Being in Spain for the first time, attending the EIBIR winter school, I decided to explore Barcelona a little before flying back to The Netherlands. One day is way too short, but I had to be back in Holland to welcome my girlfriend coming from Norway. One day is short, but still I have been able to see some of the typical touristic attractions Barcelona has to offer. Click on the read more link to see some photo’s, and hopefully I’m going back to Spain with my girlfriend in the summer.
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I went to Norway to experience my first Norwegian Christmas with my girlfriend. The hectic Christmas shopping spree is about the same as here. Also decorating a Christmas tree is common here. But on the country side there are some other special tradions, like drinking special Christmas beer “Juleøl”; traditional pork dishes as “ribbe” are made; an enormous amount of small cakes (rosettes, christmas cookies, etc), and “julekake”, a Christmas bread filled with raisins. Keeping the fireplace burning. On Christmas Eve we have put a bowl of porridge in the barn for the “nisse”, a mythical creature that protects the farm. Also mounting the “julenek” on poles for the birds (a stalk of oats, corn) is a tradition that takes place on Christmas Eve. And on the first Christmas day it’s quite common to not sit at home, but go outside skiing which I did too with my new skies I got from my parents in law.
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On the 19th August 2009, me and my girlfriend got engaged in Norway! To celebrate it we had a nice dinner with my girlfriend’s parents at Tautra Island at Frosta. The next day we had a beautiful trip to Røros, an old mining town in the east of Norway not far from the Swedish border. It has lots of beautiful wooden houses, cozy shops, a nice atmosphere, and a museum about Røros coppermine. The place we stayed at was called Erzscheidergården where every room is uniquely decorated. I can recommend it to everyone. Continue reading

Visiting Norway again, to have my first real sheep gathering experience. With a large flock of sheep spread out over the mountains, we went out and search for them. Armed with border collies, we gather the sheep and push them to the large flock and move them back to the cottage. First day was a very rainy day, difficult to see anything moving, but we were able to gather more sheep than expected. The second day was much better weather – and was a lot more nice to walk. We captured a lot of sheep. The next day it would rain again, and all the gathered sheep so far (around 200) were moved down to the parking lot and sorted out to their respective owners. All in all it was a great experience. Continue reading

Back again from an exciting 3 weeks vacation to Norway, with my first real mountain trip experience. And if that wasn’t enough, me and my girlfriend made a nice road trip from Verdal to Lofoten, one of Norway’s most beautiful areas. And aside I’ve been to the Vømmølfestival, a festivity that has some similarities with Limburg’s carnaval.

See here for the photo’s

See here for the travel report from day to day.

After my exciting visit to beautiful Norway, my girlfriend came to visit me in Germany and meet my parents, my sister, relatives and friends for the first time and got to experience my home country, The Netherlands. It was wonderful and we spent a lot of time alone and with my family, the two weeks were over before we knew it. Thankfully, in 3 weeks I will be in Norway again to visit my girlfriend and her family again!

See here for the photo’s  (updated again)

I recently returned from a fabulous, but much too short vacation in snowy Norway. I flew to Oslo from Dusseldorf and made a long train trip from Oslo to Trondheim to finally meet my girlfriend face to face, who I have met six months ago by pure coincidence. Six days were far too short, to explore one of the most beautiful countries on Earth, with beautiful mountains, fjords, waterfalls and other great nature. I’ll certainly will return to see the beautiful scenes of Bergen, Lofoten, Stavanger, and many more places. Nevertheless, even in that short time I got a fairly good taste of the best things Norway has to offer, and my first real uphill skiing experience in the mountains was one of the best experiences I had in my life. Combined with meeting the girl of my dreams, it was certainly an unforgettable vacation.

See here some of the photo’s

Woohoo! After an exhausting but successful week at the RSNA, it was time to free my mind and experience everything Chicago has to offer in 7 days. So I bought a Chicago CityPass booklet which gives access to the 5 most popular attractions (very recommended), rented a 4WD car and stayed at the affordable Motel 6 in Glenview, Chicago. It was quite cold, but nevertheless I’ve really enjoyed my stay.

Click here to see the gallery.