What's fun to a Norwegian ..

Last week, a friend of mine,  sent me a message... HEY VEGGIE GIRL, weather is getting warm, time to hike !  I said... ok.. I'm in.
Well a few days passed by and the weather wasn't looking so great, but that was ok with me.
 We had hiked before in a very muddy place not far from here last year.. how would this be any different.

The night before, we decided, we will head to Buntzen Lake. this is a lake not too far from where I live. Very popular for hikers and many runners.

Running Water on the trail March 2014

Buntzen lake March 2014

Well on Sunday, there was a few runners on the trail, not too many hikers though. It is a pretty place in the summer months. The pictures i have posted are from March 2014, as I walked out the house and totally forgot my camera .... WHAT kind of photographer forgets their camera ?!    LOL....

March 2014

The weather forecast was pretty much rain all day. The actual precipitation was 39.1 mm, at least it wasn't 43.7mm (record set in 1913)

This day, we hiked approximately 16 km.
The lower trail around the lake had areas that were washed out, so parts of the trail were closed.  We pretty much stayed to the upper trails. At one point, we were hiking up a trail, and the water was running down zig zag through the switch back. Now that is something i have never seen.

We ran into some hikers that waded through the water up there their hips to get through.. but in the end, they climbed up another elevation to avoid getting too wet.

At that point, we decided, we were probably pretty safe, so we would try and finish off at the lower trail. OH BOY.... nope, not out of the water shall we say. We only had 3 areas we had to scale off the side of the trail to get around it.
Not bad.. but interesting.

If you read this interesting link, http://afroginthefjord.com  it will tell you what Norwegian's think is fun !

Well I couldn't agree more.  Over all, even though I was soaking wet,,, we still had FUN !

Tip toe through the tulips... Fraser Valley Tulip Festival

Tip Toe through the Tulips ...

A Couple weekends ago, I spent the morning tip toeing through the tulips.... My friend and I  had wanted to go down to the Great Tulip festival in Washington, however due to the early warm weather we have had this year, many of the fields were already finished.. however, if you live in the Vancouver area, we have a hidden gem right in our backdoor.  No border wait time too !

   The Agassiz Tulip Festival, its a great little festival. 

Fields and Field of colour

Follow me through the fields....  

Reflections of a tulip

Put it on your list of places to see next spring, you will love it. While you are there, you can pop over to Harrison Hot Spring. Stay tuned for my next post.

A Pretty Little Town......Stavanger, Norway

Back in September of 2013, I was so lucky to be able to travel throughout Norway. The first exciting thing was to meet my family and while we were there we made a good trek around the country and visited many cities.   On our trip, we made a stop Stavanger.

We were visiting the city of Bergen and decided to take a ferry to get to Stavanger.
We boarded a Norled boat early in the morning. The trip was a few hours and made some stops along the way to pick up and drop off passengers. 

The landscape was very indigenous of the coast of British Columbia. Open ocean, rock formations with a odd tree or low scrub. Very similar to the San Juan Islands off the coast of Vancouver island.
 I made that comment  to Dave as we were sitting inside enjoying the scenery and later  once we were docking a couple sitting in front of us, remarked that they thought the same of the scenery, and they were from Seattle.  

When we first arrived, i looked around the town, and didn't really think much of it.
Looked small, and it was very hilly and i was completely disoriented. I couldn't figure which way we were suppose to go.

I had booked a hotel that was a couple km from the main downtown area. Wasn't easy to get too, and was kind of far to walk with all the luggage. We asked for some directions and decided to get catch a city bus.

When we first got onto the city bus, the bus driver didn't speak English and he didn't speak Norwegian, I thought to myself.. GREAT, we are screwed.  However, the word, Hospital is pretty universal.
We took the bus up the road a bit, and then we had to walk the rest of the way to the Hotel.
St. Svithun Hospital Hotel.  That is  right, i said, Hospital !

The hotel was an experience in its self. It was a hotel connected to the local hospital. So if you can kind of wrap your brain around that, it was a great place to stay.  Faily cheap by Canadian standards, only $85 a night and that included breakfast.

The breakfast buffet was to die for ... well if you took me literally, you were at least in the right place if something medically did happen.  Best breakfast buffet in all of Norway !!

You can visit this guys site and read more about the hotel  

When we started to explore the city, we found some interesting places to visit. Down by the water front, we first saw a church. This was the Stavanger Cathedral (Stavanger Domekirke) .
This was built in 1100. However it had caught on fire, and was rebuilt and refurbished.  I photographed the outside as I loved everything about the church, and the details and nice curves on the windows. 

I choose to turn this picture into a black and white, as i like the texture of the building. 

"Stavanger Domekirke" photographed by Christina Ostenstad

Another hidden gem is Gamle Stavanger (Old Stavanger).
We stumbled on to that after taking a test drive in an electric car.
The driver dropped us there, and said, Great place, you must see. 

The Gamle Stavanger, is the oldest section of the city. Picturesque white painted homes. 

The main occupation in stavanger was fishing and a canning plant.
Which was situated in the middle of town close to the ocean.


The wood homes were built in the 18th century and they are now protected as a heritage site. 

"Going Home" photographed by Christina Ostenstad 

This is my favourite photo of all times. I love the potted plants in front of the homes, and the cobble stone roads.  Each house was white, and most of them had different coloured front doors.

The woman that I photographed walking down the street, stopped and chatted with me for a few moments.  She had lived in this area for a very long time. She was elated to find out that I was  a Canadian-Norwegian decent and she said, that i looked like a true Norwegian. We exchanged some works in English and a little in Norwegian. 

"Storm coming in" photographed by Christina Ostenstad

"End of the Row" photographed by Christina Ostenstad

When I was walking down admiring the homes.. I was captured by this little guy sitting in his window. He was very quiet and was looking for someone or maybe just watching the people walk by.

"Who's there?" Photographed by Christina Ostenstad 

Next time you are in Stavanger, visit the old city and stay in the hospital hotel !

Happy easter ! God påske

Easter, its hard to believe that it is approaching us in 5 days.  Easter to me , has always been about chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. As a kid, I received a token gift from the "easter bunny" and it usually wasnt too much.  As a kid, I did not receve a ton of chocolate, because clearly, i didnt need  a ton to be happy.  

Easter morning, was pretty much the same from year to year. Not much running around the house and hunting for eggs...  More like, I woke up and found a easter basket parked infront of the fireplace all wrapped up with some nifty new things in it. 

I remember my basket quite well, in fact i still own it after 46 years and have a couple little trickets that came in it. It was usually filled with a plush toy, a chocolate bunny, and a couple little yellow piper cleaner style chicks.  I also do recall, when i was about 6 years old, i told my Mum that I was going to grow up and become the easter bunny..  LOL  well I guess that is true to a degree or atleast the official supplier to the easter bunny. 

Easter was celebrated with family. Usually a family dinner with turkey, stuffing and pie. Sometimes there was hot cross buns loaded with icing.  That's what easter was...  we didn't go to church, unless my Gramma was around and she made me go with her. The family dinner was probably the most important part. Like christmas, easter was a time to be together.

Easter has changed so much, since i grew up and became the easter bunny.  When one owns a chocolate store, its all about the holidays and the commercialisim of the business and less about family dinners. Quite sad really.  

Heres a few pictures from my store. 

Easter Bunny cookie anyone ? 

 Easter bunny marshmallow ....

And so the holiday goes on.... more treats from my shop. 

I do however get a kick out of playing easter bunny to my best friends kids and my Great-nephew. I look forward to getting up at 5 am, taking a short drive to their homes, and scattering egg's around their front door.  Some how i hope that the magic of easter will stay with them a little longer before they realize it is actually me. 

When my Great Nephew was 3, he figured it out that easter bunny had come to the house, he got up looked outside and saw all the bright coloured plastic egg's all over the front yard. He got out the door and began gathering up all the eggs. He's a pretty intellgent kid, and observant too.....

As he was collecting he stopped and noticed that there was a cigarette butt on the ground, so he turned to him Mum and said... Look the easter stopped to have a smoke !   

Have to admit that is pretty funny, considering the easter bunny doesnt smoke. But good observation !

Happy Easter everyone !  God påske to my family in Norway. 

  

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Spring Has Sprung !

Here in Vancouver, British Columbia. We have had the mildest winter this year.
December of 2014, we only received one day of snow, and it melted within 24 hours. I guess, it can be said, we are pretty lucky, don't really have to deal with road plows, wet snow, however we still had our fair share of icy roads.  The only drawback is we never really got to ski or snowshoe. As most vancourites, most of us  thought, we were living the Olympics of 2010 all over again. Warm days and no snow. Good thing we were not the host this year for the winter games.

By mid March, we start seeing the Cherry Blossoms starting to come into bloom.  This is probably my most favourite time of the year. Natures way of making things  "pretty in pink" which should cure the winter blues.  For 2015, the trees received an head start.  

As we head into the end of March, most of the blossoms are starting to drop, and this becomes our "Spring Snow"  Here is a capture from a week ago.. across the street where I live.

I love the signs of spring, it seems to transport me back into time. When Spring had sprung, that was a sign, summer is almost here.. and soon school will be out !  

 Time to get out and enjoy a few more blossoms, before they are gone.


These were taken in the Cemetery in New Westminster, BC

A Little Photography Hike

Well for my first post, i will share some of my little pictures of a recent small hike I took in North Vancouver, BC.
There is a great park, called Lynn Valley Canyon. Recently I went with a couple friends to hike in to see the Twin Falls.  It was a fairly easy hike, but then it required a bit of stepping down the side of a hill and standing on a rock and leaning over a fence to get the view of the famous twin falls.

Breath taking, and it really is not that big. Pictures can be deceiving ...    However, a bit further down the trail, I came to the bottom lake where the falls end. If it wasn't March, I probably would have taken off my shoes and socks and walked up closer to the falls.. but I will leave that for June or July.


Here is view from the lake.  The water is clear and beautiful. Next time you are in North Vancouver, stop by Lynn Valley Canyon, it is free and it is a nice place for a picnic.