No updates, No time :-)

So yeah, this thing has not been updated for a long time.

In practice, clown is still here...
In practice, it is still fun...
In practice, clown has so many other things to devote his time to...

Today for example, next to getting up with a blocked ear 'hurting' terribly, I wrked on a graduation paper, and rewarded myself with a concert later on...

I will not give any ellaborate details regarding both, but basically:
Paper is on the norwegian educational system and their 'adapted' education.
Concert was by Paco De Lucia (yes, jealousy is allowed). I can only say, as known for a very long time, if you hear about this man in concert, you can feel really sorry for all those millions of people anticipating an exciting and musically high level Eurovision song contest, woehahahahaaaaaa...

I will not even add a picture, but if you want, a friend of mine put 10 of them in an online exposition:
The monthly expo on www.fotoforce.nl...
Direct link for friends and visitors not able to use the Dutch layout:
http://forcedf.xs4all.nl/expo/0705/index.htm

Ha det!

Bergen: About vikings and flying ships...

The city of Bergen..
A city of rain...
A city like any other...

I will start introducing Bergens main attraction:

Rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...
Rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...
Rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...
Rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...
rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...
rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...
rain...rain...rain...rain...rain...
rain...rain...rain...
rain...rain...
rain
...

Don't know if they made it, but this year there was a chance they would brake a record about the highest amount of days with rain proing down...

Nevertheless, Over 4 days we had about 6 hours where it didn't rain. Me and an American pal took the train up the mountain to see the city from above...

Like it?

We decided to walk down, all of a sudden there was a large road going to the right.

"Could this be a shortcut?
Yeah, think so, let's take it."

About 300 meters down it started to narrow untill...
this:

At about 19h it's dark this time of the year. I can tell you it was dark when we came down.
But adventurous as we are, we didn't turn back.
It's slippery, it's steep, it's a little dangerous...
Probably faster just following the main road...

I think I mentioned the rain, didn't I?
So we got the Bergen card, allowing us to take free busses, and visit a lot of places for free...

So we visited about everything the card allowed us to.

Musea:
4 art musea:

Nothing interactive, just paintings on the wall...

This contemporary art was very intruiging:

A litle girl (4-5y?) was watching it with her dad. At some moments she looked up and started smiling. I captured some of the moments she did so.

Viewing this situation could have been a video-art project in itself. It was the most striking thing I saw during our stay.

A little art history:
An opportunity to learn norwegian :-) Enjoy!

They also displayed some photographs. I wonder wether to send in some of my own.
I did not quite understand why these are museum grade.
After all, this was an artmuseum, not one about industrial history :-)

These are 2 I made travelling the train down the mountian another day:

Ever been IN a clowd, in blistering wind?
Can tell you it's very wet, very cold and visibility is nearly zero.
These trees where probably 10 meters away...

Ok, I was talking musea:
Some bridal crowns on display;
Nice, very nice...

All of a sudden we stumbled upon this flying ship...
I know Norwegians are masters in seafaring, but I did not expect them to have flying ships around the 1700's.

Reading the information it became clear they used to donate ship replica's to church so their ship would be blessed on all it's journeys.

Oh, here's an image for a Dutch friend, yes, there are pinguins overhere...

Flying ships, and masts on roofs; very awkward. So after all, not a city like any other?

Clown was joking :-)
They have a tallship down the port, just behind the building...
Nice, but nothing I had not seen before :-(

Before they entered the modern ages, Bergen was built up with wooden houses, two of those old streets have remainded intact. They are now restaurants (that is a faulty term, it should be: very expensive places to have dinner) and musea...

Very handy if you want to borrow an egg or salt from your neighbour across the road, but I wonder about fires willing to visit the same neighbour...

And of course, some of the coloured houses. These days, every house is white.
Is it a law, do they like white, is white paint for free, don't they want their houses to be seen in the snow?
Leave a comment if you have a definite answer :-)

Oh, this image has been optimised to remove any lensdistortions. These old houses just aren't straight (anymore?). So forget about Pizza, Italy, they only have one tower leaning, here there's lots...

AHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Viking stuff:

Master seafarers.
Without GPS, they made all their travels mainly using the item to the lower left.

So, another been there, seen that :-)

As Luke, the American, does not have access to old buildings back home (heck, they don't even display art containing nudity, so he took more then 300 pics :-), we visited Häakons hall.

This building was blown apart during WOII:

But luckily restored to it's former glory...
Not carrying a tripod, this is another example about modern technology...iso 3200 on full frame...nice.

Yes,I am aware the image isn't straight. Just tilt your head and you'll be fine :-)

Near Bergen, they have an old stave church. Dating early 12th century.
That is one thing we do not have back home.

As it kept on raining (goretex is a great invention) we hopped indoors when we could.
In this church they happened to be recording a choir performance. So canon, a whisperingly quite shutter would be ever so nice, please, if you could be as kind...

And to close todays story, a meeting with Norwegian natives:

Ha det!

Questions without answers...

Out from the blue, I will add this nonsense message.

People keep asking me why I don't write anything about the educational system. Well, to be honest, I just didn't feel like doing so...

Might add some information the coming week(s), it is different from the system at home, very different, and much more fun. Isn't that an appetizer ;-) ?

This weekend, I'm off to visit the city of Bergen and surroundings.
Probably going to sing this a lot overthere:

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

Vi sees!

Immigrants: Work and learn

Unique in Norway, unique in the world?

Josephines Kafe... in Stavanger.

Providing education for 15 immigrants in a reallife work environment. Once you get in you're only allowed to speak Norwegian (the students that is).

It is pointed towards adult immigrants without any previous school-experience. They learn by doing, and graduated immigrants are living proof this is a rewarding project.

While they learn by doing whatever has to be done in a Kafe-restaurant, customers enjoy cheap meals. Ours was even for free ;-)

I'm happy!

C ya !

Old town, new town...

Clowns can deceive you. Clowns will deceive you.

Norway isn't all about open spaces, fjords and mountains.
I'm sorry, so sorry...

The stavanger region is a city region.

Before the new town, there was an old town. Strange, isn't it :-).

But very nice...

Clown keeps deceiving you. The buildings are in very bad shape. Stavanger is investing a lot in modern architecture, but they might want to hand over some funding to keep this old town in shape...

Clown not happy :-(

1968

Splendid, excellent, magnificent, eyecatching, modern, industrial, metal, glass, shapes, spacious, curved, straight, light, dark, ...

If you like architecture, visit the oil museum in Stavanger...
If you do not like architecture, visit the oil museum in Stavanger...

I will once go back to create a decent image of this wonderfull building. For now, i'll just focus on the content.

Oil is what made Stavanger wealthy. Oil is what makes Stavanger wealthy today.

This amazing structure showcases it all:

-History of earth
-Use of energy
-alternative sources of energy
-Positives and negatives regarding energy use and oil
-Where to find oil
-How to find oil
-How to drill for oil
-Safety and disaster
-Oil products
-technology
-3D-movie
-...

Grandma, grandpa, mum, dad, son, daughter,...

Entertainment for all. Both in English and Norwegian. Did I mention the excellent support by the museum staff?

Visiting a museum in Belgium, you're sometimes considered to be an intruder in a world of piece and quiet. "My chair is comfortable, my coffee is close, so bugger off..."

Not so here... A question, any question, staff will answer before even asking.
Unlocking the door to an interactive exhibit? No problem, sorry to keep you waiting...

Clown is a boy. Clown likes technology. Clown likes big things. Clown likes big things in small.
Clown is happy. Clown sees plenty.

Scale models provided by major oil companies. Boats, oil rigs,...
Amazingly detailed, even interiors are completely visible.

Why use scale models if you can have the real thing?
Drilling heads anywhere between 90 and 22 (?) cm.

Me like, Me feel, Me take picture...

1968

This is it, the first drilling head ever to smell oil beneath the Northsea in 1968.
A modern dinosaur.

alexander kielland

Major disaster. All about it throughyour favourite search engine.
Wanna learn? Put some effort into it ;-)

The platform was recovered. The faulty part is on display in the museum.
The tv-screen is of normal size, so this is definitly not a scale model...

A black picture about a black day in oil history...

The disaster was the starting point for extensive safety regulations.
A lot of rescueing materials are showcased in the museum. SUV's are common things, even on national geographic channel, but ever heard of an underwater helicopter?

Come to Stavanger, it is right here !

Museums are ever so boring...

Nope, museums WERE ever so boring...
Wednesday 21 february UIS treated us all on an excursion, in which we travelled through the local countryside. On the way we also visited the jaermuseet, about farming in Norway.
More info to this through your favorite search-engine :-)

Farming? What do farmers need?

Air to breath and money to spend...

So how do they make money?

By cultivating farmland ofcourse.

Farmland in Jaeren is mostly situated at the valleybottom. In this area the ground isn't very rich in nutriënts so they use fertilizers. It is very rich in rocks though...
The reason there is an extensive array of farms is the jaeren area is densly populated, so there is a market to sell farming products. Remember transport is not easy in this country, so being close to the client is obviously an advantage...

The key mission of the museum can be read by enlarging this image. Yep, wanna learn, put some effort into it, hehehe...

Free jewelry?

Yep, all provided for...

Ofcourse i was among the first to discover this, so no queing for this clown...

The jewel is a plough blade, which you have to make yourself.
First activate a robotic arm to hand over a metal plate. Afterwards it's manual labour to shape the plate... Rut (right) is in the middle of the process, tightly pulling the lever to cut, bend and shape the blade...
Caitriona (left) is cutting a hole in the blade so you can attach a ring or string...

Glass houses? Greenhouses?

Yep mister, yes ma'am.
A functioning greenhouse in the middle of the museum.

In Belgium there are about as much greenhouses as regular houses...
Over here there are less...

Again, self-provising as they wanna be in this cold country, they want greenhouses.
Madman or plain common sense? Make up your own mind...

Turning around, cow guts...

All about feeding cows in a modern farm. The black platform is completely interactive, if you want to be active, that is...
Storing food in the silo, getting it out to the cow,... It's all possible...

In the basement, Norways most modern farming machines?

Boys toys are ofcourse provided for:

But why wander around in the museum, when UIS provides you with free drinks and snacks?
Yeah girls, proof is in the picture...

On the bus there was a lot of talk about the long stretching beaches in Jaren country. So afterwards, a short stop.
Man, guess they must be crowded in summer. 200 People per square meter?

My interest was however pointed towards the atlantic wall left from WOII...

If they all come over to my home country they may see a proper beach... And if we visit the spanish people there might even be some palmtrees too...

Anyway, clown is frozen. Clown is cold. Clown is hungry.
Clown hops on the bus...

C ya!