3:30 pm in a far away land...

This is what the sky looked like at 3:30pm in a place North of Trondheim...30 minutes later and it got dark.  So nice to be in touch with simple, non transactional beauty. The short days also make you appreciate the beauty of light when we do have it... It is easy to take the vitality of the Sun for granted  in our daily lives, so full of buildings, emails, iPhone screens and other silly distractions.

Christmas flavors and more...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some images from the Christmas mood in this lucky yet simple land of plenty

Many shops offer coffee and cookies shaped as hearts

 Shaving advice needed!

Candles everywhere

Phones that brough childhood memories

Light and show playing together.

Oslo keeps expanding

I recently learned that Oslo is the fastest growing city in Europe. And if cranes are proxies for expansion then it is true that the city is growing each week.

This is the view outside the Oslo airport while we wait to fly to Trondheim. Construction does not stop even in winter days. So the airport is growing and so is the train station and the area near the port. New people. New buildings. New ideas.

I only hope Oslo will continue being Scandinavian in taste and spirit... Nowadays too many cities around the world are becoming too similar to each other. It can be boring.

My frozen stories

There was something powerful about this image. Frozen movement. Frozen energy.  It feels like something has been postponed.

Hmmm.

It made me think of my novel. 

My writing is frozen because I have been using all my energy for my climate work.  But just like the bike, it has movement and energy and is ready to roll again when the right time comes.  I am not going to give up on it.  My fiction is just in hibernation for a few months...  I am convinced the story is growing stronger in me.

More flavors of daily life...

Winter waters...

Pretending we can buy the stars...

Aquí van algunas imágenes de como la vida se transforma en el invierno...

I like the idea of small markets with hand made products. I am fed up of Malls and the intoxication one gets from the shop-til-you-drop approach to Christmas.

One of my resolutions is to buy less. And: have as many vegetarian days as possible.  I think it is one tangible way to improve my carbon footprint given that I cannot give up work-related travel...

So far, So good

This is my first winter in Scandinavia.  It is striking how many people have tried to scare me about spending winter in Norway: "Are you going crazy?"

I am famously stubburn but not crazy.

So...

I am determined to making the most out of it.

The day gets dark by 3.25pm and by the time it is 4pm then the darkness is here.  This new reality amazes me  - precisely - because it is not what I am used to it.  I never take novelty for granted.

The other difference is that it is still dark one I get out of bed.  It is bit hard - I admit it - to get out of bed, but then again, it is so unusual that I choose to enjoy it.

Nobel Peace Center around 3pm

A different kind of tree

A great hat for bad-hair days...!

4pm by the time we got to the main park

Finally, there is the snow. 

 like it more than it bothers me.  I enjoy it especialy when it is so white, so fresh and abundant that it changes the way my walking sounds...each step I make with my ridiculously comfortable boots, the snow gives me back a funny crunchy noise.  Those are the little pleasures I enjoy which can only happen in the silence of Oslo - one of the few cities left where we can listen to our own walking.

Almost there

Here is a photograph of the Qatar National Convention Center as COP18 approaches its final and most difficult hour: will there be a Doha deal? I hope and think so.

A mad British man - a climate skeptic - took the floor earlier today making an impossibly outdated speech questioning climate science. The NGOs booed...