Life of Kropell

Jeløy – winter on the beach

Posted on 21.03.2012 by Kropell

My brother Terje and I went to visit our parents one weekend. My father had to spend some time in the hospital and we got in the car and went to pay our respects. After the visit at the hospital our mother treated us to one of her amazing dinners. Terje and I felt the need to walk off some of that food and I decided to bring my camera. It was getting dark and I found it difficult to catch the light properly, but a couple of pictures turned out ok I guess.

The first picture is my also my favorite:

View of the Oslo fjord from Tronvik

The next picture is of my brother with the old torpedo station in the background. One of the thrills when I was a kid was when they had torpedo tests and fired torpedoes from the foot of the tower.

My brother Terje on Tronvik beach

This is just a picture of an old pier and icy water.

From Tronvik beach

The last two shots were an attempt to catch the beautiful light and atmosphere of the sunset. The pictures are still from Jeløy, but we’ve walked a bit further to a beach facing west.

Sunset at Jeløy

That’s it for today. Next posts will be from Boston and New York city!

Categories: Photo diary | Tags: Jeløy, Moss | 1 Comment

Berlin

Posted on 20.03.2012 by Kropell

I went to Berlin with a couple of colleagues for a meeting in November. The meeting was on Monday morning and we flew in the day before. I arrived in Berlin a couple of hours before lunch. It was a bit cold, but it was sunny and very pleasant indeed. This first shot is The Reichstag and is a pretty obvious shot if you visit Berlin. It is an imposing building though.

Reichstag

I spent most of my time walking the streets around the Brandenburger Tor. It was very entertaining; all sorts of people were showing of their art or agitating their political issues. Like these guys:

Revolution!

Give in to the Dark Side ...

Finally I saw this thing. Only in Germany can you find a custom car made care for sausage delivery

Deutches Currywurst Museum

My next post will be from the beach close to where I grew up. I had a long walk with my brother just before it got dark. I’ll post the pics in a couple of days – before the weekend …

Categories: Photo diary, Travel | Tags: Berlin | Leave a comment

Istanbul

Posted on 07.03.2012 by Kropell

I’m embarrassed. I have not looked in on my blog in months and then I saw that the last post is from almost a year ago! There’s been a couple of things happening after that and this is my first attempt to get back in the saddle.

Istanbul in September is beautiful and a great place to be. People are friendly, there’s no lack of stuff to see/do and the food is itself worth the trip. I started off doing the obvious and went to see the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia.

Blue Mosque

Hagia Sofia

I found the lights inside Hagia Sofia fascinating and shot a ton of pictures. Taking pictures inside is a real challenge and I find that most pictures get the light all wrong. This one didn’t turn out too bad though if I can say so myself …

Hagia Sofia, interior

Istanbul is such a melting pot where east meets west, old meets new and to me it seems that most people are quite comfortable with it.

Streets of Istanbul

Lastly we also ventured outside after dark. Taking pictures inside is difficult, snapping photos in the dark is next to impossible! I did get this last one though of these trinkets for sale on the street.

Istanbul by night

That’s it from Istanbul. I had a great time there and also found some new good friends – hopefully I’ll be able to go back and visit!

Categories: Photo diary, Travel | Tags: Istanbul | 4 Comments

Another trip to China – april 2011

Posted on 08.08.2011 by Kropell

I’ve decided to do something a bit different this time. Former posts are more or less a chronological description of various trips and events. I shot more than 6000 pictures in China, and I believe the whole story is a bit too much – at least for this blog …

This time I’ve picked some of my favorite shots and give a brief background about each photo.

Hutong Man

We started our round trip in Beijing. As usual we did a few of the “tourist” things in additions to our meetings with Taiji Masters, Monks and other dignitaries. The Hutong streets are areas where some of the traditional courtyard residences are kept as they were – more or less. I shot this picture from a bicycle taxi on our sightseeing trip through the narrow alleys.

Taiji at the Temple of Heaven

This little lady came to watch us do some Taiji in the park surrounding The Temple of Heaven. We met with our friends from The Beijing Taiji Association an early morning. Our exchange with BTA usually attract a lot of spectators and this time was no exception.

Beijing Taiji Master

This lady is one of the masters we met at Temple of Heaven. I found her Taiji particularly powerful …

Wild Goose Pagoda

Our next stop was Xian. The picture is taken at the Wild Goose Pagoda and the monk is preparing some sort of ceremony. Xian is famous for the amazing Terracotta Warriors found in a field outside the city and we did of course visit that site as well. I chose not to include any pictures from there – at least not in this post.

Xian dance show

The lady in the picture is part of a re-enactment of typical entertainment at the emperor’s court in 200 – 300 BC. Local historians have gone through old scrolls, paintings and other things from the era and the show is based on their findings and adapted for tourist entertainment.

Bird in Chengdu Peoples Park

The last picture is from The Peoples Park in Chengdu in the Sichuan province. We enjoyed a cup of tea at a local tea house and met up with our friend from last year; Master Mei. While there this little guy got my attention with some very nice song.

That’s it for now. I may return to this trip later, but probably connected to the Norwegian Taiji Senter web site.

Categories: Taiji, Travel | Tags: Beijing, Chengdu, China, Xian | 2 Comments

Harrogate

Posted on 05.05.2011 by Kropell

I had one day on the ground after the trip to Austin and Boston before I entered another aircraft – bound for Harrogate, UK this time. Harrogate is a little bit out of the way and you normally fly to Leeds or Manchester and go by train to get there. I went there to attend the UKSG conference.

Harrogate is quite beautiful, but again I had little time to explore. The pictures are mainly from the immediate area around the hotel.

Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate

The Old Swan became famous when Agatha Christie was found there after her disappearance in December 1926. It’s a nice hotel with an atmosphere from “the olden days”.

Old Swan Hotel

Springtime in Harrogate

My next trip was an extended holiday in China! More about that later in my next few posts …

Categories: Photo diary, Travel | Tags: Harrogate | Leave a comment

Boston

Posted on 04.05.2011 by Kropell

Coming to Boston directly from Austin was literally a chilling experience. I checked the weather the week before I left for the US and Boston showed up with temperatures from 10 to 15 degrees Celcius. When I got there though the temperature was more like 2 to 5 degrees, which was a real shock coming from around 30 degrees in Austin. My first stop was consequently Macy’s where I was able to find a warm jacket to make it through my stay in Boston.

The schedule for my stay in Boston was – like in Austin – pretty tight. I arrived on a Friday, but a cold put me in bed most of Saturday and part of Sunday. Eventually I found some time to explore and snap a few pictures from icy cold Boston.

Copley

At the very centre of the city you find Copley with shopping, hotels and all the stuff you expect to find in a big city. I found several buildings in the city centre built in “castle style”. I guess there’s an explanation for this in the city history somewhere – I found them interesting.

Cheers

No visit to Boston without looking in on Cheers – at least no first visit. I’m almost sorry I went inside – it’s a real tourist trap and no trace of “where everybody know your name”. I guess I shouldn’t have expected it anyway …

Across the street from Cheers though I find a real treasure. Boston Common Park!

Boston Common

I enjoyed walking around the park taking in the atmosphere and admiring the scenery.

Boston Common

I was taken by this tree – it made me think of a dancer.

Riding the duck

My stay in Boston was way too short. There’re so much to see and so much left to do there! Hopefully I’ll be able to go back there too …

Categories: Photo diary, Travel | Tags: Boston | 2 Comments

Weird Austin

Posted on 04.05.2011 by Kropell

I arrived in Austin 24 hours behind schedule due to cancellations and delays. I missed the opening reception for the conference and the few hours I had planned for some sightseeing. I still found some time to shoot a few pictures during my days in Austin.

One of the first things I saw when I arrived at the airport was t-shirts and mugs saying “Keep Austin Weird”. Later I observed these everywhere in the city and learned that this is a motto for the citizens of Austin. A really funny one was a company called “Weird Realty” where you can find apartments for rent in Austin – their motto is of course “Rent weird”!

Austin on the lake

One of the activities at the conference brought us on a boat on the lake in the middle of down town Austin. One of the largest colonies of bats in America lives in one of the bridges crossing the lake and every day at sun down they come out to hunt for food – 750 000 of them!

Bats!

After the conference was over I met with a couple of friends who live in Austin. Lynnea and Brian have their own company called “The Squid Ink Kollective“. They design clothing – mainly t-shirts and sell them through their online store. They took me to a weird restaurant for a delicious dinner.

That’s more or less what I had time for outside the conference programme. I hope to go back one day and spend some more time there. Maybe during the next South by South West music festival?

Categories: Photo diary, Travel | Tags: Austin | 3 Comments

Washington DC

Posted on 06.02.2011 by Kropell

Back in November 2010 my colleague Runar and I went to DC for a conference and to meet with some people at The National Library of Medicine. We also had some time to explore the city though.

The thing that struck me about DC is that everywhere you look there is an iconic building, park or monument. For a guy like me who likes American movies, there’s a place from a movie almost everywhere! We did the walk around The National Mall of course with all the landmarks:

Capito Hill from the Washington Monument

Lincoln Memorial

Our hotel was close to Capitol Hill and we walked all the way from there to Georgetown and back. As you can see from the shots, the weather was absolutely beautiful.

Georgetown

Another one of the truly great attractions of DC are the museums. We visited quite a few, but my favorites were The Air and Space Museum and The National Gallery of Art.

Air and Space Museum

National Gallery of Art

I found it interesting that the National Gallery of Art had an exhibition of paintings by the famous Norwegian artist Edvard Munch while we were there. I’ve seen his pictures many times in museums and galleries back home, but this exhibition was one of the best. They had several versions of each painting and had interesting comments that put Munch’s work in a new perspective for me.

Last but not least on this trip; I met my “cousin” David. I’m not sure what the correct name for our relation would be. His mother is my second cousin. He’s a student at Georgtown and he met with us for dinner on my birthday! David turned out to be a great guy and if you’re curious about him; I suggest you visit his blog:
http://notjustwandering.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/edu-shmay-tion-or-what-i-never-thought-i-would-say/

That’s it for now. I know I don’t write much here, but I’ll try to be a bit better this year – promise! The way it looks now, I’ll be travelling to USA, China, Turkey and UK this year. I also hope to have time for some trips around Norway to visit family and friends.

Categories: Photo diary | Tags: Washington DC | 1 Comment

Amsterdam!

Posted on 12.10.2010 by Kropell

Taiji in negotiations - Photo: Kaat van Wonterghem

I was in Amsterdam last week attending the 12th European ICOLC conference (International Coalition of Library Consortia). This conference was particularly exciting for me because I was asked to give a speech on “Taiji as philosophy in negotiations”. If you’ve ever read this blog before you will know that I practice Taijiquan and that this is a big part of my life. I negotiate national agreements for access to medical journals and other online resources for a living and really love that too. To be asked by my friends and colleagues in ICOLC to talk about the connection between the two was just an amazing thing!

I’ve been part of the ICOLC community for a few years now and I have the greatest respect for the knowledge and experience represented in the group. I didn’t count exactly how many nationalities there were in the room, but most European countries, Scandinavia, Japan, Turkey, Canada and USA were there.

It was great! People seemed to enjoy themselves and participated enthusiastically in the small tasks and exercises that was part of the show. Questions were insightful and to the point and I just had the time of my life! Enough about that …

I arrived Sunday morning and was welcomed by sunny and warm weather. The hotel couldn’t check me in so I just grabbed my camera and a book and went out for a walk.

Café on the water in Amsterdam

I really liked the statue of this Multatuli character, but had to look him up in Wikipedia when I got home. After snapping the picture I found a table at the café in the background and sat down with my book for a couple of hours

After that I continued my walk around town and shot a few more pictures. Amsterdam is beautiful, the people there are really friendly and this is a place I definitively want to visit again!

Amsterdam

Categories: Photo diary, Travel | Tags: Amsterdam | 2 Comments

Friends, fish and a flock of seagulls

Posted on 30.09.2010 by Kropell

I went on a fishing trip a couple of weeks ago with my friends Kjetil, Sture and Torvald. We met in Bergen and drove north for about an hour. After a ride on a ferry we ended up on the island of Fedje located on the west coast of Norway. If you travel due west from Fedje the first place you’ll hit land is the Faroe Island or Iceland.

Early morning at Fedje harbour - going fishing

Pilot boat at Fedje traffic station

Fedje is very close to the approach to the Mongstad Refinery. Mongstad is the main refinery for north sea oil in Norway and there’s a lot of traffic with large ships. These are tough waters and authorities want to keep strict control to avoid disaster. Working the pilot boats is not a job for the faint hearted, these guys will go out in tough weather to pilot the ships safely to harbour.

We arrived Friday evening and Torvald made Sushi for all of us. He had a Sushi Making kit bought from Amazon.com and it worked great! Saturday was grey, rainy and a bit windy, but we got in the boat and went fishing anyway – I didn’t bring my camera though. There were lots of fish in the water and we brought back a selection of pollack, cod, mackerel, saithe and a couple of other species for which Google translate didn’t give me a satisfactory translation. Sture made the most amazing fish soup based on our catch of the day!

Torvald showing the catch of the day!

Sunday was absolutely beautiful! No wind – which is extremely rare at Fedje – and sunny. We got in the boat at went out to catch more fish.

Yours truly in the foreground with Sture and Kjetil

Sture pulling in 3 mackerels

Torvald pulled a "brosme" (don't have English translation)

Captain Torvald

One of the chores that comes with the package on a fishing trip is that you need to clean the fish. We decided to do that on the way back and this attracted a lot of seagulls. I’d just been reading up on how to use my camera and specifically how to take action photos. After tweaking the knobs and wheels on my Canon G10 I started snapping shots of anything moving. Torvald was helpful by throwing the fish leftovers in my direction, so most of the action was pretty close to where I was sitting in the boat.

Cleaning the fish

Seagulls hunting for the leftovers

Seagulls hunting for leftovers

Seagull at Fedje

Seagulls fighting over leftovers

That’s if from Fedje. It was an amazing trip and we’ll hopefully be doing something similar next year – either at Fedje or maybe somewhere else. Stay tuned …

Categories: Photo diary, Travel | Tags: Fedje | 2 Comments