Time : 06.32 AM

The young trendy women where "just browsing" around in the fashion shop at the airport this morning.
Local time was 06.32 AM !!!
Gfran, Alanah and Linya hopefully had a nice and girly day in the capital!
They were in the mood for that!:)

Do you see the lady with the hat?

She asked me if I knew were she could buy a Pin with a Norwegian symbol. I work part time at the airport, and just a few minutes later 3 other Ladies came and asked the same question.

Unfortunately I could not help, but I thought about the blog, and why not take a picture of these 4 friends together. Well, that was ok with them, but what I did not realize was that they were in a group of 17 people (from all over the USA.) So there I was with my little camera and a group in front of me.... I wish I could had time to hear from more of your trip. But I know that you were on your way to Stockholm, via Oslo, and will continue to Finland before heading back to the States.

The woman (in red) next to the lady with the hat, had even been a student at "Fana Folkehøgskole", a bording school outside Bergen, and they had been visiting a similar school out at Jæren, including a visit to the author Arne Garborgs summerhouse. You will definitely have a lot of memories with you, including from Denmark, where you were before coming to Norway.

Have a nice time!!

(PS. Yes I found out about "Road Scholar" http://www.roadscholar.org/)

And I did post your postcards:)

Click on the photo to enlarge it.

The old market place is still fairly empty, but the reason that the Dutch clog has been put here, has another reason than just being an interesting new landmark. It is an ongoing competition via our airport's site on Facebook, and KLM, the Dutch airline, who have just increased the number of daily flights to Amsterdam to 5 !:)

The two young women Maria and Laura, are not Dutch, nor Norwegian, they are from CLUJ NAPOCA in Romania. They live and work here in Stavanger.

Who knows, they might even win a trip for two to Amsterdam!:)

So look out for even more Dutch items placed in different locations around the Stavanger area.

This afternoon I met 4 architecture students from 4 different countries, who were all here in the area to explore the style of buildings out at Jæren, south of Stavanger.

Well, they were all students studying up in Trondheim for one year!

Nice meeting you sporty young women!

Have a nice time here and also other places around in Norway.

From left : Vanesa from Chile, Nerea from Spain, Laurie from France and Yaara from Israel.

"Madame" he said with a big smile..... and the service minded man, Chris from Utrecht /Holland, continued to ask if I wanted to buy some Dutch cheese.

Well, it was early morning, and I did not buy any, but perhaps later this week?

He and a group of other international salesman are selling food products at our marked place this week, and then they are off to Kongsberg (Outside Oslo), and later several other places, before they are back in Stavanger again for a Christmas market.

"The British Amateur Theatre Society" has been active here in Stavanger for many years.

(Take a look at bats.no)

Today I went to see them in action at the Humor Festival.

They are all just amateurs, but they seemed much more like seasoned professionals.

I really enjoyed their performance "1001 Arabian Nights"

It was nice and warm both inside and outside the greenhouse. A perfect day to find some new plants. This time I was looking for perennials. Anyway, here you see Antra from Latvia, a student who has been working both during the summer vacation and around Christmas.

I hope you will enjoy the rest of the summer work, and manage to get enough money to buy what you are aiming for back home in Latvia! Including the DOG!:)

Welcome to Andrea Gracis, as my new blog-follower.

First of all, welcome to my new blog-follower Jose Mateo.

Today I could have shown you pictures of HEAVY RAIN!

But I will show you a nice smile and a nice woman, MARIA from Singapore who gave professional help at http://www.bareclinic.no in the centre of Stavanger.

This is TOMASZ LESNIEWSKI from Puck in Poland. Since 2007 he has been living and working in Norway, as a mechanical engineer. Together with several other people he has been working long days, but this tall chap looked more awake and even had a sporty attitude to be todays model!

Drive carefully on your smart motorbike tonight, and don`t fall asleep before you are back home!:)

I sometimes wonder how we in Norway would have coped if it was not for the young Swedish people who are here working.

This is JESPER EDSJÖ, from Gothenburg in Sweden. When he applied for work he got 7 positive answers! Not bad!:)

Well he will soon be working in Austria, a leader for walking tours in the Alps.

He has his sport education as well as being a travel agent. In the winter he will work as a ski instructor in Austria

Thanks for the help in the shop!

Best of luck with new challenges Jesper!

This is the family Jaatun from Sandnes, who were up early this morning to celebrate our National Day in Stavanger. I am sure they have had a nice day, even with some rain and a temperature of only +10C to +12C.

I can't really manage to get just one photo to tell you how the day has been, so therefore I am perhaps cheating, but I have added a couple of links, one from our biggest local newspaper, follow the arrow to the right and you will see 19 photos from the parade. http://www.aftenbladet.no/lokalt/Yrende-folkeliv-i-og-utenfor-Folketoget-2810645.html

And a YouTube film with our National anthem. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhhStVKawbk

Norwegian students and Norwegian companies have celebrated all over the world, some at the ambassadors residence or at Norwegian schools.

Mummy, in todays photo came from Brooklyn.

I later found out that there are 170 nationalities in Stavanger. The city had an international celebration in a park today, with international food, music, games and speeches, also from the mayor who is about to leave for another job after 16 years in politics for Stavanger.

"Wow, this is really nice" was my first thought when I saw this on my "Design tour" last Friday.

The sculpture is made by a Dutch guy, JOS OTTEN who I have never seen or heard about before. He is a very very talented artist, who is living on a small island that is just a few minutes journey by boat from the city centre here.

Take a look at his web page for even more artistic items.

http://www.studio-otten.no

Info. also in English and Dutch.

Enjoy!

Did you know that we have missionaries here in Stavanger??

Well these two young men, the one with the glasses came from Utah/USA and the other one from Canada, wanted to have a chat when I was in a rush to an appointment in the city centre.

I didn't have much time for them or the unique message that they wanted to share.

Anyway, I have not met many missionaries here.

I thought they mainly went to Africa.

More snow today.

This is JOHN and his dog MISTY.

They are from Virginia (USA) but are now living in Norway, where his wife is working for NATO.

In Stavanger there is quite a big International group of employees working at the same place.

We meet during a walk this morning.

LENA, who is from Kiev in Ukraine, has been living in Norway for 5 years.

She has been busy studying, the last 3 years in the travel branch.

Her Norwegian is very very good, and she speaks several other languages too.

Best of luck with exams and job searching.

I am sure you will succeed !:)

This is the house for the French-Norwegian Culture Centre and the French consulate.
I have a friend who has started in a French conversation class here.
Probably a very good idea! (Most of us here in Norway use English before French, German or perhaps Spanish) .
The center also has an exhibition area for art, together with a section for books, films and magazines for those who are interested.
Some company employees (and their children) who are going to move to France attend private courses arranged through the center.

"Deli de Luca" is a fairly new place in Stavanger for coffees and plenty of "comfort eating food".

Melissa, is the young woman you see here with some of the Yummy food.

I bought a coffee and a newspaper, -but will be back and try something sweet another time.

This is Patrick P who for several years has been living on one of the islands just outside Stavanger with his Norwegian wife. They had sold their house and were now moving (as far as I understood) to a much warmer place on the other side of the planet......

He was a very talkative and open person who showed me the tattoo that he had done for his wife (and love of Norway).

He was born in the States, but has lived in so may countries, that I seriously don't think I will ever meet anyone as international as him!

Best of luck Patrick!!

Not so long ago, Gabriela A. Stensland, who is a designer of jewellery started to sell her items at "Atelier Katarina". I guess there must have been several ladies in and outside Stavanger who have received one of her beautiful pieces of jewellery for Christmas. (As said in the post 4 days back, the place is in Nedre Strandgate 52.)

Here you see ROBINSON Lazar from Babylon/ Iraq, MICKAEL Mehari and his brother FARS Mehari from Eritrea. They all spoke Swedish, since Sweden is the country they came to as children and where they were brought up. They are now living and working in the Stavanger area. I heard the hip-music from their car and saw them enjoying the summer evening!

Have FUN and enjoy life!