Terrace (2)

Danny arrived at 4.30 afternoon (half hour late). Temperature was allright so he started working.

He was not alone, he had brought a companion, would they be able to finish it this evening?

My hopes were high.

After two hours work had done, he will come back tomorrow (same time, or earlier)

I have to mention that Danny has two jobs and he had worked all day, so I am patient of him.

Terrace (1)

This is our terrace as it is now. In May we decided for a renovation and invited a guy, recommended by neighbours, to come and have a look. He didn't show up (sorry, had to look after the kids) and we made a new appointment. He left and we waited for his offer, that took quite a time, (busy, busy).

At last we got the offer and accepted and we waited for a date to start. June 8th the day we should go on our holliday (sorry, had forgot). A new date was chosen June 28th.

Yesterday at 7.30 in the morning a huge motor truck was loud roaring in front of our home with sand, later followed by a truck with stones and one with a tray. All the materials were placed behind our home. Now we were looking forward to see Danny starting his job. Telephone rang, Danny boy cancelled the job for today because it was to hot to work. I must admit we had a heat wave of 36 degrees C,( 96.8 F) and it was very, very hot. Now he will come today afternoon.......fingers crossed.

A few hours later a very unpleasent lady came at the door shouting she could not get her car out because of the sand and she would call the police! People are becoming rather mad here. Me and my husband digged some sand away for her, she was standing at the (now) empty place left. She was shouting that we took 4 parking places! with the stuff. O shame on us, the holy cow can not be parked in her backgarden now.

A bit to much?

It is like going to the hairdresser, you always postpone it to long.

Fashion shoes

Holiday is over now for a week, so back to normal again. Yesterday I went to the Fashion Biennale in Arnhem. In an industrial building you could see all kinds of fashion expressions. I liked the Keith Haring shoes the most.

Dazzling isn't it to rollerskate in these?

Tromso

Over the large bridge in Tromso we walked to the Ishavskathedralen, the cathedral of the Northern Ice Sea, the white building right.

It has a huge leaded light window of 23 m high.

Sculptures

I was surprised to see these lovely sculptures in Narvik Norway.

The Samen

The Samen who live in Lapland, the northern area's of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Sovjet Union have there own language and culture.They used to live  nomadic with their reindeers, but most of them live in cities now and show their folk costumes only for the tourists or festivities.

 Their tents (lavvo's) look like those of the American Indians.

The museum building in Karasjok is inspired by the forms of the tents.

Karasjok is the capital of the Samen and in 2000 the new Parlement building was inaugurated by King Harald of Norway. It is a beautiful building, the architects Christian Sundby and Stein Halvorsen used the way of living of the Sami as inspiration like the tentform. 

The whole building is made of wood and you could smell it inside. We could just walk inside and have a look around. No security here at a Parlementbuilding.

On our way to the North Cape I bought a warm cap at this sweet Samen woman.

in this little shop.

North Cape (2)

The globe at the northern point where everybody wants to climb up, (so we did too).

The sunlight doesn't disappear, after 12 o'clock midnight the sun rises again and it becomes really light again.

Can you believe this is at midnight?

This is magical.

The monument "Children of the World" by Verdens Barn. The Circles are designed by seven children from all over the world.

And so we reached our hotel again at one o'clock midnight like it was a sunny afternoon.

North Cape (1)

One of the highlights of the tour was our visit to the North Cape. We stayed in this simple hotel, what had been used as accomondation for the sporters of the Olympic Wintergames once (1994?).  It has been rebuilt here for tourists. It was terrible cold up here and we had to use the heating. What a difference with the day before.

At nine o'clock in the evening we went by touringcar through an amazing landscape with snow and mountains to nowhere land.

We reached the most northern point of Europe the North Cape where a big hall in the rocks is built from where you have a good view over the cape. I had no intention to stay inside, out, out I wanted, but I was almost blown of my feet by a very, very ice-cold and strong wind. So I made quick some photo's and ran back to the warm hall, where I saw a film about the Midsummernight Sun. We stayed until midnight, so I had the opportunity to go out several times and I'll show you tomorrow my other outside pictures. This one is taken at ten o'clock in the evening.

Arctic Circle

The Arctic Circle in Finland is an imaginary line on the ground 8 km north of Rovaniemi and 2600 km from the North Pole.

There is a little village with shops and restaurants and Santa Claus has his home here where he answers letters from all over the world.

You can visit Santa Claus and have a picture with him but I didn't, I am more a dutch "Sinterklaas" believer.

It was rather weird to walk around between all this Christmas and Artic stuff with unusual high summer temperatures, 28 degrees C or 82.4 F!

I am back

After ten days of touring through a magnificent part of Scandinavia I am back again. It is so difficult to sort out all the (to) many photo's and make a choice. We started with a touringcompany in Finland and drove to the north, the arctic circle and then passed the border to Norway which was the most beautiful part of the journey. We visited the North Cape and saw the amazing Midsummer Night Sun that came down and up again, a magical experience to stand in bright light in the middle of the night.
Then we went south to the beautiful LofotenIslands and through Sweden back to Finland where we flew back home.
Everybody had warned us for the bad weather there, but we started with 28 degrees Celsius = 82.4 Faherenheit in Rovaniemi and had sunshine every day, no rain at all. I'll show you a few first impressions.

As I live in a flat country I am always thrilled to see mountains and we saw a lot of them.

An inhabitant of Lapland in orgininal Sami costume. The reindeer is an albino that's why he has a pink horn. The good looking man in the black jacket is our tourleader, not bad to look at, isn't it ladies?

The dried cod at the Norwegian LofotenIslands.

Everywhere you see red wooden houses and always mountains in the background.

I will show you more of the tour the next days.

Message

A message to keep things clean in Amsterdam has almost disappeared under graffiti. I am not sure the street beneath the wall is swept clean either.

This will be my last post for a while, I am going to make a trip through Scandinavia and will fly to Helsinki tomorrow, and then with a stop over to Rovaniemi near the Polar Circle.  Bye bye to you all.

Rain?

We had almost forgotten what this was, but today and yesterday we have rain at last after more than two months.

Nature was desperate begging for water as you can see here in Almere.

Original cap

This man showed his knowledge of rope- making with his original hat on the festival in Almere. I don't know the right word in english knotting?

Historic Festival Almere (2)

The old steam engines were driving on the boulevard in our village.

A potato sorter machine also on steam.

And a lumberyard.