Thursday 11 August 2011

Birds, The Scream, and Dragonflies

August 9
Today I went to downtown Oslo with Mom and got a Norway T-shirt with a little bit of trouble finding it.Then we went to city hall. At City Hall there where big murals and tapestries. Then we went to the National Art Gallery where we saw a few famous paintings like self portrait of Van Gogh which still had his ear and the first version of ''The scream''. I learned that Munch painted two copies of ''The scream'' and Madonna.

We walked the 6.4 km around a bird sanctuary near Olaf's apartment on Monday.

Here I am in my new Norway t-shirt in front of the Nobel Peace Centre.
The picture on the left is taken outside Oslo's city hall. Inside there were lots of murals depicting Norwegian history.

On the left is a picture of me in front of a self-portrait of Van Gogh, each of us with all of our ears still. On the right is a picture of the first Munch's painting of "The Scream."
This is what our fishing trip at the cabin felt like!

August 10 (by Zachary)
Today we visited Olaf's lab which has the only 2 nuclear reactors in all off Norway. we had to wait for him to finish a meeting before he could show us around. Olaf had a desk that can go up and a down (he said it is so he can get his exercise by standing up and down).he showed us around and we got a oil lesson by one of Olaf's friends. then we went to Toys R Us and looked around and then came home and watched Toy Story 2 with the takeoff from star wars (with Buzz saying Zurg you killed my father and Zurg says Buzz I am your father).


Daddy and Olaf, the two great dragonfly hunters, had been planning all week to wake up early, build Olaf's canoe, and go onto Noklevann well before dawn to photograph dragonflies before they warm up enough to fly. Well, after 4 days of excuses, they finally woke up at 3:30am to get onto the lake before sunrise at 5:26am. However, the dragonflies were all sound asleep deep in the meadows, leaving the two famous hunters to perform one of Daddy's hypothermia experiments instead. Olaf looked thrilled in the kitchen prior to departure, and even more thrilled in the canoe!

3 comments:

  1. Great posts!! Once again, I marvel at the writing skills you both are developing. They far, far exceed what I would expect from a 9 and 11 year old. They are definitely more adult than what I would expect a child to write!! The last paragraph in Zachary's post is exceptional as far as grammatical correctness, proper use of punctuation and advanced writing skills and character/subject development and syntax. Not to mention the overall sentence structure combined with injections of wit and sarcasm. You seem to take after your father in writing style Zachary!!

    Nice shot Jaybob of you beside van Gogh!! Any sudden urges to cut off an ear and paint sun flowers and crabs after this? Van Gogh did, btw, do an amazing series on crabs!! I can't remember if you get to Amsterdam but if you do, you will definitely enjoy the Van Gogh museum. I highy recommend going on a Friday evening when the museum is open late and has music and entertainment beftiing Van Gogh's works. I am enjoying your videos and hope as you gain more comfort both in front and behind the camera, you will also take to doing your own Jedi Jaybob documentaries and interviews.

    I appreciate the time and effort you both take in sharing your experiences. I just cannot get over how much you are both able to knock off and get onto the blog despite your busy schedules! I really look forward to seeing how each of your personalities shine through on this blog. I've been reading a book on setting up my own blog thru wordpress. Aside from all the technical mumbo jumbo, it also talks about how important finding your own voice is in writing a blog. Unlike other kinds of writing, a blog expects for you to be YOU - tentacles, uni slippers and all!! So let your imaginations run wild because the sky is not the limit - you can both be and do whatever you want!!!!
    BE CREATIVE BE FUN DARE TO BE IMPERFECT
    xooxoxxoxoxoxo

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jacob, did you know you had a feather growing out of your head!?!?

    I am glad you found your Norway T-shirt. Now you can wear this T-shirt everyday for the rest of your time in Norway so that years from now when you look back at the pictures, you will know where they were taken! You wouldn't even need to take notes or have a good memory. By the way, since I know your luggage was very full at the start of this trip, where are you going to pack your new T-shirt? Does that mean you will have to "lose" something to fit it all in?

    Zachary, did you get to actually see the nuclear reactors? I don't know if you heard the news last week. A Swedish man was arrested by police in Sweden because he put together his own nuclear reactor at home! I am not kidding! He apparently even had a melt down. The news story also said that he kept a blog about his do-it-yourself at home nuclear reactor. The police were sent in after he made enquiries with the authorities to see if he was doing everything legally. I guess he got his answer. So there is now one less nuclear reactor in Sweden!!! :-) Like they say, "don't try this at home"!

    So you were not silly enough to wake up early and join Daddy and Olaf on their "dragon fly excursion"? Smart move, Z!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Swedish man's melt down is nothing compared to what Jaybob can achieve when he puts his mind to it:-) And who's to say that Olaf's lab was not in his basement.... Hmmmmmmmmm

    ReplyDelete