VOSS-Reaching New Heights in Norway‎

DRAMATIC is the best way to describe it..Stopped by Voss for the Ekstremsportveko 2010

Basically, I have two speeds.... Hostile or smart-aleck. Your choice." Saving the world and other extreme sports

From Alpha Sparkling Voss to Omega 3 Catch of the Day Salmon

I am on a see food diet

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Norway's Western Fjords-The Eloquent Sounds of Silence

If Hollywood is loneliness beside the swimming pool, then Norway is  solitude by the fjords.

It's a wonderful thing to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place like this where you don't know a soul; where,  as Mellvile said, "God's one and only voice is Silence."

Progress is our own ability to complicate simplicity and castles in the air are so easy to build. Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth 'you owe me'. Look what happens with a love like that. It lights up the whole sky.

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Denmark-Escape To Reality

The Geography Of Bliss

Nothing is rotten in Denmark, and  Copenhagen  is perhaps the most beautiful place for Being There. Sorry Disneyworld, but this country is the happiest place on Earth simply because  Danes  have relaxed and lowered their standards .

 Depression is the inability to construct a future. Yet, for Danes, the future is not only already here, it's also evenly distributed. Paid to go to college,  state-covered health insurance, one year of maternity leave and babies so safe that they're left outside alone...Yadi Yadi Yada, folks here  have enough quo in their status and  living is as predictable as an episode of Seinfeld.

Consequently, they're lige nu.” Lige nu is a Danish phrase that means literally “just now”.  They would make good buddhists because they are not on the treadmill of  consumption or chasing the happiness jackpot. They are pragmatic and busy ppl,  tracking  high on the GNH,Gross National Happiness scale.
Reminds me of the Danish philosopher Søren  Kierkegaard, considered to be the founder of existential thought, which is full of honest angst.  For him, money wasn't the root of all evil, boredom was the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself. . Without risk, faith is an impossibility. He actually coined the words "leap of faith".

He used humor as a healthy way of feeling "distance" between himself and his 'problems', a way of standing off and looking at problems with perspective. I have been misquoting him for years, crediting Nietzche with this one instead of him -- to label me is to negate me.  For him, the cure for anything was salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea.

One can advise comfortably from a safe port. Søren Kierkegaard

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Russia- Picasso was Right-It takes a long time to become young

Everything you can imagine is real-Picasso

Everyone Wll Be Famous For 15 Megabytes

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Painting was just another way of keeping a diary. Picasso would have been huge on twitter and blogger! Afterall, Markets are conversations, and  blogs are just naked conversations.  Pablo's 15 megabytes of fame...Someday, someone of great importance would have said  to him, "You get paid for this?"...

The New Plagerism- From Xerox to infinity.

What's the meaning of a digital life? Get one.

 I´ve alway been a cut and paste guy- a kind of cultural pludering  of whatever is happening in the internet, where the online Superpower google, delivers me an answer in less than five seconds. It´s  like an information prospector mining for gold or drilling for oil-an exploitable resource.

The original is just as valuable as the copy. In fact, the copy is better than the original, especially when you don't have to pay for it. Data's only purpose is to be copied and passed on,from Xerox to infinity.

When Picasso said, "A good artist copies, A great artist steals" it makes me think of the collective unconscious,and tapping into source,networking globally by Googling. Consciousness is wireless!

Here I am again in the Baltics: The duality of St Petersburg and Leningrad remains. They are not even on speaking terms. 

Advocating For The Devil.....

I stuck around St Petersburg, When I saw it was time for a change.Killed the Czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vainI. Pleased to meet you Hope you guess my name- Rolling Stones

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Let The Orinoco Flow- One Year @Sea

In answer to the Question, "How long has he been drifting?"
Celebrating One Year at Sea this week.
 It started in Rome Sweet Rome, then Santorini...I haven´t been everywhere, but it´s on my list.

Those who float away their lives on ships are forever journeying, and their homes are wherever their travels take them. Basho

Narrow Road To The Interior...

Asleep in Germany.Summer's sea-castaway floats

Awake  in Denmark.

As the vagabond wind,  

Whispers over the bay.

Songs and Laughter

Carry away in the sky.

This week in Warnemünde with the Roy-ales Truddie Reif and Steffi and Captain Hops looking very stout.

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Flåm- Enriched by a Wonderful Osmosis

Free For All-H2O

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria. Unless of course you are in  Norway-- where meltwater  is useful,  humble, precious, and pure.The best wine may be the oldest, the best water, however, is  the newest. With cupped hands, drinking  melted glacier. It's pure inspiration. We're all downstream from here!  For those at home, may I suggest VOSS.

Narrow Road To The Interior... Frozen water once, Now melts into my heart. Joy comes dancing lightly

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The Fjords- Norway's Ecstasy

A  good poem includes a waterfall. So Norway's fjords are potery in motion .This is Norway's Ecstasy. The definition of ecstasy is that you are not doing your ordinary everyday routine....esentially stepping into an alternative reality.This is the second time I have sailed in these fjords. It's like opening a door in the middle of nowhere and all you have to do is go and turn the handle and open it and let yourself sink into it, and just float.

Narrow Road To The Interior...

Summer Grasses,

all that remains

of Viking dreams.

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Been To Russia-There Are No Bears

Chaos Theory   Paul Cézanne said we live in a rainbow of chaos. Here I am at The Hermitage in front of  his  paintings that were "transfered" after WW2.

Chaos to me is rejecting all you have learned. Chaos is being yourself.

Seven Years in Tibet verse Seven Minutes in Debtor's Prison
Better living through chaos

Greetings from Somewhere Over The Rainbow--Saint Petersburg. It  is huge--there is a kind of quality in quantity. Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos. St Pete is a large-scale city of haunting magnificence, an imperial capital that Peter the Great began building almost 3 centuries ago.

Yet, there is a stillness to Petersburg, unlike say an asian city like Bangkok--or  Here Comes Everywhere--- a happy chaos, completely unaggressive, you hardly hear a rude noise or anyone shouting. Nobody cares. The great mingle-mangle flows smoothly and you  wonder how so many cars and people can be jammed into such a small space and not one soul seems disturbed.

Vodka your plants

Russia, on the other hand, is no longer  a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma .It is a tragedy wrapped in a failed system inside a catastrophe to come. The problem with the rest of the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.

Instead of paint, they use vodka. I am impressed: "Wow, you painted your city vodka?".  Demon  Vodka is everywhere. God is dead is trivia. Now God just says, `No´`. Among the isms these day, pessimism range from the inabilty to scold their cats in their lackadaisical litter-box use to an  ``Oh Well´ shrug of, Í´m so bored, I think I´ll `flip my car´´. Seven months of depression followed by four months of disappointment.

Я устал от пытается найти счастье в себе ложь и лекарственных препаратов. Если я вам понадоблюсь, я буду в баре.

I'm tired of trying to find happiness through lies and self-medicating. If you need me, I'll be at the bar.

There is no income tax in Russia. But there's no income! General Secretary Gorbachev stumbled onto one of the best-kept secrets in recent Soviet history: Communism doesn’t work, but 90% of  Russian women do.

They make up the bulk of  the work force and are dressed to kill, and would make great prom dates´, or better yet, strip club-bacholor party girls.. Plus, there´s no fallout from professors and family when they admit, I´m a nude dancer trying to finish my Ph.D. It´s heroic

Makes me think of Politics, and  President´s who also could be strippers, names like Madison,Taylor,Kennedy, and Reagan, who when they did their job right, suspended our country´s disbelief, and the bald spot and the  mortgage ceased to exist.

On Reagan’s watch, the USSR collapsed,  and I can still hear those regular words, Tear Down This Wall... and the extra crispy, ``My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes´

.

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Splendid Stockholm Abba, Roxette, Ace of Base,

ABSolution

Biking past the old city Gamla Stan. No Ice Bar this time, but I roasted myself in a sauna and then directly plunged into  freezing cold water.  Mama Mia...Shipwrecked!

You can dance you can jive, having the time of your life-ABBA

A Bike And A Prayer

The bicycle was the GR8est incident of the nineteenth century; the most influential piece of product design ever and  the most civilized conveyance around. It is not brain surgery, it is rocket science---the advantages of modern self-powered traffic are obvious, and ignored.  Screw BP (British Polluters), I am my own engine, converting calories into gas, my  bike  gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon...and no parking problems. Why waste your  life in friction (cars) when it could be turned into momentum. (Bikes).Burning Carbohydrates instead of  Hydrocarbons today. As long as I am riding a bike, I know I am the luckiest guy in the world.

Don.'t buy upgrades, ride up grades!

SUVLUV is so stone age, so pre September 11th. One seldom exchanges anything but "the finger" or names of insurance companies with another driver.  Cars inhibits human connection. There is an excuse, however, to be made for driving 4x4's. It can be summed up in three words: "This is America."  Make it  big. The love of bigness, whether we are talking houses, breasts, meals or vehicles, the 'magic' of thinking big is as American as apple pie.

The Metal Cowboys-Fooled By Randomness

Think of bicycles as rideable art that can just about save the world. It is anarchy without malice It get you there and more.... And there is always the thin edge of danger to keep you alert and comfortably apprehensive.It is not so much a way of getting somewhere as it is a backdrop  for randomness; it makes every trip  an unorganized tour. Life is too random to be left up to chance.Work to Eat. Eat to Live. Live to Bike. Bike to Work!

 When I ride a bike, I no longer despise the human race. I still must use the rules of the road, of biking, of Einstein's  gravity. But I am mentally far away from "civilization". The world is breaking someone else's heart.

Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.  - John F. Kennedy

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Go Scandanavia-cOPENhagen is Open Today

Once Around Without Leaving The Ground  I know both sides because I am both sides: a tourist who doesn't know where I've been; a traveller who doesn't know where he's  going. I haven't been everwhere, but it's on my list.  I thought college was the longest vacation I ever took; but this DIY (Do It Yourself) 'Graduate' School seamester is a kind of study abroad in Nomadic Pursuits.Traveling the globe without leaving the ground (by sea and land) is 10x, to the nth degree better than commercial aviation. Airplanes, like diets,  are wonderful things for other ppl to go on. I'm drinking from the fire hose and having a Smörgåsbord of expereinces. After all,  an adventure is just bad planning--- but a great way to learn about writing. The secret is not to look back.

 Having nothing to do and all day to do it, I took a GR8 bike tour today. I've been to Copenhagen so many times, and this is the first chance I got to see The King’s Garden (Kongens Have) at Rosenborg Castle, Denmark's most popular royal palace.

                                                                             

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Oslo- Vikings Fan

I was going to change my shirt but instead I changed my mind.

I have my ship And all her flags are a flyin' -CSNY

The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.Norway smells green and lush....It's "down to earth" pulse is everywhere.

 Most countries are designed not to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable. As Tom Waits said "No one speaks English and everything is broken" Norway, however, makes everyone feel like a naturalist. Its beauty and mystery and power and vulnerability,  the wilderness as therapy. The trees, the fresh air--what's deeply personal is universal. It speaks to everyone in a slang that rolls up its sleeves, and whose silence is golden.

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Voss, Stalheim, Hellesylt, Geiranger Fjords

Norway, where's that? It is not your typical tourist trap. One thing ppl want to see if they get here is The Fjords. most famously the ones on the west coast,where I am now.

Glacier Hiking-Narrow Road To The Interior...The bottoms of my shoes are clean from walking in the snow.

“Alljourneys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber

 “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark

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The Persistence Of Norway-Outdoor Adventures in Fjord Norge

I won't spoil it for future visitors by trying to decribe it. National Geographic Traveler Magazine  selected it as  the top natural tourist attraction in the world.  The snow is thawing...and the water is cascading from the mountains.

“All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.” – Paul Fussell

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

Narrow Road To The Interior... Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity, in my tiny wonderland.

The Ice Age

Northern Light.  It is light  until 4AM..the gorgeous scenery and well-preserved Norwegian rural life

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