Saturday, October 31, 2009
It all started by going to the pumpkin farm; a first for the kids. I know shame on us for not introducing this great American tradition before but what can I say they are not raised in Kansas either. We looked but couldn’t find any pumpkins farm in Beijing… we barely found pumpkins to carve!
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| Choosing the ONE |
Then it was the carving… that they are used to do.
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| Perfect pumpkin - Drawing - Carving |
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| It's a messy business |
The final product:.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Don’t worry I don’t need to wake up at the crack of dawn to take those pictures and share them with you. The good part about late sunrise (and early sunset) is that it’s tailored to my own schedule. Photos taken between 8.30 & 10.00 am!
Monday, October 26, 2009
...Preview
Here’s a preview of the many photos taken in Rome…I will post more soon(ish!).
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| Italy wouldn't be Italy without the Fiat Cinque Cento |
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| Rome & its Coliseum |
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| Making a wish at the Trevi Fountain |
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Pink Ribbon Day is today (on the 4th Monday in October) and October is internationally known as Breast Cancer Month.
Honk for mammogram awareness. A mammogram is the most effective way to detect breast cancer and increases the chances of a cure by 95% in case of early diagnosis. Every woman over 40 should get the exam on a regular basis.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
...Cinque Giorni di "Dolce Vitta" in Roma
For those of you who’ve read my previous blog, you know the drill. When we go on a vacation trip I like to give you some
visuals. Ok it might not be as necessary with Italy (but hey CNN does make mistakes
too) as it was with previous destinations but I like tradition!
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Assuming you know where Europe is.
Italy is easy to find on a map...it looks like a boot |
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
...On the Wild Side (literally!)
After the beach, the mountains. We all hop in the car and started to drive towards the mountains. Apparently we will be taking this scenic route a few times this winter since it’s the road that leads to Stavanger closest ski resorts.
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Click on the picture to enlarge Click on the "Back" button of your browser to come back to this page |
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| Water like a mirror |
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| One of these picture is upside down! |
Sunday, October 18, 2009
...Swimsuit NOT Necessary!
We finally made it to the beach. If you think we took a swimsuit you’ve forgotten where we
live!!
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| Don't be fooled... the water is not warm! |
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| Impromptu picnic |
No swimsuit needed yet:
Chloe & Jeremy building sand castle, well the
Great Wall of China for Chloe and
Tiantan (not as obvious) for Jeremy. I wonder where they got their inspiration!
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| China is still a source of inspiration even for the kids |
On a different note, the French parachutists came to my rescue:
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| So nice of them...But I think I will survive here in Norway! |
Friday, October 16, 2009
...To Viking
Adventure,
Adventure,
Adventure... we are just full of adventures!!!
Stavanger Accueil, which is the local Newcomers group for French speaking people (a whole big group of 50 members -not necessary active! -compare to almost 300 members at
Pekin Accueil that should tell you about the size of the expat community here!). But I digress; Stavanger Accueil organized a visit to some Viking sites around Stavanger. Daniela who is from Venezuela and passionate about the subject explained all that was to know about this period.
The earliest trace of man in the Stavanger region can be dated as far back as 3000 B.C. The findings are however sparse. Findings dated 1500 - 500 B.C. show that the area most likely was permanently inhabited.
The most important remembrance of this era can be seen at The Black Cave (Vistehola), 9 km north of Stavanger. The Stone Age people lived in open settings or caves near the shore. Findings here include pottery, flint tools, and remains of wild animals. Bear, deer and wild bore were hunted. The only domestic animal was the dog. Flint, wood, bones and horns were the most important raw materials.
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| Daniela in full action mode! |
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| the cave |
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| the writing |
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
...In Rainy Weather” - Part Deux
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| When you really want blue sky... just make it yourself |
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| Always good to know where you stand on level of rain |
Friday, October 9, 2009
...And Bad Norwegian Postal Service
But I thought Nobel Prizes were “Swedish”, well they are except for the Nobel Peace Prize which is presented by the Norwegians. All this lead me to tell you that the Obamas are in town (well Oslo obviously, not Stavanger) and my invitation must have got lost in the mail. Chinese postal service was much better (exhibit
A, exhibit
B and exhibit
C and a few more but I don't want to brag!)
The Nobel Prize (Swedish: Nobelpriset) is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901. An associated prize, The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was instituted by Sweden's central bank in 1968 and first awarded in 1969. The Nobel Prizes in the specific disciplines (physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and literature) and the Prize in Economics, which is commonly identified with them, are widely regarded as the most prestigious award one can receive in those fields. The Nobel Peace Prize conveys social prestige and is often politically controversial.[…]
The Nobel laureates are selected by their respective Nobel Committees. For the Prizes in Physics, Chemistry and Economics, a committee consists of five members elected by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; for the Prize in Literature, a committee of four to five members of the Swedish Academy; for the Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the committee consists of five members selected by The Nobel Assembly, which consists of 50 members elected by Karolinska Institutet; for the Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee consists of five members elected by the Norwegian Storting (the Norwegian parliament). In its first stage, several thousand people are asked to nominate candidates. These names are scrutinized and discussed by experts in their specific disciplines until only the winners remain. This slow and thorough process is arguably what gives the prize its importance. Despite this, there have been questionable awards and questionable omissions over the prize's century-long history. (Wikipedia)
BTW there is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics
(and it has nothing to do with a woman and her lover!) but at the 1924 International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Toronto, a resolution was adopted that at each ICM, two gold medals should be awarded to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement.
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| Photo: Susan Walsh/Associated Press |
Thursday, October 8, 2009
...But Nice House
When we came in July to look for a house, we had friends that were on their way back to France after spending 4 years in Stavanger. We went to their house and when she inquired about our search I told her I wouldn’t mind finding a house like the one right next to her. It turned out it was the house of the bishop and they were under investigation for a NOK 27 million fraud.
A couple of days ago the (so-called) son was sentenced to 4 years in prison for fraud.
Bishop's son sent to jail
Bjarte Baasland, the 35-year-old son of former Stavanger bishop Ernst Baasland, was sentenced to a prison term that's considered lengthy by Norwegian standards: Four years for serious fraud amounting to at least NOK 27 million. Baasland and his mother, Bodil, sought funds from family, friends and investors after Baasland led them to believe he was setting up a high-tech firm in the Czech Republic. Instead, he was gambling away the money on the Internet. The judge hearing the case rejected outright Baasland's claim that he thought at least one of the family friends, Cecilie Nustad, could afford losing the millions she turned over to him. The judge also said Baasland's parents had been "incredibly naive," something the younger Baasland took advantage of. The fraud case bankrupted the Baasland family and prompted Ernst Baasland to resign as bishop but neither he nor his wife nor their son has apologized to those who thought they were supporting a business venture by Bjarte Baasland. The judge questioned whether the younger Baasland fully understands the severity of his crime. He showed little if any remorse during his trial, which was over in a day since he had plead guilty. His mother Bodil also has been charged in the case. All told, nearly NOK 70 million was lost on Baasland's Internet gambling. Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) has reported that author Håvard Rem is writing a book about the case, noting that Baasland spent much of time living in a luxury hotel in Prague. When friends and family finally stopped sending him funds, and his money ran out, he wound up sleeping in a park in the Czech capital.
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| Foto: Thomas Fosse |
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
…Høstferie
It’s vacation time already for my kids at the International School but also for Norwegians children and I might have found the reason. Well it at least applies to the Norwegian schools and when I think about it it could as well apply to the part of France I come from, but instead of potatoes we were harvesting walnuts.
Autumn school holiday called 'old-fashioned'
Every year, just five or six weeks after the school year begins, Norwegian schools shut down again for a week of so-called høstferie (autumn holiday). It stems from the days when farming paid a much bigger role in Norwegian society, and children were needed to help harvest potatoes in the fields. It was even called potetferie. Now, however, it causes lots of problems for parents who have difficulty taking the week off work themselves. Many children end up getting placed in an extended version of the after-school child-minding program known as SFO (skole fritids ordning), which parents must pay for even though the program uses public school facilities when the schoolday ends as early as 1pm. On Tuesday, a top politician in Kristiansand went on national radio to propose that the autumn holiday week be scrapped. It's old-fashioned, impractical and not necessary for students to have holiday just over a month into the autumn term. School administrators immediately objected, arguing that the teachers are entitled to the holiday time and that the school districts don't have the budgets to keep the school open an extra week. Some companies, meanwhile, have come up with novel ways of coping with the autumn holiday, which took place last week in most of the country. Mobile telephone operator NetCom invites its employees to bring their children to work, where the personnel department hosts all sorts of activities to keep the kids busy. Around 80 children took part this year, many of them repeat participants. Newspaper Dagens Næringsliv reported that "Barnas Uke" ("Children's Week") is so popular that many parents say their children don't allow them to take the week off. The kids would rather accompany them to work.
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| Now I know why they eat potatoes every day! |
Monday, October 5, 2009
Stavanger at Number 2
The ranking is in particular based on the number of occurences of each city of Norway in web pages, news, pictures and people votes in corresponding context.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
...I Just Do The Dishes!
We left Beijing 3 months ago today.
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| Every little things help |
Friday, October 2, 2009
I’ve decided that it’s time for me to start my Norwegian lesson sand today was my first day. Don’t worry I won’t be over doing it; once a week, 2 hours at the
Norsk Fransk Kulturesenter. It’s more a way of making my daily life easier than to master the language and I will learn how to pronounced those cute little new letters: å, ø, æ. Anyway it doesn’t help my enthusiasm when a couple of days ago I read this article:
Norwegian among the 'most difficult languages to learn to speak
A veteran professor of languages claims that Norwegian is among the world's languages that's the most difficult to learn to speak well. Russian professor Valerij Pavlovitsj Berkov, who has spent decades perfecting his own Norwegian, told newspaper Aftenposten over the weekend that the tonelag (inflection and musical accent) needed to speak Norwegian properly is almost impossible for non-Norwegians to master. "Norwegian is one of the world's most difficult languages to learn to speak perfectly," said Berkov, who will turn 80 this month. Non-Norwegians will find it nearly impossible, he contends, to speak the language without revealing that they are foreigners. Berkov is a long-time professor of languages at both the St Petersburg State University and the Nordic Institute at the University of Oslo, teaching Norwegian to Russians and Russian to Norwegians among other subjects. He also has taught English, German, Icelandic and several other languages, is fluent in around 16 languages himself and has written the 1,121-page Russian-Norwegian dictionary as well as its companion Norwegian-Russian dictionary. He's been fascinated with Norwegian since he was a child and had taught Norwegian for 15 years before he was first allowed to visit Norway, in 1966. Another 21 years passed before he was allowed to return, in 1987, and says he still doesn't know why the authorities denied him travel permission or who "worked against me." Now he and his wife divide their time between St Petersburg and Oslo. Berkov strives to stay firmly out of the ongoing debate over the various forms of Norwegian, but allowed that the language isn't well-served without a norm. He notes that broen, brua, bruen and broa, for example, can all be used for "the bridge," and that the lack of one preferred version in fact does away with the norm. He wouldn't comment, though, on whether it's wise for a country to have two official languages, as Norway does with bokmal and nynorsk. "It's stupid for a foreigner to try to tell a Norwegian how they should use their own language," he said.
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| Centre Culturel Franco-Norvegien |
I had read in another article (that I cannot find ago to save my life) that even though Chinese is often describes as one of the most difficult language to learn, Chinese is in fact different from most other languages in that the most difficult stages come at the very beginning of the learning process, with the mastering of tones and the first few hundred written characters. After that Chinese actually becomes easier than most European languages due to the lack of conjugations and the relatively simple grammar.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
...Happy Birthday (People’s Republic of) China
Today marks the nation’s 60th anniversary. If the opening ceremony of the XXIX Summer Olympics is to go by I am sure the parade will be flawless, I’m also pretty sure Beijing will have fantastic blue skies!
Update: Some photos from
Boston’s Big Picture. For anybody who likes beautiful photos on current subject, Boston Big Picture is a must have website to be bookmarked/RSS.
Once again the number of people performing makes a big difference.
Halloween
