fried cod, open lasagna with fennel & ricotta, seafood sauce, crab croquet, avocado cream & peas
Right: Red wine braised beef shoulder, homemade sausage, Confit of plum, spicy broth, potato gnocchi & pumpkin – Wine: Côtes du Marmandais, Domaine Elian da Ros – Le Vin est une Fête 2008
Moose from Gudbrandsdalen, celery puree, Brussels sprouts & cranberry vinaigrette
Wine: Rossignol Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2008
Left: Cheese soufflés – Wine: Mosel. Jos. Christoffel Jr. Wehlener Sonnenuhr ** 1994
Right: Carrot cake Cru – Philadelphia cream, salt caramel ice cream, oatmeal crumble with cinnamon & carrot jelly.
Is there a better way of enjoying good colleagues company and discussing the future of the Computer Society and our work group’s activities for the coming season? We fully agreed we are the best work group team with eagerness and enthusiasm to start a new and successful season – and of course looking forward to the next culinary feast in mid June.
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posted on 11th November 2011 under Habits, OsloBG, Travel Norway, Travels
RennyBA’s Terella is about Norway and the Nordic countries; the significant four seasons, our culture, traditions and habits. Six years ago today I started out on a project, not having any idea how large and great this project would be. This Anniversary post will be a look back at some of the highlights + a bit facts & figures:
This post is N° 548 and there are totally 15 150 comments approved. Yearly page view rate is now about 55 000 and almost 70% comes from Google with search words like Oslo fish market or Rakfisk (a traditional Yule dish), Gaustatoppen (mountain with the longest and widest view), Liv Ullman and Aleksander Rybak. The 10 most visitor countries are US, Norway, UK, Canada, Sweden, Germany, India, Australia, Netherlands and Philippines.Enough hard facts, let’s take a look at the most popular post each year; RennyBA’s Terella Hall of Fame (click photos to read the post):
2006: Norwegian Christmas Day Smorgasbord
Lots of my posts, especially at Christmas time are about food, but then again it is an important part of Norwegian Yuletide. This post is about some of our old home made food traditions, with recipes passed down for many generations and I consider myself lucky having a mom who still holds on to them. My mom and grandmother did most of it in the kitchen with fresh meat coming directly from the butcher. Then of course we have the cookies – 7 varieties – and the marzipan and other types of confect. It all shows up at our First Christmas Day smorgasbord at the traditional family gathering.
2007: 17th of May – Norway’s National Day
Our constitution was signed at this day in 1814 and declared Norway an independent nation. All over Norway, children march through the local neighbourhoods with an abundance of flags and traditional costumes. Each elementary school arranges its own parade, led by the school’s own marching band. The parade takes the children through the community, often making stops at homes for senior citizens, war memorials, etc.
2008: Christmas tree and food traditions in Norway
Norwegians have either a spruce or a pine tree in their living room – decorated with white lights, tinsel, Norwegian flags and other ornaments for Christmas. As a child and with my children of course, we made paper baskets of shiny, collared paper. The baskets can be filled with candy or nuts. Chains made of collared paper are also very popular.
Our celebration starts Christmas Eve at 6PM with a feast and before presents are opened, we “circle the Christmas tree”; all the family holds hands to form a ring around the tree, and walk around the tree singing carols.
2009: From frozen Paradise to hot summer beaches
After all, my blog is about our significant four seasons and this post literary illustrating my point. It’s a story about our favourite beach and how it change from the hot summer days where you need to cool down in a dip and then to wintertime where we go skiing and skating at the very same spot. So within 6 month, you switch from snowsuits to tiny bikinis – and everything between (sometimes less *LoL*).
Around summer solstice, the sun is up from around 3:45AM to 10:45PM -19 hours in southern Norway. If you then have in mind that the sun is up only for 5 hours in mid winter and the temperature is around -10C, I guess you understand why Norwegians are crazy about taking advantage of this sunny, warm weather.
2010: The Oslo Blog Gathering
A dream came true – No doubt OsloBG2010 is my ultimate Social Media experience. It fulfilled my saying “Blogging Connecting People” when about 30 friends from all over the world met – in real flesh – in August in Oslo! It was a once in a life time experience and also proved another of my saying about networking like blogging: “It’s a Givers Gain”:
After sharing about Norway in general and Oslo in particular, it was a blast of a gathering when I finally could meet at least some of my regular readers and show them around at places they had read about and wanted to see by themselves! The top of the cream was when The Major of Oslo invited as all to the Town Hall and even a guided tour around in the building.
I’ve done my best to collect some of the blog posts by the participants about their stay and what they liked about Norway and Oslo. Take a look at OsloBG’s official program site and there you find the link to the participants and their reports from the gathering!
As I always say “Blogging Connecting People”: When I started this blog and first came up with that motto I had no idea how true it would be. Now I have so many good friends from all around the world, and blogging here on my Terella has brought me in touch with all of them. Thank you all for following along on my adventures and here’s to another year of blogging and connecting people!
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posted on 4th November 2011 under Culture, Habits
BlogBlast4Peace has become a Social Media demonstration of how Blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc. are empowering people. It goes well with my saying: “Make Blogs, not Wars!” by making friends throughout the world and learning about their daily life, while breaking down cultural, religious and other barriers. The best thing is that these forms of communication, direct and uncensored, empower people. I mean, “Freedom of the press” is still important, but we more and more seem to trust personal recommendations rather than official or commercial statements. The effectiveness of “word of mouth” recommendations has increased dramatically through Social Media. It’s the viral network where people are sharing information, collaborating on topics of interest, and networking on the internet in ways not previously imaginable. This goes well with another of my saying: “Blogging Connecting People” and again: breaking down barriers and making the world smaller. That’s why I, for the 5th year in a row, participate and support the BlogBlast4Peace movement – this year with the Peace Globe badge above.
Dona Nobis Pacem = Grant Us Peace
Mimi Lenox started this movement in 2006 and it has grown to a core of thousands of distinct and remarkable individuals called “peace bloggers” – writing, drawing and painting beautiful words and images. We may differ in philosophy, religion and politics, but always find our way to peaceably debate. In a multicultural way, we share the theme in John Lennon’s “Imagine”: ……all the people, living for today…… You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one!
Go visit Mimi’s Bloggingham Palace and find out how to join us for the sake of peace – the more people, the more empowerment you know!
This calls for a celebration:
I have never experienced anything as effective in connecting people across the world as blogging. Through writing RennyBA’s Terella for almost 6 years, I have met many amazing people and I myself am more aware of happenings across the world today because of the friends I have made in the blogsphere ……… and I am old enough to know when something is revolutionizing the globe – I am 59 years old today. Blogging for Peace; what a good way to celebrate!
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posted on 29th October 2011 under Habits
Since many of you may be wondering where I am and what has become of me, it’s time for me to come clean and tell you a bit about my situation; I have Parkinson’s which probably most of you know as a disease for older people with shaky hands, but I am not “that” old *LoL* – and my hands seldom shake. My symptoms are somehow different; my joints can be very stiff and my movements can be very slow at time. This varies a lot with the time of day, how much sleep I have had and how long it was since my last dose of medicine – among other things. For a couple of years now I have had increasing “finger trouble”; my fingers don’t fly over the keyboard like they used to. So the last year or so every post has been a battle to get my fingers to “listen” to my brain. I know what keys I want to type, but my fingers can be quite stubborn in resisting this at times.
This battle has – combined with my own high ambitions for myself – built a sort of wall between myself and the world of Social Media – which I so much love! I put a lot of pressure on myself to write quality blog posts which others find worth reading (which involves a special RennyBA brand of perfectionism :- ) In addition, I am troubled by feelings of guilt for not following others blogs as closely and not commenting enough. I feel like I have failed myself, my friends, and the roll which I built up as a member of the Blogsphere: to write about my daily life along with the History, Traditions & Culture of Norway and the Nordic Countries:
Outdoor Recreation is always the best cure!
My symptoms were already a challenge in 2010. Oslo Blog Gathering was a success but in order to make it happen I was dependent on help from my wife, my friends and local expats to share the workload. After OsloBG the “air went out of my balloon” and the wall around me began building up. I hate whining and complaining about illnesses, but since my recent knee operation – which in itself was successful – my symptoms have become worse. So my neurologist has changed the medication and I am slowly improving – and at the same time accepting that I can’t do everything the same way I did it before.
I miss being a part of the Blogsphere; exchanging information, ideas, and experiences in Social Media. I want to get back into the game again! Blogging is a givers gain as I always say and I miss how much it gave me to share my thoughts with people from all around the Blogsphere. So I am returning to the world here. I will come in and visit my friends’ blogs but I won’t be able to comment as much as I like. It doesn’t mean I am not interested in what you have to say. I may blog less often, and I may write shorter posts but I am not willing to give up the battle yet!
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Swan Lake worked its magic on a fall color photo hunt on the Oslo Fjord. At our favourite beach the history of Tchaikovsky’s symphony steeped in myth as the story itself when a herd of swans showed up on shore. The ballet’s scenario was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer’s curse. The ballet was premièred by the Bolshoi Ballet in 1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, billed as The Lake of the Swans. This is the scenery we got when approaching the beach on a Saturday a few weeks ago when we wanted some outdoor recreation adventures:
