goodbye whitney

A night of decompression and some delicious green tea yoghurt with mochi and blackberries.

a habit. hopefully.

it was perfect. it will be forever.

long awaited

So here are the pictures from Wales...Finally...I know, I'm lame for taking so long and ignoring your need for connection.

Typical Welsh country road...totally narrow, high walled, overgrown...in short, not the best place for walking.


Sheep...not that there were too many of those around...


Caernarfon Castle. Where the "Prince of Wales" is handed power...best not to dig too deeply into the politics of that one.


An island with a cemetery and a VERY small church. Called, oddly enough, Church island.




The most I ever saw of Snowden...it was pretty much socked in the whole time I was there.


I know, not too many pictures, but hey, its been 2 months....I will leave you with this though:
llanfairpwllgyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
No, Im not making that up...its the name of a nearby town...Welsh is an amazing language...

Wales

So, sadly I have left the Troxels, but happily I have joined Stasia in Wales...Just barely. A word of warning to those that might enter the UK...have the address that you will be at during your visit on hand, or at least know enough of an address to make something up. I almost had to cry to get in as I didnt have either of those. We wandered around the city today, saw a beautiful church, loads of sheep, country lanes, the university, the ocean, about 20 thrift stores, could have seen Prince Charles. Quite lovely. And Ive already started to pick up a Welsh accent...which mixes well with my 10 or so Norwegian phrases...Tomorrow I'll figure out the picture thing and post some sheep.

Mysteria

So, I have a regular birthday mystery on my hands...
I got a blank envelope from telenor (the Norweigian telephone company) with a stamp on the back from Bodo radio (a maritime radio station for messages from boats?) The only people I know on a boat currently are the pirates, which if this is from you all...this makes you very cool...but it also says Chicago...so that includes a whole lot more people...the message reads:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
QUARTER CENTURY
PICNIC PARK SYMPHONY?

NNNN

Any ideas as to the meaning? But thank you, whoever is responsible...sadly it is raining, but we will have an indoor picnic...and the stereo is almost like a symphony...

Happy Birthday to me...Again

I have reunited with my camera base and so bring you these pictures...

Technically this is not my birthday...Kristin and I wandered around these parks while Bella was at a birthday party for one of her friends. There is a cool story about the trees in the first park...originally it was just a farm and the farmer agreed to allow the freighters from the nearby port to offload their ballast at his farm so that they could pick up their new loads...and along with all the dirt and sand they were using as ballast came seeds and different kinds of plants. So this farm has all kinds of strange trees that don't normally grow in Norway. Like this one...


Then we went to this really peaceful English style park and just sat and talked for a while, ate some icecream, drank some coffee, wandered around, looked at the names people carved into this row of trees...




Now, on to the birthday. Kristin and I went to this awesome wool factory where they make felt and yarn and blankets and what have you. It is right next to this painfully cute town where we found an antique barn that was in serious need to repair as the majority of the floor felt like another 2 pounds would bring the whole thing down...so that added an extra element of excitement to the hunt.
This is the wool factory. It was abandoned and two women bought it extremely cheaply, fixed it up and started producing again, but in much smaller quantities.




Then we came home, watched Johnny Depp for three hours and then went to dinner at Patrick's. We sat outside as the weather is fantastic and ended up collecting a strange and rather motley crew by the end. All in all, a very satisfying day. Not to mention that I got free cake and icecream.