Halloween

Halloween was different for us this year. While the Norwegians seen to be into the costumes and such (the "typical" cheap costumes can be found in several places), they don't seem to have the whole "trick-or-treating" thing down. My theory is that it is not culturally proper to have kids knocking on doors of people they don't know asking for candy. We also live in an apartment building with controlled entry, and there aren't a lot of kids in the building, so that may also explain some of it.


We did dress Sidney up for the Friday before Halloween dress-up day at school. It is one of the few times the kids are not required to wear their uniforms, so it is special for that reason as well. Sidney, as you can see, was a fairy princess (thanks to Mrs. Mary Kay!) I cannot begin to count the number of princesses, fairies, Spidermen and Lightning McQueen costumes there were. It was a lot of fun, though.

One other difference here - one little boy dressed up as a cowboy sheriff, complete with cap-gun. With the extremes we have gone to in many places in the U.S., I imagine he would have been expelled from kindergarten under a zero-tolerance for guns policy.



We got a nice taste of Halloween on our recent trip to Denmark. Tivoli, the famous amusement park, was decked out for the occasion, and there was also a display in one of the stores that was a scale model of the entrance. Here you see the real entrance and Sidney posing by the model.







A new ship is in the harbor beside our apartment. It is the Havila Venus, and is a brand new ship, having just been delivered last month. It is listed as the most environmentally-friendly AHTS (Anchor Handling, Tug and Supply) ship in the world. Here is a view of it taken this evening.



Finally, here are a couple more panoramas I made using our new program. These are for my parents and Papa, since they visited Tromso during their recent trip. One is a view of the entire island Tromso is located on from the top of the facing mountain, and the other is of the Tromso waterfront. These pictures were taken when we visited in July.