I uploaded a selection of the photos I took during my short vacation to Oslo, Norway. Enjoy!

Just a quick impression from Norway - Sørkedalen, while I have found internet access near a small shop. There’s a lot of snow around and over last night 20 to 30 cm more snow appeared on top of the already present 100 cm.

Still suffering from an utterly evil cold and worse is, today’s my birthday. Hope it’s gone until the weekend… the cold at least - I would wish birthdays extend to birthweeks in such cases. All the colleagues at work express their worries, but I suspect there is more worry about the missing cakes now. I promise, I bring them on Monday!

But at least I got a few more things for my journey to Norway next week: a new Mammut windstopper cap (I wish I had that in January when I was cycling to my office through -10° C), a new Icebreaker Bodyfit 150 shirt as well as new warm socks from Falke, T1 and T4. One pair is expedition level, you never know what kind of weather you get to know in Scandinavia.

The European Outdoor Film Tour 2008/2009 stopped in Münster on Saturday evening. It showed a nice selection of the best outdoor short films, ranging from bouldering over kajaking to mountainbiking.

My favourites have been the alpine documentation of the Expedition Manaslu, Seasons (MTB) and the English parody Touching the stairs.

It was well worth the visit, so I can recommend attending the event, if it comes to a town where you live.

Today I bought a new backpack: a Gregory Palisade 80. It fit perfectly. I also tried other backpacks from Macpac, Lowe Alpine and Deuter, but I felt uncomfortable with them. At least when loaded with 15 to 20kg load.

The worst one was the Deuter AirContact Pro 70+15, no fit at all. That’s quite interesting, because for years I am now using exclusively Deuter bike packs (currently Trans Alpine 25) and also got a good fitting Deuter Futura 42 for short travels. BTW, the Trans Alpine also swallows a 13.3” MacBook without any problems. At least I can recommend the bike pack for daily biking to work.

So, my preference has been: Gregory > Macpac > Lowe Alpine. I cannot await packing my new backpack for my planned trip to Norway in March next year. So why such a big pack? Well, I have to get the alcohol with me…

Gregory’smarketing claim is Legendary packs for an extraordinary experience. So now I am officially an extraordinary experience. Hmmmh, I am not sure I like that claim for myself.

Today I have been to the art museum. Well, I have been there in the enjoyable company of a beautiful lady. I proposed the place for the date and she agreed to it. Some kind of neutral ground.

The exhibition is called “Orte der Sehsucht - Mit Künstlern auf Reisen” (Destinations of Desire - Travelling with artists). It displays over 250 works of prominent artists (according to their website, I didn’t count the paintings and photographs), classified in different categories: e.g. the Orient, Paris, New York etc. It was some kind of pictorial journey through the countries/regions as well through time.

I especially liked the paintings from Paul Klee and August Macke from their journey to Tunisia. I was a bit surprised to see the original size: they are small, compared to the reprint on posters etc. you can buy all over the world. Another interesting one was Carl Blechen, who I already knew from the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin. I especially like his painting of the Palm House near Potsdam. He was present with a lot of nice sepia aquarelles. The 18th/19th century illustrations from the expeditions in Egypt were also great.

At the reception they said you normally need more days to see everything. Well, I guess if you are a real art lover, you certainly invest thirty minutes before every painting. So we only ventured through the halls for two hours. And I guess we have seen most paintings. A lot were not to our tastes, but as you know, taste is different for everybody. And yes, it seems we are some kind of art low-brows (Kunstbanausen).

So, if you are in or near Münster until the 11th January 2009, it’s well worth to drop by our art museum and enjoy some nice art. Especially in nice company.

I have been visiting my mom and one of my sisters at their new home, a nice old farmer’s house. We had a nice weekend and I accompanied them to an agility training for their dogs.

A few minutes to 4:00 in the morning, I thought I dreamt of an old fire siren signal, something which I last heard during my school days when we were training the evacuation in case of a fire. A few minutes later the siren repeated and I fully woke up. I hurried to a big window in the living room and could see a orange lit sky above the dark treeline across the garden.

I woke my sister and my mom and we ventured outside to see where the fire is. Lots of firemen (around 100 I heard the next day), police and paramedics were arriving into the village. Obviously a big warehouse (50 x 30 metres) in a central spot right beside the railroad was brightly burning. We didn’t venture too far, because of my time when I was working as a paramedic I know how annoying rubberneckers are. At least the warehouse didn’t harbour any animals nor humans, so the loss is only in material and money.

More information in German:

Brand zerstört Lagerhalle in Düngstrup [NWZ]

Picture gallery [NonStopNews]

Short report and a video of the fire operation [einsatzinfo112.de]

On my way to the ORC barbeque I took a few turns from the straight way and ended up cycling 40 km instead of 25. It was sunny and mildy warm, but in the shadows of the wooded lands it got cold, especially in biking clothing. Otherwise it was a nice short trip and I guess the end of my camping season.

Today I am on my way to a meeting of my online gaming guild. Still a bit hung over from yesterday’s evening and still with an achy tooth (I hope it gets better when I get the final treatment next week.), obviously the whisky wasn’t enough the kill off the pain.

The meeting takes place near the town where I live and I intend to go there by bike. A lot of members will be there, even some coming from the Netherlands and also from Denmark.

So, one day of roasting veggies among those meatdevourers and lots of alcohol ahead (of course only for medical treatment of my aching tooth).

When I was resetting my bike’s speedometer yesterday I saw it still had the max speed from the Flekkerøy tunnel saved. See the attached pic. That’s the highst speed I ever had on my bike (at least so far).