A Traveller’s Eye, A Thinker’s Heart
I like to tell stories. I like to take photos.
And I like to share them. Enjoy.
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ZEELAND
There are more bicycles than people in the Netherlands so we decided to do as the Dutch do and jump on some bikes during our stay in the Zeeland province in southwestern Netherlands. Xander, Joseph, Padma and I hired some bikes and cycled along paths to Veere, a village on the Lake Veere. The lake…
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PAYING RESPECTS TO OUR COUSIN
General George S. Patton Jr commanded the 3rd Army of the United States as they victoriously entered Nazi Germany during World War II. He remained in post-war Germany but was killed in an auto accident while going out pheasant hunting near Heidelberg just months after the war ended. He wanted to be buried with his…
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BACK TO OSLO
We left Ålesund early, the road tracing islands and bridges south through a familiar rhythm of ferries and tunnels. By late afternoon we rolled into Bergen, parked the car, and traded steering wheel for cable car, riding the Fløibanen up to Mount Fløyen. From the lookout, the city spread out in orderly colour—Bryggen’s timber fronts,…
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418 STEPS OVER ÅLESUND
We reached Ålesund in the late afternoon after driving south from Kristiansund. The route followed the outer coast, linking islands by bridges and ferries, including sections of the Atlantic Ocean Road (Atlanterhavsveien), a stretch of infrastructure built to keep communities connected across open water. The journey itself was a reminder of how dependent this region…
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GRANDPA GAUSTAD
For as long as I remember, my mother has flaunted her ‘Norwegian-ness’. Her mother, Gertrude Gaustad, was of full Norwegian stock. So mom has an appetite for lefse but when I would ask her about our Norwegian ancestors she would draw a blank. She didn’t know much except that her grandfather was named Ole, he…
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OLAV OF BYNESET
I hit a brick wall once. A genealogical brick wall, that is. For five years I had been trying to find out where my great grandfather, Ole Erickson Gaustad, came from. I was getting nowhere and figured I’d never find out. But one night in 2007, I was Googling ‘Gaustad’ and the village where I…
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CELEBRATING THE HUMAN LIFE CYCLE AT VIGELAND PARK
Visiting Oslo in July with family, I spent a hot but enjoyable morning walking through Vigeland Park, a monumental outdoor work charting the human life cycle. The park contains more than 200 sculptures in granite, bronze, and cast iron, all designed by Gustav Vigeland between 1924 and 1943. Vigeland conceived the layout as a single,…
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A NIGHT IN COPENHAGEN
Padma and I preferred to drive everywhere in Europe, rather than flying. So when we decided to visit Norway and meet my family, we decided to drive. We arrived in Copenhagen in early evening after driving all day from Bonn. Just enough time to enjoy the long summer day and take a stroll through the…
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A LIONESS ALL FOR MYSELF
It’s Sunday and I’m not working on finger millet so I took the morning off to visit the Nairobi National Park. This is almost an urban park as it is a mere 15 minutes south of Nairobi with its skyline visible from the park … and yet it truly is the home to some very…
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