We had a four days training about new products. Around 20 colleagues participated from Ukraine, CIS countries, Sweden, Finland. Denmark, Germany, including trainers and trainees. It’s not that many people but it was the first time when I had to organize hotel. taxis from the airport to the hotel, transfer from our office to hotel and back, restaurants, lunches and so on. I need to mention that taxis here don’t accept credit card, only cash. And not every taxi is willing to accept euro instead of our local currency. And so on. Plus all foreigners are quite spoiled with service in their countries.

But we made it. And I say, it’s been a great experience to me. But I don’t want to organize it again

We were seated on  chairs like this in the first restaurant. They have quite interesting design. But it’s so uncomfortable. It’s impossible to sit back and relax.

I had a gastronomic surprise. It appeared that nobody except us (Ukrainians) eats sea cabbage (laminaria). Colleagues from Georgia, Armenia and Kazakhstan tried it for the first time and they liked it. Colleagues from Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark, Finland) countries have never seen it before, they tried and didn’t like. I thought that everybody knew about cabbage.

From wiki

Same goes to horseradish. Nobody knew what that was at the beginning. But everybody liked it in the end

Well, people from Georgia and Armenia knows about horseradish but it has opalescent color because they don’t add beet-root in it.

I got a lovely present from Armenian colleague Paylak.

I use it as a bag for my new HTC EVO 3D

I asked which language Dutch and Swedish colleagues speak among themselves. It turned out that a Dutch one speaks Dutch and a Swedish one speaks Swedish They usually understand each other. Most of the words are similar, some of them have different meanings but it doesn’t bother them. Some of the expressions in Swedish are so that in Dutch they are considered as an old-fashioned language. And they laugh at each other

It’s very similar to people in Ukraine. For example I speak Russian, my colleague speaks Ukrainian and we can enjoy our conversation this way.

After everybody left we found candies on a table. They were left by our German colleagues.

That day I went to Holmenkollen to see its famous ski jump tower and to look at Oslo from the height. It was wonderful day! The only thing that I regret I didn’t go to the ski museum. I didn’t want to spend 100 NOK (around 18 USD). Instead I spent much more in a souvenir shop.

It was the first time I took Oslo’s subway. The part I was riding wasn’t underground so I had a chance to see Oslo more. To my surprise it went really slow comparing to subway of Kiev. But I realize lately that it goes up all the way so it has to use much more power than in Kiev. And the route was so zigzagged.

So, here are some photos from Holmenkollen.

The figure that meets you when you go a little bit up from the station.

This is the ski jump tower how it’s seen from the point of figure (see above).

This is the chairlift that didn’t work at that time. Actually the whole arena around ski jump tower was being reconstructed.

But it didn’t prevent guest from climbing up the tower and having fun.

I climbed the tower too. But I climbed the left side. After I and an elderly couple climbed it we realized that souvenir shop and museum and ski jump simulator are located on the right side! And there is no way to go to the right side other than go down and then up again. By the way the ski simulator they have is the best! I even felt snow to my face

Oh, how much my legs hurt then! It’s not very high itself but the steps are very steep and high.

This is me with a ski troll. I was alone so I had to ask that couple that went up to the right side then down and to the left side with me to make a photo. They were pleased.

Holmenkollen Chapel.

Unfortunately There wasn’t anybody who could shoot me with this statue. It looked marvelous!

Oslo is sure the greenest city! So many trees and parks.

Driving home. It was a very long but pleasant trip. We stopped by every small and big town.

It was difficult to me to recall a name of every town. I spent an hour searching through the paper map we were travelling with (I couldn’t locate our stops with google maps somehow). Found almost everything.

Our first stop. Just a nicely made place for travelers to stop for a rest. Located near Osterholt.

Can somebody help me? What is the word in English for “a place for travelers to stop for a rest”?

Our second stop. Sannidal church. I thought that surroundings were Sannidal itself but after a map study I realized that Sannidal itself wasn’t there.

Our third stop. Industrial zone of Porsgrunn. I don’t know how that happened that we didn’t stop by Porsgrunn itself and made it to a peninsula where a nitrac acid plant is located. Moreover we were sure that it was Moen town which I couldn’t find on the map even.

Our fourth stop. Don’t remember where it was. Just a cafe.

Our fifth stop. The longest one. Sandefjord. I fell in love with this town! I love that towns in Norway are not that big. So you can park you car and travel on your foot.

Our sixth and the last stop. Drammen. Town where I tried Thai food for the first time.

Six stops on 272 km (169? miles) route.

Alesund

Konstantin had an adventure with these goats. They liked the strap of his camera so much. They started to chew it. Konstantin had to run for life

I was there. And I do hope that I still have a chance to see fjords’ beauty with my eyes.

Update

Here is a short video. Love waterfall at 0:42

The 25th of June

In the morning.

I love this photo. It revives that feeling of freshness, calmness, pureness.

We decided that we’ll not go to Stavanger even though we’d booked a room in a hostel with a discount and that is not refundable. Instead we asked if we could stay in Froland Hostel. There was a vacant room, so we stayed.

The hostel had a strong religious mood. Bible was in every room. A small chapel was located in the yard.

Administration building looked pretty nice too.

After breakfast we went to explore surroundings. We didn’t go to far yet but we discovered that there is a camp for children near our hostel. We marked in our mind to go there later.

The fact that the hostel was located near beautiful lake Trevann in the forest caught our interest when we were looking for a hostel in that area and we were quite excited to see it.

After that we went for a drive. As our plans to go to fjords were changed we decided that we ought to see a little piece of the beauty at least.

Our plan was to get to the nearest fjord and Herefossfjord matched it perfectly. A small village Frolands Verk was on our way and I don’t know why but I thought that there must be some museum. There were two ways to get to our destination, one of them was longer and another was shorter. You can’t see that much difference between them until you actually drive them. And we didn’t know that difference. We should have asked somebody but we were confident. Anyone who has a woman that tends to be sick of motion as a passenger would have decided to go the shortest way.

It was a huge mistake! But quite an adventure.

But first some photos from Frolands Verk (interesting… Wiki says that Frolands Verk is a monument itself. My feeling wasn’t wrong )

Niels Henrik Abel a Norwegian mathematician had died in Frolands Verk when he was 26.  I’m not into mathematics but it seems that he was quite a significant person in mathematicians’ world. Here is a monument in his honour.

I’ve never seen so many retro cars as I’ve seen them in Norway.

I don’t remember if that was before or after that intersaction where we turned on the shortest way. But we managed to see an ending of horse-riders training.

It was the first time when I saw vagons for horse transportation. I still feel pity for horses that have to stay in those incommodious vagons going mountain roads with lots of turns, ups and downs. Later I realized that vagons like thoseare not a rare occasion on Norwegian country roads. Horses seems to be popular among hobbies in Norway.

Soon after that the road got more and more like serpentine, with sudden turns, ups and downs, and asphalt ran out. Konstantin didn’t become suddenly an experience driver, road was narrow. So narrow that it was scary to go on feet there! I still don’t understand how we didn’t fall into abyss…

On the plus side Konstantin can tell that he drove on TRUE mountain road. And I can tell that all those minutes (I don’t know how many exactly) a single word that I could pronouns  was a swear word.

It was taken there.

Unfortunately I don’t have photos of that fjord that we were going to because there wasn’t mush space to leave a car and go shooting and we couldn’t go further because I was sick.

In the evening we went to explore more that camp for children. Nobody was there.

The path to the camp.

View from the camp. The camp was located on the top of a hill.

On the next day we went home…

Our plan was to go to Kristiansand and then to Stavanger. We booked our hostel rooms in Froland Hostel, Eikely (near Arendal, and I would really recommend it) and another one somewhere near Stavanger the name of which I can’t remember because we never actually made it there.

It was the first time Konstantin drove himself without any assistance and help. I don’t drive at all. I felt uneasy at first because he tended to go on the right side of the road too close to the edge. I had to warn him all the time to go more to the left. So I imagine that we were zigzagging. Finally we were stopped by local traffic police But they were cool. We told that we didn’t have much experience so they wished us luck and went away. In the meantime Konstantin learnt to go more or less straight. The road was almost straight at first with lot of tunnels. Tunnels are amazing. It wasn’t very comfortable to go through them because we don’t have them in Ukraine and it was almost scary and Konstantin wasn’t experienced driver at all. But they are beautiful. I didn’t make any photos of them because my hands were shaking  But here are plenty of pictures of Norwegian tunnels.

On the way GPS failed. We didn’t know at which point to turn from our main route E18 and where to go further. So we bought a paper map. By the way it was night already. If we were in Ukraine we would have lost completely because of the darkness. But thank to the fact that there was a midnight sun  in Norway we managed to notice that small sign that told us “Eikely”. Konstantin was tired and was sick from motion. When I came into our room that had so pleasant smell of freshness and my head touched that pillow I realized that I had never been happier before. It was around 2 AM.

Map

That day I went to see how the area that I fell in love during navigating though the google maps looks like in reality. I still love that place very much! It’s so homey!

If I were to choose where to live I would lived here.

In the evening we went to the Folksmuseum that is located on Bygdøy peninsula. The best way to get there in summer is a ferry. It takes only 10 minutes and it’s quite enjoyable. After we arrived I saw this lovely ship. Why isn’t there such an attraction like exploring a sailing-ship at that place? I would be happy to try myself in a captain role

First we spend some time in the indoor exhibit halls. It was allowed to take photos there.

Dolls’ house

And of course the main part was the Open-Air Exhibitions. We were a little bit late so we were not able to see everything but what we saw was wonderful.

A house with grass on it’s roof.

By the way there are still plenty of them in Oslo and across Norway.

Really marvelous church!

Some details of it.

And inside

Click here to see a panorama view of it.

The kid is not our’s

And we’ve come right to the festival of the midsummer.

I really liked these guys! I wish I knew who they were. So many people were taking autographs. And I wand to know name of the song. It’s so fun!

There was a public grill pit where everybody would gather and grill sausages, meat, fish and vegetables. I liked this custom a lot!

All these are exhibits.

I wish I had a chance to visit this place once more. I really had a good time!

Oslo, Norway

That day I by myself went to the Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture (DOGA). I wanted to attend an opening of the Turbine-city exhibition but I was too early! I came in the morning and the opening was scheduled for evening. But they took a video of it at least. What I can is to watch this short video and envy

It must be so cool alive!

But I wasn’t much disappointed.

I took these pictures, I was almost lost in the city, I had a real pleasure to navigate places I wouldn’t saw otherwise.

This is a building I saw just near the entrance to the graveyard. I had doubts if I should go through it or pass round. I went in.

On the pavement were lying three girls, they were sunbathing. Norwegians love and value sun. They don’t have much of it so as soon as a ray of light comes to the earth they nude their body parts and tan wherever they are.

Later I found out that that was the Memorial graveyard and some of norwegian famous people rest there.

Just few pictures I took on my way to DOGA:

Some people were protesting against something near DOGA

DOGA itself

And inside only one exhibition was at the moment.

A competition of Norwegian architecture took place recently and there was an exhibition of some works. I was surprised how different were buildings that participated and how different they purposes were. From schools to crematorium!

Crematorium

Appartment building

Student housing

School

After I took all photos I could take I spent some time with coffee and a book about design.

And I went back.

A statue near JAKOB Church of Culture.

There are a lot of churches in Oslo. I failed to remember them. But I know where it was so I looked for it on google maps. It says that this is the JAKOB Church of Culture in which a lot of performances take place. I wish I knew it before.

An example of performance. It must be fascinating to see a church like interior with modern lights show.

I took the below photo when I was lost. I don’t know what it was or how to get there. But it was beautiful. I wasn’t scared but a feeling of being lost didn’t improve my photographing skills. It look so beautiful, so majestic and I totally failed to convey it.

Almost home. Pilestredet street.

That day I, Natasha and Nastya went to International museum of children’s art. I haven’t visited too many museums but still I’m sure that this one will be my favorite forever! It was great!

On our way to the museum we found a field to play football (soccer).

We also saw a day-care center. I was told that it was completely different from ones we have in Ukraine.

First I need to tell how day-care center looks in Ukraine. Usually it’s a quite large building with a lot of rooms and a surrounding territory. Kids are divided into several groups depending on their age and each room is assigned for such group of for about 12 persons.. Usually one adult person or two work with one group. In day-care center children eat, what a cook would prepare, sleep at noon, study, play, etc.

In Norway it’s usually a small building with just enough space to hide when it’s raining. Children eat what they brought with them and don’t sleep. Usually there is one adult person per 2 or 3 kids.  And they rarely can be seeing at day-care center. They travel the city, visit museums and so on. I do wonder though what do they do in winter.

How’s it in your part of world?

This is a BIG day-care center. I assume that kids do sleep here at noon.

When we arrived to the museum we found that there was a play garden and lots of decorations.

No doubt it’s a CHILDREN’S art museum I don’t really know who was happier I or two years old Nastya

Unfortunately it wasn’t allowed to make photos inside. So I can’t show how wonderful it was there.

Here is a link to the gallery that I’ve seen with my own eyes!

The walls of the ground floor were covered in kids paintings from all over the world. I liked very much paintings of children from Peru. They were special!

When I entered the first floor I was astonished! There are so many dolls, toys, statues, different things I don’t even know how to call! It was superb!

Here (pdf file) is a picture of the part of the first floor. It looked quite different when we were there but it gives an image of how it was.

There were kids from a day-care center with  teachers or how they are called. The guide played guitar, we were singing, dancing, you know games for kids. I had so much fun! I think that the guy was Spanish because his songs were all Spanish. You see even the guide isn’t just telling about this and that but also entertaining because of the kids.