Some photos

When I moved to Austin, I got myself a digital camera, making it simpler to allow others to trace my ways in this new country. So this is the place for the friends at home to see where I have been...

Clicking on an image will produce a larger version. To see earlier or later pictures, use the menu bar at the right, which is sorted reverse chronological, i.e. newest sets of pictures at the top.

Oslo, Norway (December 2007)

When we go to Germany to see my family, we try to also swing by some other place to get to see a bit of Europe. This time, we picked Oslo in Norway, hoping to do a bit of cross country skiing and seeing one of the older and less well trodden cities. It was indeed pretty (though there was only light from 9am to 3:30pm :-) but also frickin' cold for someone who now lives in Texas (overnight lows around -15C/10F, highs around -5C/20F). Here are a few of our pictures.

The first two were taken at the Holmenkollen skiing area on a mountain just outside town. It has one of the more famous ski jump ramps, incredibly steep if you stand at the top and even more steep in the flying area before the touchdown area at the bottom of the pit—you can guess the steepness by looking at how steep the seating area is arranged in front of and behind the snowy area. The picture on the right was taken from the little house at the top of the ski jump, looking in the direction behind the ski jump:

The second set of images shows how cold it really was. At the left is the old harbor of Oslo. There's ice on the ocean there. The sun looks to be awefully low already, but this picture was in fact taken around noon, the sun simply doesn't get any higher than that in December. On the right, Jill in her winter outfit (and needing it) against the silhouette of a relatively newly developed part of the harbor's oceonfront: