Norway.

Dear Poul,

I am delighted that you would choose one of my photos for your computer!

ATB from George

General thought, please.

This is a thread where I am pleased to share some happy thoughts on a family holiday, and hopefully post some more photos, which I proffer for general enjoyment.

The politics of Scandinavia are not part of a holiday thread on Norway really. 

I ask in the kindest way possible that if people want to a discussion on the political scene in Norway [and possibly other successful countries], then please can we do this in another thread, rather than this one, which I hope can remain apart from, if not aloof of, what is possibly and interesting and important topic.

I would certainly be prepared to take a part in that, if someone starts a new thread.

Thanks for your consideration in trying to keep more or less on topic, and avoiding potentially controversial side-tracks.

Very best wishes from George

Dear WAT!

Eric, the Red. Never thought of that!

All the best from George

PS: I still have not tried the USB port thing, but will do when I have a nice weekend afternoon free!

I must, of course, agree wholeheartedly

On my bucket list is the 210 km long Rallarvegen bike trail from Geilo to Voss. I saw bits of it a few years ago through a car window, and I yust can't get it out of my head...

Great thread George,

Hilsen fra Montréal

One thing is quite clear from the drive up [on the route ridden by my Grandparents in 1946 on bicycles] from Oslo via Drammen, and Kongsberg and almost on to Geilo - Skurdalen is 10 km short on that road. This is no longer viable on a bike. The roads too narrow, and the lorries too many ... One gave to us ascending one fairly horrendous bank, and you would not see that from a lorry driver in UK! The Main Oslo -> Bergen [via Geilo] road never was a possibility ...

But Geilo to Voss might well yet be a project from me in the future! The Carlton may yet find itself in Norway!

This forum tells me things that I could find out no other way! Thanks, Jan-Eric!

ATB from George

Here you go George :

Top ten bicycling routes in Norway.

http://www.visitnorway.com/uk/...ng-routes-in-norway/

I had better fit the wheels with the Marathon [grippy, but still quite narrow] touring tyres for it! And get the best brake blocks!

Thanks, and thanks again!

ATB from George

No, he was called Erik the Red. He moved to Scotland, where the use of the letter K was subverted by a turntable manufacturer.

Dear Jan,

I always subvert the K back to C!

My great-great grand father was 

Carl Oscar Rasmussen

Worth a google search as you will find some beautiful Skurdalen photos from a century ago including my grandmother in a head-scarf! As young girl holding my still alive great uncle Eric in her arms!

ATB from George

Such as:

http://www.asbjorn.info/slekta...der/Oscarshaugen.htm

My Great Granny is on the left behind the door. She was also a most lovely person. ...

I visited my local Camera shop - The London Camera Exchange in Worcester - only a ten minute walk from here to enquire if my films had arrived early, but they said that it would would probably be on Tuesday, which is still earlier than promised. The guy who took the undeveloped films off me was amazed to find such a mint old Canonet, and was obviously interested in this ground-breaking semi-automatic rangefinder camera. The focus is manual, but the exposure is set automatically. Obviously you have select the correct ASA setting for the film.

I really hope the ancient Canonet 28 has done its stuff on some Fuji film - ASA 400 for the often relatively subdued light at this time of year in the mountains.

As soon as they three times thirty-six exposures are printed, I hope that some may be nice enough to scan and post here. I chose eight inch prints as this not much more expensive than small prints, and saves reprinting any good ones again at much greater cost. The process is apparently completely conventional hand-made work without any digital scanning before printing.

My aunt is now safely back in the Bahamas, having carried paint back from Norway as it is not so good there. 

ATB from George

This boat was built for my great grandfather Ivar Fiske in 1918, long before the idea of small boat engines. It is Vikingship shaped with a high point at each end. Obviously it has not been in the water for years, but it an eight seater, designed to be rowed with two pairs of oars if two rowers are available. It is this very boat that I learned to row a boat in the 1960s!

This photo was taken two weeks ago today. 

I have some superb film photos in large prints, but scanning g and posting is a good deal more effort than with digital!

But some are superb!

ATB from George

You have to imagine the lower photo as being a slight overlap to the higher one on its right.

This the view South East down the four kilometre length of Skurdalsvatn.

That is enough for today, but you can see the subdued weather in the first couple of days! Wonderfully refreshing after our long summer. Night was ten degrees and so was the day!

ATB from George

PS: Look back to the bottom of the previous page for more film photos ...

You might be interested in this:

http://www.nytimes.com/interac...f-larsen-norway.html

Dear Frenchnaim,

I am definitely not searching after any ghosts!

In fact I am moving forward. My Aunt has been a part of my life all my life, but as a child I knew both my cousins in Norway, and now i know their five children!

As I am a gun-stop in regard of offspring, I am very pleased that my two cousins have five children rather than four!

But my time there was far from laying ghosts to rest. It was the first step for twelve years of preserving and enjoying new family relationships as much as cementing existing ones.

If I won the Lottery, then I would emigrate within months to that kindly polite land.

ATB from George

I'm sorry, it certainly wasn't my intention to draw a parallel - just an interesting story. All this put me in mind of a book that I must have read 20 times when I was a kid - perhaps more - about Shetlands Larsen, and which possibly sparked off a lifelong interest in Norway and Scandinavia in general.

Dear Frenchnaim,

One of the nice things about my Norwegian family is that they are gentle, polite and affectionate, but the direct ancestral link is lost with my grandmother, who died in year 2000, and my grandfather died in 1993.

My grandfather was a great and significant man in Norway of the sort that history does not remember. He was on occasion difficult and intransigent, as were many who lived through the 1939-45 War, while taking an active part.

He was entered for the 1936 Olympics though took no part because his father recognised that that was nothing but a Nazi propaganda stunt. By he was a successful athlete in his time, and a very successful businessman in the postwar years until the 1980s. As I say, a man that posterity will not remember ...

I knew him well and my grandmother better. I wish that I had known both of them more.

But the future is not in deceased people, but rather the living, and young. Notably my aunt, her two daughters, and her five grandchildren. I was very pleased that all of them are as outward looking as my grandparents. See earlier posts.

As for Norwegian culture, I am being loaned some novels from Jo Nesbo, and have an abiding interest in Ibsen, Greig and Munch, though this time I visited no Museum dedicated to any. 

But the present holds the key. How much changed is Oslo, and how little changed are the Mountains ...

And how much is to be found in the qualities of my younger Norwegian relatives.

The return to my other homeland will be much sooner than the last gap!

ATB from George

And now having finished my last two threads, Norway and the S800s I shall not revisit the Naim Forum. Job done after ten or twelve years. 

I shall revisit Norway of course, and any future photos will not be worth sharing ...

Adieu, George Fredrik.

Only you could get away with it, George! But it was nice following you and your Nordic journey.

Regards, 

Tony

Oh god not AGAIN!!

I was in Norway (Tromsø ) this time last year. For a largely unsuccessful attempt to see the Northern LIghts (not entirely unsuccessful, and subsequently satiated with aplomb by a visit to Greenland).

Apart from the eye-watering prices of everything, it was a wonderful, beautiful place of staggering scenery and charming people. I will certainly return!

Adios Jorge.

A friend of mine has been persisting with a "you must visit" so I did.

Excellent flights from Norwegian air to Oslo and not at all expensive. Well done NA.

Stayed nr Oslo and drove to Geilo, a ski resort but out of the ski season. One hell of a beautiful clean country with lakes, greenery and scenery galore. Just wall to wall. Stunning is appropriate.

I couldn't live there.

Poor selection of goods eg supermarket food ( as reinforced by Missus friend) and expensive. Very and not made up for in quality either.

What is "very"? 10 GBP for a small ale. My friend is in the 7 figure GBP asset class and even HE balks at taking the family out for something as unexotic as a burger!

Nanny state:typified by the lack of a few beers in the supermarket after 18:00! Yes they take them off you at the checkout! Remarkable. 

And you cant buy wine etc except for in what I believe to be state sponsored outlets, no doubt with other antiquated rules and regs.

Give me British freedom and choice any day.

More than happy to be corrected on these points.

PopI

Well, if that's all that's stopping you... incidentally, there is such a thing as purchasing power parity.