after being in tromsø, we continued to oslo. one of the first surprises met us close to our hotel. we already stayed there last year, but didn’t notice anything. this time, we noticed something greenish on the ground, which on a closer look turned out to be many tiny statues:

this piece of art is called the grass root square by do ho suh.

similar to last year, we had great weather. not on every day, though. here are some impressions from the rådhusplassen and the adjacent pier:

we also wanted to see oslo from the sea as well as more closely inspect the oslo fjord. unfortunately, the oslo fjord boats were not really running yet, and many of the boats around oslo itself were not running due to ice. nonetheless, two boats were operating (route #92 to nakholmen as well as the ferry to nesoddtangen). the following photos are from route #92:

after that, we explored oslo by bus, and then continued to tjuvholmen, which is almost finished by now. last year, i took one photo over there, which is not showing a lot since most things you could see were construction stuff. this time, there’s a lot more to see, for example the new buildings for the astrup fearnley museum of modern art:

(the snowman was on the boat to nakholmen. i just put it here because it fits better with the other portrait pictures.)

afterwards, we continued by ferry to nesoddtangen and back:

here’s my project 52 shot for the twentieth week. the topic was

elemente.

this one was harder. i couldn’t come up with something really convincing which combines all four elements into one picture, nor a good idea of combining images with gimp to one image, except to just put four photos into one, side by side. the water part i photographed in the finnish lakelands, a few minutes after taking the whooping swan photo. the air photo depicts a bird near the mökki near ivalo; the fire was inside the mökki’s fireplace. the earth photo took place at the coast of the barents sea on my way to kirkenes. please click the photo to get a larger version:

technical details: fire: 1/3s, f/4, 105mm, iso 3200; air: 1/320s, f/5.6, 400mm, iso 800; water: 1/200s, f/8, 400mm, iso 200; earth: 1/100s, f/5, 105mm, iso 400. combined in gimp.

sunrise.

on saturday, i got up very early, namely at 5 am, to take a view photos of the rising sun from patricia lake. the sun was rising somewhere i couldn’t really see, but what i could see was its impact on the surroundings. i went back to bed around 7 am, sleeping another two hours. here are some impressions:

sunset.

on the evening, i also took pictures of the beautiful sunset, which beautifully lit up the clouds and the water:

this time, we also did a trip to maligne lake. last time, we arrived in the early evening, with not much sun left, and shortly after we arrived a storm began to brew up, so we didn’t stay long. this time, i decided to take a boat trip to spirit island; spirit island is one of the most famous views from the canadian rocky mountains. shortly after the boat trip started, the weather began to turn bad, it started raining. but near the island it stopped again, and the sun came out. there were still some dark clouds at the sky, but besides that it was georgous. on the way back, it eventually started to rain again. well, at least here are some rain-free impressions; note that the first two shots are from medicine lake.

almost three weeks ago, while being in oldenburg, i visited the schlossgarten. a second time; the last time being around six months before. this time, several flowers started to flourish, turning the park into a colorful place, even though the part of the garden featuring the flowers i photographed last years was still deserted. enjoy some impressions.

today, i went on a second walk, this time north from my place. here are some impressions.

a beautiful view downwards onto a half-frozen river:

i don’t know how to describe this in words, but it’s simply beautiful. even though i don’t think this picture captures the full beauty the “ice flowers”, here it is:

since january 4th, i’m living in calgary now. here a few impressions from inside the place where i’m living this time:

and here a few impressions from a walk i took today. also compare them to these photos i took last may, as i ended in the same park i began with in last may. note that the current temperature got up to +14 degrees celsius right now (3 p.m.), this morning it was a bit less but still positive.

some ducks swimming in parts of the river which are not covered by ice:

finally, the place where i’m staying. very easy to recognize due to euler’s identity scratched into the concrete:

today i went for a short walk to the irchelpark next to the campus where i’m working on. here are some impressions:

another panoramic view on the lake:

a panorama of most of the scenes in the previous pictures:

this weekend was rather busy. on friday, i got a visitor from bremen, and we did another boattrip on the zürich lake:

after that, we continued to lake constance to attend a friend’s birthday party. during that, we spend some time at the lake:

maybe the following photo summarizes the whole weekend in the best way:

yet another fantastic weekend, unfortunately being over by now.

today i did another boat trip on the zürich lake, after getting up pretty early. it was really nice, as the weather was great (the sun was burning, but not too bad), and it was pretty empty. i got one of the seats in the very front of the boat. listening to great music (unholy‘s really great for that, as is vintersorg’s a cosmic genesis). here are some impressions: