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Interior Shopping in Oslo

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dailyscandi

November 19, 2015

Norwegians are home loving people. They are redecorating their homes for billions every year. Interior shops are therefore flourishing in the Norwegian capital. Here are our selected few.

Hay House
Josefinegt. 23, 0351 Oslo

Hay is owned by Rolf Hay and the Danish clothing company Bestseller. The company was established in 2003, and it soon became an ambassador for contemporary Danish furniture design. The company has two shops in Copenhagen and one in Aarhus. The shop in Oslo is a pleasant combination of gallery and outlet.

Ruth 66
Torshovgt. 3, 0476 Oslo

Ruth 66 is a different kind of shop, shouting out, «Welcome home to me!» Here you’ll find a combination of old and new items, however, emphasize is on retro.

Tante Guri (Aunt Guri)
Sonsgt. 7, 0654 Oslo

Experience Tante Guri at the Kampen area in Oslo. In this designer collective you’ll find a mixture of photo art, fashion clothes, funriture, lamps and much more.

Hole Design
Drammensvn. 130, 0277 Oslo

Materiality, playfulness and craftsmanship are the core values at Hole Design. The craftsmanship is expressed in the products made by Norwegian manufacturers, with a passion for furniture and a high knowledge about the materials. You may experience some of the furniture classics “live” side by side with inspiring art. The playfulness is shown through the unexpected and contrasting elements in the products.

Feature image (on top) Hole Design, shelving systems

Interior Shopping in Oslo, compiled by Admin

Summer on the Swedish Coast!

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November 18, 2015

Plan your visit now and shed those musty winter thoughts. On paths that wind o’er rock and marsh, where the wind blows in from Dogger Bank, carrying the smell of seaweed and adventure.

This was Swedish songwriter Evert Taube’s invitation to Sweden’s west coast.

Seafood delicacies
With fresh, hot shrimp, new-caught fish delightfully prepared and a glass of chilled white wine, we embark upon a brief journey of exploration of the Sotenäs Peninsula, Bohuslän, just over half-way between Oslo and Gothenburg.

We’re sitting at our ease on the terrace of Bella Gästis in Hunnebostrand, and enjoy the view of the marina as the sun spreads its golden glow over the naked cliffs before dipping down into the Skagerrak Sea.

Our hosts explain that every day they serve a new fish dish made from fresh local ingredients. Today’s menu includes fried bleke with chopped egg and horseradish. The Kungshavn center trains chefs specializing in fish and shellfish. Students come from all over Sweden, and after they have completed their studies they will be able to develop new seafood-based business ideas.

“You must come back in the autumn when lobster plays the starring role,” says my host, adding that the Swedish Lobster Academy in Hunnebostrand organizes guided tours, lobster safaris and lobster suppers.

In the neighboring village of Bovallstrand you will find Bryggkafeet, one of the many inns that are taking part in the Västsvensk Mersmak project, which was started in 2000 to further the collaboration between restaurants and the farming and fishing industries and provide visitors and locals alike with a variety of culinary delights.

Evert Taube’s Bohuslän
There is a concert on at Villa Gästis tonight, and Evert Taube’s songs are on the program. The songwriter was born at Vinga Lighthouse, a little to the south, and he made his debut as a singer in Smögen in February 1918, when he sang “Alt uti blåa kläder” and “Karl Alfred and Ellinor”.

Taube is supposed to have inspired to write the song about Karl Alfred and Ellinor one stormy night at Vinga when a sailor told of his adventures in Port Adeleide, Australia. Evert Taube visited Port Adeleide himself as a cabin boy, and a decade later the song was written in Smögen.

It is said that Taube always had the sharp rocks, wind-swept pine trees, hawthorns and heathers of Bohuslän in his thoughts when he was off on his travels, and he longed to return to the light summer nights.

Child-friendly Sotenäs
If you bring children with you to the Swedish west-coast next summer, it will be a summer journey of discovery. There are a lot of “winners” for children of all ages there. Island hopping is popular.

With a little boat you can easily get from Smögen to Hållö, a beautiful nature reserve facing the open sea, with sheltered coves that are perfect for bathing, flat rocks, potholes and plenty of nooks and crannies for energetic children to explore.

We recommend a canal trip on the Soten Kanal, which was built nearly 80 years ago by more than 200 unemployed stonemasons, and which is reckoned to be a monument to the stonemason’s craftsmanship. The idyllic canal was intended to be an alternative waterway for the nearby Soten Sea. Evert Taube has described this stretch of water in the dramatic verses of the “Blue Bird of Hull”.

The highpoint for both adults and children is a day trip to Nordens Ark. Nordens Ark is built on the animals terms, and the aim is to take care of endangered species from all over the world, so that they can breed and subsequently be returned to their original habitats.

Jonatan Borling shooting wolverines at Nordens Ark

Nordens Ark really is child-friendly, with fun pathways, play areas and competitions.

It is also lovely to stroll along the quayside in Smögen, watch the people go by, admire the boats in all shapes and sizes, and it your fill of fresh shrimp. You are not alone in Smögen on a summer’s day, but there are pathways which lead to secluded spaces, with rocky knolls and coves and views of the sea.

Facts about Sotenäs
Sotenäs has just under 10,000 permanent residents scattered between a dozen villages and farming areas. Fish processing and tourism are the most important business sectors.

Smögen is situated around 90 kilometers south of Strömstad. Oslo is 200 km away, and its 150 km to Gothenburg.

Accomodation
Sotenäs Peninsula has 8 campsites. Around 20 places offer accommodation, ranging from youth hostels and Bed & Breakfast to 4-star hotel standard. There is also a wide range of restaurants, inns and cafes.

Activities
Sotenäs Golf Club is one of western Sweden’s best 27-hole courses. Riding, sailing school, bicycle hire, boat hire, organized boat tours and fishing trips, seal safaris and diving center. More than 20 bathing beaches/coves.

Culture
Local history museums, arts and crafts galleries, maritime antiques fairs and auctions. Stonemason museum and sculpture park in Hunnebostrand. Folk evenings and jazz concerts. Every August international performers come to Kungshavn for a tradjazz festival. The fish auction in Smögen is a colorful and ear-splitting experience.

Nature
Several nature reserves. Soteleden is a 70 km long walking route through varied terrain along the coastline. It passes through beechwoods and over expanses of rolling heather. Several shorter walking routes. Nordens Ark featuring a variety of endangered species.

Summer on the Swedish Coast! written by Tor Kjolberg

Feature image (on top): From Smogen

The Rocky West Coast of Sweden

The Secret to Exploring Oslo on the Cheap

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November 17, 2015

The Secret to Exploring Oslo on the Cheap

Oslo is the capital of Norway. The history of Oslo goes back to around year 1000 AD. Since the Middle Ages Oslo has gone through great changes, even the name of the town has been changed a few times, before it became the city it is today.

Oslo, Kristiania or Christiania?
One can easily be confused by the capital’s different names through the years. The town was originally called Oslo. In the Middle Ages it was located on the east side of the Bjørvika inlet. After a dramatic fire in 1624, king Christian IV decided that the town be rebuilt in the area below the Akershus Fortress, and he changed its name to Christiania. From 1877 the name was spelled Kristiania, and in 1925 it was changed back to the original name, Oslo.

Now that you’re armed with a little trivia, let’s look at how to explore Oslo on the cheap…

Skip a pricey downtown hotel and check out Late rooms.

The public transportation system in Oslo takes you almost everywhere.

The Oslo Pass gives you free entry to more than 30 museums and attractions, free travel on all public transport, free parking in municipal car parks, free entry to outdoor swimming pools, free walking tours, discounts on sightseeing, ski simulator, Tusenfryd Amusement Park, concert tickets, climbing, ski and bike rental, and special offers in restaurants, shops, entertainment and leisure venues.

You can by the Oslo Pass online here.

Public transportation tips:

Don’t eat in public transportation vehicles.
Stand to the right of the escalator and pass on the left.
Move to the center of the cart to give new passengers room to board.

Check out these FREE activities : Akershus Fortress, Armed Forces Museum, Ekebergparken Scupture Park, Film Museum, Intercultural Museum, Labour Museum, Oslo City Museum, The Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, Vigeland Sculpture Park, Botanical Gardens, Norwegian Customs Museum.

The Monolith, Vigeland Sculpture Park, Photo: Nanxcy Brundt, Visit Oslo

Where to Eat in Oslo? Check out the Daily Scandinavian Restaurant Guide (being launched December/January).

Italian restaurant Prima Fila behind Town Hall. Tested and recomended by Daily Scandinavian — Italian restaurant Prima Fila behind Town Hall. Tested and recommended by Daily Scandinavian

Visit the Holmenkollen Ski Jump for views of the city.

Holmenkollen Ski Jump. Photo: Visit Oslo

Watch the Norwegian King’s Guard at the Royal Palace

https://youtu.be/ROW9ZpMeAeE

Explore also the interesting Oslo East Side with its cafées, restaurants, bars and individual shops.

Scorpius Corner, Grïnerlokka, Oslo East Side

The Secret to Exploring Oslo on the Cheap, compiled by Admin

Peacetime Recovery in Scandinavia

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dailyscandi

November 16, 2015

The last stage of World War II, with German forces scorching the earth in their retreat from the advancing Soviets, hurt northern Norway.

Recovery from the war in Denmark and Norway was set in motion by the Marshall Plan (1947-51). Neutral Sweden also accepted Marshall aid, and all three Scandinavian countries were caught up in the wave of economic growth that swept through post-war Europe.

The comprehensive “cradle-to-grave” welfare systems came into full being during the 1950s and 1960s. To begin with at least Scandinavians were happy to live with the high taxes needed to cover their cost, if only because memories of bitterly hard times without a social safety net were still so fresh.

Cradle to grave welfare system in Scandinavia

Sweden’s international reputation, somewhat damaged by its questionable war role, was given a boost by the selection of diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld as Secretary-General of the UN in 1953. He threw himself into the role, enhancing the reputation of the UN and acting as peace-broker in international disputes from China to Palestine to the Suez Canal.

In 1961, Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash. He was the first person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously.

Feature image (on top): Dag Hammarskjöld

Peacetime Recovery in Scandinavia, written by Tor Kjolberg

Norwegian man cut neighbor’s outbuilding into two

People

dailyscandi

November 13, 2015

Norwegian man cut neighbor’s outbuilding into two

A Norwegian man, Arne Vigeland, hired two workmen to cut his neighbors outbuilding right in half because it crossed over onto his land. Then they dumped the rubble on the neighbor’s vegetable patch.

The owners of the property at Nesoya outside Oslo, Roger and Wenche Waage, were on holiday in Spain when the incident took place in April 2014. They reported the matter to the local police. Vigeland explained that he only reduced the building to a legal size so he did not brak the law. However, he was charged with aggravated vandalism last month.

Vigeland is not new to controversy surrounding his neighbours’ property. He has demolished a stone wall in the very same area because he claimed it was on his property, as well as sawed down trees and bushes.

Norwegian man cut neighbor’s outbuilding into two, written by Tor Kjolberg

The Swedish Furniture Giant

Business
People

dailyscandi

November 12, 2015

Founder of Ikea, Ingvar Feodor Kamprad, was born on March 30, 1926 in a small province Smaaland in Pjätteryd (now a part of Âlmhult Municipalty), Southern Sweden. Kamprad’s biographers believe that the trading hobby was passed to Ingvar by inheritance.

In 1897, the company that belonged to the grandfather of the future billionaire was on the verge of bankruptcy. His grandfather could not pay the mortgage and committed suicide.

Ingvar’s grandmother, however, was able to save the business. So she taught her grandson to bridge over the difficulties with willpower and perservance. Grandmother Francis had a huge positive impact not only on Ingvar, but on the entire family. She was a very intelligent woman, although of simple origin though.

To most present-day Swedes, the date and the names, in a famously rural region, resound of harsher times, when Sweden was agrarian and poor. They speak of hard work, frugality and egalitarianism rooted in shared poverty – values which would eventually enter the IKEA ethos.

Even as a young boy Ingvar knew he wanted to develop a business. At the age of five he started selling matches to his nearby neighbors and by the time he was seven, he started selling further afield, using his bicycle. He found out he could buy matches in bulk cheaply in Stockholm and re-sell them individually at a very low price, even with a good profit.

Later he started selling flower seeds, greeting cards, Christmas tree decorations, and later pencils and ball-point pens and fish.

Map of Ikea stores around the world 2014-2015

People, who closely work with Ingvar Kamprad, say that he is a brilliant marketer, a wise man who never kames a mistake. The strategy of Kamprad is indeed studied and examined by major entrepreneurs from all over the world. Ingvar never attended a university and school teachers could not even teach him to read for a long time, since he was dyslectic. His lack of a university degree has always been replaced by enthusiasm.

“If you work and do not feel incorrigible enthusiasm, consider that at least a third of your life has gone down the drain,” Ingvar once remarked.

In 1943, when he was 17 years, Kamprad’s father rewarded him with a small sum of money for doing well in school. With it, Ingvar founded a business named IKEA, an abbreviation for Ingvar Kamprad from Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd, his boyhood home.

At the beginning of its operation, the young Kamprad engaged in the trade of different things, from matches to discount stockings. But the biggest demand was for pens. At the beginning of 1940s they were a novelty even in Sweden. Kamprad ordered 500 pens from Paris, taking a loan of 500 SEK in a district bank, at that time around 63 USD. According to Kamprad, this was the first and the last loan that he had taken in his life.

Later he started selling wallets, picture frames, table runners, watches, jewelry and nylon stockings, meeting needs with products at reduced prices.

Two years after starting IKEA, Kamprad began using milk trucks to deliver his goods. In 1947, he started selling furniture made by local manufacturers. By 1955, manufacturers began boycotting IKEA, protesting against Kamprad’s low prices. This forced him to design items in-house.

Kamprad is also behind the simple, yet revolutionary innovation that is the flat pack. He began selling IKEA products in flat-pack form, from his own warehouses. Thus the basic IKEA concept – simple, affordable flat-pack furniture, designed, distributed and sold in-house – was complete.

To attract prospective customers to the presentation of the store, the young entrepreneur promised a free cup of coffee and a bun to everyone who would come. Imagine his surprise when this modest event attracted more than a thousand people. The idea of opening a fast food restaurant in each store looked great for the owner of IKEA. Time passed and each IKEA store got a fast food restaurant.

The first IKEA advertisement appeared in 1945 when Ingvar Kamprad’s business outgrew his ability to make individual sales calls. He began advertising in local newspapers and operating a makeshift mail-order service.

The driving idea behind IKEA was, and is, that anyone should be able to afford stylish, modernist furniture. Kamprad felt he was not only cutting costs and making money, but serving the people as well.

Kamprad’s business grew and grew. IKEA expanded throughout Sweden, to Norway and Denmark, via Germany to continental Europe, and on to the ends of the world. When IKEA opened in Shanghai, 80,000 people visited the store. Today, there are over 300 IKEA stores in the world – in 38 countries. All this time, Kamprad has never borrowed money or issued a stock.

In 2009 IKEA opened a new store in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and music is an important element of the shopping experience there. It’s a part of the company’s expansive globalization process. To expectant New Yorkers the old, familiar music tracks are comforting when they’re about to buy furniture with unusual and minimalistic design and even has names which for most Americans are impossible to pronounce.

The Swedish Furniture Giant, written by Tor Kjolberg

On Learning Norwegian

Fine arts/music
People

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November 11, 2015

Norwegian is a language that English-language writers and translators seem willing to pick up. James Joyce learned it to read Ibsen. Lydia Davis is learning it solely by reading Dag Solstad.

On the Literary Hub Lydia Davis (photo on top) shows her handwritten notes in the margins of a novel called “unreadable” and “as dull as the phone book” by critics in Norway where it was published.

In Davis’s meticulous handwriting, systematic descriptions of vocabulary, style, and grammar spill over the pages of the novel and onto a stack of papers. The makeshift booklet, made up of sheets of paper folded in half, densely annotated on both sides, constitute a grammar not only of the novel itself, but of the language in which it was written, a grammar constructed entirely by Davis herself.

After visiting a literary festival in Norway in 2013, Davis embarked upon her most ambitious linguistic project to date. She decided to learn Norwegian, a language previously unknown to her, from this novel, and this novel only.

“I can’t pronounce the title, so I just call it ‘the Telemark novel’,” Davis admits.

“The Telemark novel” is in fact what the book is dubbed even in its native Norway. The full title, which roughly translates as The Insoluble Epic Element in Telemark in the Period 1591-1896, suggests the level at which Davis has chosen to start her self-tutoring.

It is a novel, of sorts, in which the acclaimed author Dag Solstad delves into the genealogy of his own family, fact by fact, name by name. The result—a 400-page epic, chronicling births, deaths and marriages over the course of four centuries—was described by some critics as somewhere between the endless genealogies of Genesis (“and Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob”) and Finnegans Wake.

“I did not want to stop reading Norwegian,” Davis wrote about the experiment in The Times Literary Supplement: “I had become attached to my daily immersion in the tales, some quite dramatic, all curiously entrancing.” The result was a heartfelt passion for the book itself.

“You may ask questions in Norwegian—if they are simple,” Davis wrote in an email before the interview for Literary Hub.

“It all started with a resolution. After my books started coming out in various countries, I made a decision: Any language or culture that translates my work, I want to repay by translating something from that language into English, no matter how small. It might end up being just one poem or one story, but I would always translate something in return.”

Davis’s choice of Dag Solstad, arguably the finest, and undoubtedly the most critically lauded, contemporary novelist in Norway, is less random than it may appear. The author of 33 books, translated into 30 languages, and the recipient of every major literary award in the Nordic countries, Solstad seems to be enjoying something of a belated international breakthrough. Having only recently been translated into English, all three translated titles were longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Another fan, Haruki Murakami, is translating Solstad into Japanese (“He’s a kind of surrealistic writer, very strange novels. I think that’s serious literature,” Murakami told the Guardian.

Dag Solstad, now 73, has for the past 50 years continued to experiment with the form of the novel. Each new Solstad title is not only received as a major cultural event, but they often spark heated debates. His centrality to the cultural life of Norway is perhaps best illustrated by the 2006 publication of a novel that touched on the country’s role in Afghanistan—the book prompted the Foreign Minister to write his own review, debating its political ideas over several pages.

Now imagine Philip Roth publishing a novel deviating so radically from expectations, as to make the critics of The New York Times and The New Yorker claim it really wasn’t a novel at all, and you have some idea of the controversy surrounding the book Lydia Davis has chosen to struggle with.

Dan Piepenbring, editor of The Paris Review, learned Norwegian to read Jon Fosse. He says it helps that the grammar is simple, with few tenses and word endings; the vocabulary is small; the language is one of the deep cores of English, so reading it feels eerily familiar, like a song you half know. After being asked to read Fosse’s novel Melancholy in German, Piepenbring decided to co-ytanslate it with a native Norwegian speaker friend, and he has since translated, on his own, two more of Fosse’s novels, Alias at the Fire and Evening, two stories, and a libretto.

Jon Fosse is less well-known in America than some other Norwegian novelists, but revered in Norway—winner of every prize, a leading Nobel contender. Piepenbring thinks of the four elder statesmen of Norwegian letters as a bit like the Beatles: Per Petterson is the solid, always dependable Ringo; Dag Solstad is John, the experimentalist, the ideas man, Karl Ove Knausgaard is Paul, the cute one; and Fosse is George, the quiet one, mystical, spiritual, probably the best craftsman of them all.

Karl Ove Knausgaard on drums. Photo: Anders Gronneberg

Reporting on a Karl Ove Knausgaard reading last summer, The Baffler wrote that “two young men kept comparing the event to a rock concert and complaining that they should have brought 40s … Knausgaard has become a rock star.” The writer himself has told of a German journalist “who compared me to a rock band. He said, the books don’t really have any focus, it’s just loose, it’s like just having some songs about drinking and they don’t have anything else … he saw pictures of me, he said, ‘You pose like a rock star.’ ”

At the Norwegian-American Literary Festival in New York last May, Knausgaard played the drums with his reunited college band, Lemen, thus sundering the flimsy membrane that separates him from full-on rock stardom. For this is what rock musicians have done throughout history: sundered membranes.

The performances—on May 20 at Westway, in Manhattan, and on May 22 atSunny’s, in Brooklyn—marked the band’s United States debut. “I think everyone understands that we are not trying to get into the U.S. market with our music,” Knausgaard told the Norwegian paper Dagbladet. Its headline said: “KNAUSGAARD BELIEVES HE HAS NOTHING IN COMMON WITH RINGO STARR”. He goes on to suggest that he’s not a terribly versatile drummer and that Lemen is an ad hoc project.

But don’t let his Scandinavian modesty undercut your expectations. After all, if you’ve been reading My Struggle, you know that Knausgaard has been a musician for a long while. His mastery of such soaring classics as “Smoke on the Water” is well documented. Indeed, his books are full of anecdotes about his restless experimentation, as when, in Book 3, he dreams of starting a rock group with his friend Dag Magne: “He wanted it to be Dag Magne’s Anonymous Disciples; I wanted it to be Blood Clot. Both were equally good, we agreed.”

Perhaps most important, Book 4 reveals his devil-may-care attitude toward equipment—a must for any serious musician:

At a planning meeting some days later Eva went berserk. We had been given permission to use equipment belonging to the band her son played in, but we had treated it carelessly, a string had been broken and not replaced, a drumstick had snapped and not been replaced … People were so preoccupied with trivialities, they kept searching until they found something and then they went for jugular instead of keeping sight of the bigger picture, here we all are, humans on one earth, we’re only here for the short term, in the midst of all this wondrous creation, grass and trees, badgers and cats, fish and sea, beneath a star-strewn sky, and you get worked up over a broken guitar string? A snapped drumstick? … Come on, what’s the matter with all of you?

On Learning Norwegian, compiled by Tor Kjolberg

The Swedish Camera Icon

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November 10, 2015

If you mention the name Hasselblad, every professional photographer in the world would think of cameras for professionals. The Hasselblad name has been linked with cameras almost since the early days of photography.

But who was the man behind the iconic name? The Hasselblad family established its first trading company, F. W. Hasselblad & co in the city of Gothenburg in Western Sweden in 1841. The location was ideal for an international import-export firm with its proximity to the European continent and its historic trade connections there.

The name “Hasselblad” is said to have been originated when an ancestor in the early 1600s needed a ‘good name’ to wed the daughter of a wealthy man. They should pick the name after an object found during a road trip. The first object was a leaf falling from a hazel tree, and so the name Hassel (hazel) and blad (leaf) was put together. Hasselblad was on its way to be world famous.

However, it was the son of the founder of F. W. Hasselblad & Co., Arvid Viktor, who after purchasing a camera in 1885, opened a small photography division within his father’s business and began importing supplies for the innovation of photography.

“I certainly don’t think that we will earn much money on this, but at least it will allow us to take picture for free,” he is reported to have said.

Tree Lake by Eoghan Kavanagh, Hasselblad 2012 winner

He could not have proved to be more wrong about the potential profitability, since the photographic department became a major part of the company and in 1908 led to a “sister company” named Hasselblad Fotografiska AB, which also was the exclusive Swedish distributor for what was now Eastman Kodak products. Arvid Viktor had met George Eastman, the founder of the Kodak Company, while on his honeymoon in England.

However, it was the onset of World War II that happened to be the opportunity Hasselblad needed to begin building his own camera.

Photo by Joachim Schmeisser, Hasselblad finalist

The country was forced to shoot down a Luftwaffe plane when it entered Sweden’s neutral air space. The Royal Swedish Air Force found a surveillance camera in the plane and asked Victor Hasselblad if he could duplicate it.

2014 Hasselblad winner portrait category, Smitri Ageev

“No,” he said, “I cannot make a camera like that, but I can make one better.”

After the war, the family business resumed with great success and Victor could finally concentrate on making ‘civilian cameras’.

2010 Hasselblad Masters Award Binh Trinh

Today Hasselblad is much more than just a camera after having made it through moon landing, the turn of a millennium and caught thousands of motifs through its very pristine lens. The Hasselblad Master Awards is an annual award and have since 2001 recognized selected photographers across various specialties for exceptional accomplishment through photography.

In 2012 Hasselblad opened up their London studios to all photographers regardless of what camera they used and they present regular workshops to develop the craft with their award that honors those who fight the cause of rhino poaching in Africa.

The Swedish Camera Icon, written by Tor Kjolberg

Western Norway – The Storehouse Area

People

dailyscandi

November 9, 2015

Western Norway includes Moere og Romsdal, Sogn og Fjordane and Hordaland. It is an area which possesses a “fortune” of resources both on land and sea.

There is an area off the northwest-coast, which the locals call the “Storehouse Area”. The name originates from the always availability of fish there; it was like collecting food from a storehouse.

However, It was not always so easy. In tight years, when the sea was “empty” and both herring and other fish were missing, the small farms came to rescue. The tough people in this area are known for their ability to survive under scarce conditions – all the way back to ancient times.

The west coast is perhaps best known for its mighty fjords, which is surrounded by green hillsides and waterfalls falling several hundred meters down into the sea. These wonderful waterways make it possible to sail from the North Sea straight into the heart of Norway. At the tip of the west coast we find a climate which is typical coastal, with mild winters and chilly summers, while areas farther into the country have a distinctly transitional climate. The countryside is very diverse. We find all kinds of environments. That way the west coast is Norway in a nutshell; we find roaring rivers, beautiful mountain peaks and calm water. The coastline is a chapter in itself with a myriad of large and small islands.

Møre
From Norse times Møre meant “land by the sea”, and oceans are plentiful in Norway. The Norwegian Sea crashes against the northwestern coast, and several of the country’s residents live on islands and are dependent on ferries. The inner part of the country is dominated by mountains which attract thousands of tourists from home and abroad. Møre og Romsdal’s premier attraction is Trollstigveien (The Troll’s ladder Road) and the Troll’s peaks with its famous Trollveggen (Troll’s wall).

Troll's Ladder, Westwern Norway — Troll’s Ladder, Westwern Norway

Sunnmørsalpene (the Sunnmøre Alps) and the Geiranger Fjord are other tourist attractions. Although the tourism industry is the fastest growing industry in the area, there are still other industries that have kept people employed since ancient times. Fishery has of course been extremely important.

The coastal population was incredibly resourceful in obtaining variety in their diet. Fish were obviously cooked in all varieties; be it kamsehoder (heads of a particular fish), komperute (kind of potato balls), sildesodd and sildesuppe (kind of herring soups), blandaball (mixed potato balls) or lutefisk (dried whitefish treated with lye).

Thin wafer crispbread was made here as elsewhere in the country, and barley was mixed into in the dough for party and feast. Lefse (soft flatbread) was also served on special occasions

Meat was a valuable commodity and gave people access to cash. For ordinary people, fresh meat on the dinner table was a rarity. It was usually salted or dried. At weddings, christening and funerals bærekurver (food baskets) were distributed. This and most other ancient customs have been lost along the way.

Old Norwegian trunk, photo Vesterheim Norwegian American Museum

Norwegian Nettle Soup
This is a simple and good soup. Nettle found almost everywhere and are a great resource. Pick it into summer, blanch and freeze.

Serving 4 persons:

1 onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 pints/1l broth
2 tablespoons thick cream
½ carrier bag blanched and finely chopped nettle tops
salt and freshly grinded white pepper

Method:

Peal and finely chop the onion, carefully fry it in a pan in olive oil. Liquidize with broth and running cream. Bring it to the boil and let it boil for 5 minutes. Add the nettle and let it cook for a couple minutes more.

Taste with salt and pepper.

If you want a somewhat thicker soup use cornstarch and water.

Serve with freshly baked brown rolls.

Western Norway – The Storehouse Area, written by Tor Kjolberg

The Beautiful Tourist Roads in Norway

Swedish Photographer on Innocent War Victims

Fine arts/music

dailyscandi

November 6, 2015

Swedish Photographer on Innocent War Victims

“Where the Children Sleep” is a present photo exhibition at Fotografiske, Stockholm, where Swedish photographer Magnus Wennman shows his heart-rending photographs of child victims from the war in Syria.

Fotografiska and Aftonbladet aim to recognize the vulnerable situation of these children who have been displaced by war in order to support the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR.

Click here to help UNCHR help fleeing children.

Magnus Wennman, winner of two World Press Photo Awards and fourfold winner of Sweden’s Photographer of the Year Award, has met refugees in countless refugee camps and on their journeys through Europe this year. The story of when the night comes is a living narrative with no given ending.

Nothing should be more peaceful than a sleeping child. This series of photographs by Swedish photographer Magnus Wennman shows that nothing could be further from the truth than these children from Syria.

The war in Syria has continued for almost five years and more than two million children are fleeing the war, within and outside of the country borders. They have left their friends, their homes, and their beds behind. A few of these children offered to show where they sleep now, when everything that once was no longer exists.

In his photo essay “Where The Children Sleep”, Wennman has captured the suffering endured by hundreds of thousands of youngsters scarred physically and psychologically by the country’s civil war. Even for those who have escaped the conflict zone to an unknown future beyond Syria, Wennman finds there is little peace for a generation of innocents who should, like all children, be tucked up in their beds without a care in the world.

Here, Karim, 17, sleeping in Omonoia Square in Athens, Greece. Picture: Magnus Wennman/REX Shutterstock/australscope

AHMAD, AGED 7

Even sleep is not a free zone; it is then that the terror replays. Ahmad was home when the bomb hit his family’s house in Idlib, Syria. Shrapnel hit him in the head, but he survived. His younger brother did not. The family had lived with war as their nearest neighbour for several years, but without a home they had no choice. They were forced to flee. Now Ahmad lays among thousands of other refugees on the asphalt along the highway leading to Hungary’s closed border. This is day 16 of their flight. The family has slept in bus shelters, on the road, and in the forest, explains Ahmad’s father.

Ahmad, aged 7, sleeps on his backpack in Horgos, Hungary. Picture: Magnus Wennman/REX Shutterstock/australscopeSource:australscope

WALAA, AGED 5

Walaa, 5, is currently in Dar-El-Ias, Lebanon. She wants to go home. She had her own room in Aleppo, she tells us. There, she never used to cry at bedtime. Here, in the refugee camp, she cries every night. Resting her head on the pillow is horrible, she says, because night-time is horrible. That was when the attacks happened. By day, Walaa’s mother often builds a little house out of pillows, to teach her that they are nothing to be afraid of.

Walaa, 5, sleeps with tears in her eyes. Picture: Magnus Wennman/Aftonbladet/australscopeSource:australscope

SHIRAZ, AGED 9

Shiraz, 9, was three months old when she was stricken with a severe fever. Currently taking refuge in Suruc, Turkey, the doctor diagnosed polio and advised her parents to not spend too much money on medicine for the girl who didn’t have a chance. Then the war came. Her mother, Leila, starts crying when she describes how she wrapped the girl in a blanket and carried her over the border from Kobane to Turkey. Shiraz, who can’t talk, received a wooden cradle in the refugee camp. She lies there. Day and night.

Shiraz, 9, suffers from polio and is immobile. Picture: Magnus Wennman/Aftonbladet/australscopeSource:australscope

ABDULLAH, 5, sleeping outside a railway station in Belgrade, Serbia.

Abdullah has a blood disease. For the last two days he has been sleeping outside of the central station in Belgrade. He saw the killing of his sister in their home in Daraa. He is still in shock and has nightmares every night, says his mother. Abdullah is tired and is not healthy, but his mother does not have any money to buy medicine for him.IMAGE: MAGNUS WENNMAN/AFTONBLADET/REX USA
AHMED, 6, sleeping on the ground in Horgos, Serbia.

It is after midnight when Ahmed falls asleep in the grass. The adults are still sitting around, formulating plans for how they are going to get out of Hungary without registering themselves with the authorities. Ahmed is six years old and carries his own bag over the long stretches that his family walks by foot. “He is brave and only cries sometimes in the evenings,” says his uncle, who has taken care of Ahmed since his father was killed in their hometown Deir ez-Zor in northern Syria.IMAGE: MAGNUS WENNMAN/AFTONBLADET/REX USA
FARA, 2, asleep in Azraq, Jordan.

Fara loves soccer. Her dad tries to make balls for her by crumpling up anything he can find, but they don’t last long. Every night he says goodnight to Fara and her big sister Tisam, 9, in the hope that tomorrow will bring them a proper ball to play with. All other dreams seem to be beyond his reach, but he is not giving up on this one.IMAGE: MAGNUS WENNMAN/AFTONBLADET/REX USA

IMAN, 2, in a hospital bed in Azraq, Jordan.

Iman has pneumonia and a chest infection. This is her third day in this hospital bed. “She sleeps most of the time now. Normally she’s a happy little girl, but now she’s tired. She runs everywhere when she’s well. She loves playing in the sand”, says her mother Olah, 19.IMAGE: MAGNUS WENNMAN/AFTONBLADET/REX USA

MAHDI, 1, asleep on the ground in Horgos, Serbia.

Mahdi is one and one half years old. He has only experienced war and flight. He sleeps deeply despite the hundreds of refugees climbing around him. They are protesting against not being able to travel further through Hungary. On the other side of the border hundreds of police are standing. They have orders from the Primary Minister Viktor Orban to protect the border at every cost. The situation is becoming more desperate and the day after the photo is taken, the police use tear gas and water cannons on the refugees.IMAGE: MAGNUS WENNMAN/AFTONBLADET/REX USA
MARAM, 8, in Amman, Jordan.

Maram had just come home from school when the rocket hit her house. A piece of the roof landed right on top of her. Her mother took her to a field hospital, and from there she was airlifted across the border to Jordan. Head trauma caused a brain hemorrhage. For the first 11 days, Maram was in a coma. She is now conscious, but has a broken jaw and can’t speak.IMAGE: MAGNUS WENNMAN/AFTONBLADET/REX USA

MOHAMMED, 13, in hospital in Nizip, Turkey.

Mohammed loves houses. Back home in Aleppo he used to enjoy walking around the city looking at them. Now many of his favorite buildings are gone, blown to pieces. Lying in his hospital bed he wonders whether he will ever fulfill his dream of becoming an architect. “The strangest thing about war is that you get used to feeling scared. I wouldn’t have believed that”, says Mohammed.IMAGE: MAGNUS WENNMAN/AFTONBLADET/REX USA
RALIA, 7 and RAHAF, 13, sleeping on the street in Beirut, Lebanon.

Ralia and Rahaf are from Damascus, where a grenade killed their mother and brother. Along with their father they have been sleeping rough for a year. They huddle close together on their cardboard boxes. Rahaf says she is scared of ‘bad boys’ at which Ralia starts crying.IMAGE: MAGNUS WENNMAN/AFTONBLADET/REX USA

MOYAD, 5, in hospital in Amman, Jordan.

Moyad and his mother needed to buy flour to make a spinach pie. Hand in hand they were on their way to the market. They walked past a taxi in which someone had placed a bomb. Moyad’s mother died instantly. The boy, who has been airlifted to Jordan, has shrapnel lodged in his head, back and pelvis.IMAGE: MAGNUS WENNMAN/AFTONBLADET/REX USA

TAMAM, 5, in Azraq, Jordan.

Tamam is scared of her pillow. She cries every night at bedtime. The air raids on her hometown of Homs usually took place at night, and although she has been sleeping away from home for nearly two years now, she still doesn’t realize that her pillow is not the source of danger.IMAGE: MAGNUS WENNMAN/AFTONBLADET/REX USA

SHAM, 1, in Horgos, Serbia.

In the very front, just alongside the border between Serbia and Hungary by the 4-meter-high iron gate, Sham is laying in his mother’s arms. Just a few decimeters behind them is the Europe they so desperately are trying to reach. Only one day before the last refugees were allowed through and taken by train to Austria. But Sham and his mother arrived too late, along with thousands of other refugees who now wait outside the closed Hungarian border.IMAGE: MAGNUS WENNMAN/AFTONBLADET/REX USA

Feature image (on top): LAMAR, 5, sleeping on the ground in Horgos, Serbia.

Back home in Baghdad the dolls, the toy train, and the ball are left; Lamar often talks about these items when home is mentioned. The bomb changed everything. The family was on its way to buy food when it was dropped close to their house. It was not possible to live there anymore, says Lamar’s grandmother, Sara. After two attempts to cross the sea from Turkey in a small, rubber boat they succeeded in coming here to Hungary’s closed border. Now Lamar sleeps on a blanket in the forest, scared, frozen, and sad.

Swedish Photographer on Innocent War Victims, compiled by Admin

All photos Magnus Wennman/Aftonbladet

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