Changes in the seasons are normal of course in the Northern hemisphere, and the further north you go, the more significant the contrasting seasons are. These changes make a great deal of difference from winter to summer, especially in Norway, Sweden and Finland. As always, the sceneries in nature demonstrates it the best, so let me give you an example showing two pictures from our vacation home town in Sweden:

^{Mariestad, February 2009.}

It’s snowy and with fresh, crisp air and a low sun. However, three months later, there is quite a greener look:

^{Mariestad, May 2009.}

Notice the flowerbed: From covered with snow to colourful bloom! Btw; Can you guess why this is typical Swedish colours?

The change in the scenery does not have to take very long. Let me give you an example from a view my regular readers have seen before:

<sup>A horse ranch in Norway April 6th.

The same ranch at May 25th.</sup>

Of course all this various from the south to the north, from sea level and up in the mountains. Oslo is on latitude 60°, where as North Cape is on 71°1′8″N. In a post from up north in Kirkenes, I told you the temperature could change from winter -50C (-58F) to +30 (86F). It’s not that big of a different in Oslo: more like from -20C (-4F) to +25C (77F).

I love all four seasons, also because of the dramatic changes and every one of them reminds you that nature is always there, although in hibernation from time to time. I can also assure you; you learn to treasure and appreciate a warm summer day at the beach when you are swimming around thinking of that in 6 month, you can go skating on the same water

Another significant different in the Nordic, is of course the duration of daylight. In Oslo, the shortest day is about 6 hours and the longest 19 hours – not to mention at North Cape, where for about three month the sun never goes down: The land of the midnight sun you know.
In three weeks, we’ll have summer solstice and the sun doesn’t go down before almost 11PM. I guess you can imagine we are treasuring the long summer nights too

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The Botanical Garden (largest in Norway) is an oasis in east Oslo, home to exotic plants such as cacti, orchids and palms, and indigenous species, including Norwegian wild flowers. Among 1800 different plants arranged according to family and genus, you’ll find some 300 medicinal plans (the Economic Garden), some 1450 species of plants covering the mountain flora of Norway and of other mountainous areas such as Caucasia. Thousands of mountain plants flourish in The Rock Garden, cut through by waterfalls and 1450 species of mountain flora is one of the many highlights (click all pics to bigify and enjoy!):

First a bit of history:
In 1812 the estate owner at that time, President of the Oslo Magistrate, Johan Lausen Bull, sold Tøyen back to the Danish-Norwegian king, Frederik the 6th, who donated Tøyen to the newly established University of Norway. The University Botanical Garden was founded in 1814. Most of the lands were however later sold. Today, the Garden covers about 115 hectares (37.5 acres). Three Natural History Museum buildings are located within the Garden.

I’m not a pro, so this won’t be a botanic expert showing you around. However I love nature, trees and flowers; here is from today’s quality time with my wife seen through my eyes or Nikon S2 lens:

The Rock Garden:
A miniature alpine landscape and the plants are hardy perennials, bulbs and shrubs from all over the world. They are arranged in series of European, America and then Asiatic:

What also caught my eyes, was how beautiful the waterfall was and how much fun you can have in it:


The Systematic Garden:
It aims to show the great variety of plants among Angiosperms. The species, genera and families are arranged to illustrate their evolutionary relationship:


You can relax and enjoy in front of that section too:


The Duck Pond:

Both children and adults were fascinated by the ducks:


The Dove Tree:
The tree comes from China and is an attraction in bloom. It was planted in the 50s and start blooming 30 years later:

Ever since it has flowered each year and been a great pleasure to all visitors to the garden in May. It flowers only for about 10 days; Lucky we where there to be able to share with you:


Quality time:
Of course I took a lot more pics and you may see them here on my Flickr account. I have, however saved the best to last; I was talking about quality time with my wife Diane (click to see her post from this garden visit!), didn’t I? So here is what she had prepared for us as a surprise:

^{Diane’s shrimp salad sandwiches with a little bubbly}

Want to see more? Well, come and visit then – I’ll gladly show you around!

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May 17th is Norway’s National Day since our constitution was signed at Edsvoll Minor in 1814. It was inspired by the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the French revolution in 1789 and the subsequent U.S. and French constitutions, and is considered one of the most radically democratic constitutions in the world at that time. With the establishment of parliamentarism in the 1870s, the Council of State (Statsråd) was effectively chosen by general election, in the King appointed only members of the party or coalition having a majority in the Storting (parliament). I’ll give you links to my previous posts for more background and history, because today I want to explain what is so special about this day since there isn’t anything more typically Norwegian than the 17th of May:

If you take a bit of pride and happiness combined with a celebration of spring and freedom, and add a dash of positive nationalism plus a little childish patriotism; then you have the Norwegian Constitution Day in a nutshell. It’s spring time and the long winter is over, we are both celebrating the end of the 2nd world war (May 8, 1945) when our national day was forbidden, and the signing of our constitution in 1814. Another characteristic point you need to understand the tradition in our celebration though: The Day is by and for the children who are always in focus. The parades are the proof of the pudding. You see no sign of military power demonstration all. Since pictures says more than a thousand word, let me show some pics from today (click all to bigify and enjoy!):

^{Every grammar school arranges their own parades and the children parade, class by class. The parents are cheering from the sidewalk.}

In Oslo, the capital, it’s a bit different as 100 of the community’s schools make the parade passing the Royal Castle:

^{The Royal Family greets the parade from the balcony. Dressed in their finest and waving to the crowd. This is their salute to the people.}

Everyone use their best outfit or the Norwegian traditional folk costume Bunad and the children eats as much ice cream as they can (well, adults are very childish that day too ) I saw some people in Oslo today, which I thought was very typical 17th of may family and when I told them my blog mission for today, they where nice and willingly posing for me:


The parade goes down Karl Johan to the castle and back on a parallel gate and the city is full of happy and celebrating people, so its hard (in the pictures)to separate the parade from the crowd. Let me give it a try and hoping you get the spirit:

^{17th of May parade with flags and a cheering crowd. To the right: look at the little boy on his father’s shoulder!}

There are people everywhere and some relaxing in parks enjoying the warm sunshine:

^{Above: some of Oslo’s parks. Below: Some of the fountains.}


Let me end with a couple of more pics to show how Norwegians are dress up for a party on our National Day:

^{Left: A family not in Bunad. Right: Some teenagers.}

One could write a book or more about this day, but I have only one post and tried my best to share some of the key points to understand our tradition. You might say it is patriotism or nationalism, but then I would say in a very harmless and positive way. We don’t think we are better than others, have won anything or have any opponents. We’re just happy to be one free nation in peace and that it’s okay to feel good and to show it.

There are plenty more pics at my Flicr account and for you who want more historical background and reports; here are some of my posts from earlier years:

17th of May Parade in Norway
17th of May – Norway’s National Day in Oslo
17th of May – Norwegian Constitution Day

To enrich the subject, I would love to hear your thoughts and opinion in comments!

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This post is actually a contribution to my beloved wife, Diane and of course I’ll get back to that – because she is worth it! Besides, this is to be an easy and carefree post without a lot of facts and history, just playful and fun:

Let’s start with a glimpse into my professional life; not that it happens that often, but I had a meeting with daVinci, a consulting company and part of the international Devoteam consulting group. What I like best about them, is that they challenge their customers perception of what is possible, to let creativity flow, spread enthusiasm, and generate activity, while at the same time taking responsibility for the change process.
We met Alex Kielland who is their CKO (can you figure out what that title mean?) and Catherine Janson who is an excellent work group facilitator and calls herself an enthusiasm-evangelist. Typical for daVinci; in front of their conference room, they have a table full of Legos and I was thinking: I just have to share this with my blog friends:

_{RennyBA warming up with Lego before a meeting.}

Then back to Diane; you see she has something to celebrate and I called it a week a bit early this afternoon to share some quality time at the local golf course. You know I love my wife and I love being out in the nature – as well as sharing some precious moments and views with you. So at some of the tee’s I grabbed my Nokia N82 mobile phone to share it with you:

^{At Haga golf course in Bærum, close to Oslo, Norway.}

Whether you like golf or not: admit that this course out in the forests gives a recreational atmosphere. Its just 10 minutes drive from our house and these wonderful hills is a great ski trails in the winter time.

Last evening, we had a champagne celebration. You see what we are celebrating is that Diane has delivered her master thesis which she has been working on for about a year! So please click; go visit her and congratulate her with achieving an important goal in her life!

There are more celebrations to come. Sunday is the 17th of May and that’s not just an ordinary date in Norway: It’s our constitutional or National Day. My regular readers know I have posted about it for four years. So those who want to recall – or those who want to read how we celebrate this day the Norwegian way – read my last posts:

17th of May Parade in Norway
17th of May – Norway’s National Day in Oslo
17th of May – Norwegian Constitution Day

So stay tuned: There will be a new 17th of May post and this time from Oslo, our capital. I know King Harald and Queen Sonja will be there too!

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Networking in Social Media is driven by content and collaboration; Cool stuff shared with Cool people. Actually, Web 2.0 changes the way news is delivered. People turn to these websites for information instead of TV. Let me give an example of the more dramatic kind: Twitter and Flickr became the significant medium of the Mumbai’s attack. Yet, other social media networks also were witnesses of the transcending action of human kind all around the world; an hour after the attack, never before seen pictures were posted in Flickr and was viewed 110, 000 the first day. Indeed, Social Media and Web 2.0 is not a waste of time. It changes lives. It radically changes the way news is delivered and acquired.

Flickr, with more than 35 million members and a staggering 3.5 billion photos, is an immense social network, full of friendship data. People comment, join groups, declare friends and click on favourite photos. To me as a network evangelist, this of course is an Eldorado. It allows me to share about Norway and the Nordic countries; our culture, traditions and habits. This began almost four years ago, when I started RennyBA’s Terella and got my first Nokia with a fairly good camera. It gave me a handy way – as a Happy Amateur – to document my daily life in pictures and my blog as well as other Social Media allows me to share it throughout the whole world. So far, my contributions is 1, 042 pictures with more than 80, 000 views. Here is my four most popular at Flickr (as always; click to bigify and enjoy):

To me, it’s an encouragement and of course the advantage of using a digital camera, is that you can shoot as much as you like and just save the best (for me, often less than half). I hunt scoops everywhere and often while driving with my lovely wife Diane, she says: Look at that!!! and I step on the brakes and jump out of the car – well, most often in that order This is one in a million shot – at least in my opinion:

_{By a Ranch at a horse track on the way to our vacation house in Sweden. It’s taken April 6th and as you can see: the spring thaw was at its peak.}

The real key to Social Media is of course contributing to the conversation. So please give me feedback on this picture taken with my Nokia N82. What about it do you like and why – what can I do next time to make it an even better shot?

Talking about connecting on Social Media; Those of you who aren’t already – You are welcome to hook up with me everywhere and my nick is always RennyBA at:

Flickr – Twitter – Facebook – YouTube

and of course, networking play good role in business too so here you’ll find me at LinkedIn.

I’m looking forward to your comments and to network with you in mutual trust for equal opportunities.

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