Lazy Days and Mondays ...

I was going to say that I woke to dreary, foggy, gray, rainy weather - but I never fell asleep, so that just won't do ...

But the weather really did look crappy. All the snow from last night had melted and it was just raining lightly.

I decided to head to the hotels breakfast. As I left my room I thought that the hallway looked cool - so I took the camera that lives in my pants pocket out and snapped some shots. Here are three of those photos - notice how they all are different looking ... partly because of the settings I used on my camera and partly due to some rigorous photoshopping!



Got to the room where you eat and this little beauty was there:
Norwegian 'buffet' type breakfasts are ... complicated! Everywhere we stayed in Norway = if they served breakfast at all had quite a large selection of things to eat.

Here we have the bread selection. My favorite choice since their bringebær jam is TO DIE FOR! (You would quickly notice that it is raspberry jam if you saw it ...). I grabbed a few rolls, stole a small coffee cup and filled it with some jam - some pats of smør (butter) and I was set!

There is the 'Cheese & Meats Area' which has a HUGE assortment of cheeses to choose from - with crackers. In addition to the cheeses there is a large assortment of things to top it with - sardines, other fish, some pasty looking stuff, and a lot of varieties of sliced meat.


They have the fruit area with a very large assortment of fruits to choose from:
In addition to all this, there was a section of cereals, granola's and yogurt. Granola with a soft yogurt poured over it is a common breakfast here. There was also the 'Traditional' American fare - eggs, bacon, but with that comes - a 'pork and beans' type of bean, mini hot dogs instead of sausage, and some other hot items I cannot remember ...

Absconded with my bread and jam (Norway had the MOST DELICIOUS 7 grain bread I have ever had. When my sisters (4 of them) and my mom came out for a 'Sibs Week' (minus the brother) I had bought a few loaves of this bread and went upstairs to change. I came down to find that they had gone through a loaf and a half! It really is wonderful! Headed to my hotel room.

Decided to take photos - it was nine O'Clock and still dark so I waited a bit, then broke out the tri-pod (finally) and started snapping away:


This is the overnight ferry to Copenhagen, Denmark that we used several times. You drove your car on - had a room with two sets of bunk beds and it had a couple of 'Cruise' type floors with movie theaters and dining rooms and such. It was a relaxing (as relaxing as you can be with Jessie on a boat ...) way to get to Denmark.

Here is part of Oslo Fjord:

An older section of town is out my window - and the central train station! It is not noisy at all so that is nice, but not much to photograph - I gave it my best shot!


I don't know if this is still their building but the Aftenposten is a newspaper which I read online all the time - now I only refer to it from time to time:

Cute something with a light house looking thingy on it:


I am not sure, but I do not believe they had these triple buses when we lived here!


This beautiful red building is right front and center out my window and is on one side of all the train rails. It might be a station type building, I cannot tell from here:

But look at the beautiful detail on this treasure:




The sun, having only been up a few hours was waning and the room was getting dark. That was my indicator that it was time to shower and head to the mall for some shopping!

Took this photo at about 2:00 in the afternoon. It is of part of our hotel room pointing towards the window - rather dark for 2:00 ...

Put on a coat, loaded my cameras and wallet in my backpack and off I went - to the mall! Right across the street ... EXHAUSTING!!!

Love that they have these fairy lights strung up all over everywhere:

Passed a brick building that had the most unusual artwork projects cemented right in with the brick - some were hideous, some ... not so much:


And I'm at the mall! Looking for a few things - soap and a TON of juice. I have been craving juices for the last few days and thought I might as well go for it ...


All dressed up for Christmas ...
A shot of the deli where I bought my dinner (Gary was eating out with the work people this evening). I SO KNOW YOU CARE ...

Then home to a very dark hotel room. I decided to practice my night shots. A ways in I decided to practice my HDR night shots. I think they are coming along rather well, but I think HDR is a matter of preference ...


This is a photo at night of the beautiful little building far away up the hill a bit (WITHOUT HDR):
Here is my HDR version using 3 bracketed photos and building it in Photoshops HDR feature since I don't have my other HDR software with me (boy - I am REALLY missing my photoshop plug-ins!):

I like the HDR one better - don't know if that is normal or not ... don't care ...

Again - a non-HDR shot:

And my HDR version:

And I saved the best for last - my favorite - the pretty red building. The non-HDR shot (it is pretty no matter what!):

And a two-fer! One of just the red building and one with the funky white bridge, the railroad tracks and other stuff with it. Both also made with three photos each, but the bracketing I used was spaced much further apart than I have been doing - I like it better like this: (if that didn't make sense and you want to know what I meant - since I am too lazy to write the explanation out, call me - I will explain ...)


And that's it!

All I did on this lazy, hazy, doozy of a Monday!

Off to bed rather late ... NOT good when I am under the weather - but doing SO MUCH BETTER THAN YESTERDAY!


Wonder if I will fall asleep?