Stavanger

Monday, June 2

I intended to sleep late but couldn’t sleep past 7:30, probably due to the fact that I needed a shower so desperately. I felt much better once I was clean. We had a somewhat sparse (by comparison) breakfast that featured some delicious rolls and jam, and then settled in to fine-tune a few of our group tunes for our longer concert tonight. We spotted a Crested tit during the rehearsal.



After this, we had a few hours free. Wayne and I walked into Stavanger and looked at the old part of town, including the city park, sporting a gorgeous pond and fountain, and the harbor area. We saw a couple of swan families with baby swans.











We happened upon the
local cathedral, which featured some truly odd choices of sculpture and paintings. There was someone who looked like Hercules holding up the altar, for example.


We met up again at 3 to take a bus tour from Stavanger to the Jæren Region. We passed beautiful water scenes along the way and many water birds, including lapwings, oyster catchers, wheatears, and artic terns.





We stopped to see a Viking burial ground at Hå before dashing back towards Sola to eat dinner at a Chinese restaurant before performing.


Our concert this evening was in an adorable little church reconstructed from the stones of an earlier one, with glass and other modern touches that made it light and airy. This concert was a delight to play – wonderful acoustics and a great audience. There were two teenagers who played pedal harp in the audience who joined us for a piece afterwards. The sun was somewhat close to setting and giving us gorgeous colors as we left.


Upon returning we had a gathering with many of us and shared stories (Wayne told a troll snot story – you’ll have to ask him to tell it sometime) before heading to bed.






(I just realized I missed posting June 1)



Sunday, June 1

We had breakfast in the 1650 house (porridge, breads and spreads, and leftover fruit salad) before packing up for a long day on the road. We had quite a few hours trip to traverse the mountains from Ose to Stavanger. The scenery was spectacular, featuring snow-covered hills and mountain lakes.




The mountain road had just been opened, and was banked by snow sometimes reaching above the top of the bus. We got out at one point and played in the snow. I spotted a wheatear and yellow wagtail along the way. We had trouble finding a place to park the bus for lunch and ended up eating very late. Wayne and I split an expensive hamburger, but it was so large it could have fed at least three people. We finally reached our destination, a home/yoga spa, where we are to stay for three nights. The accommodations are tight, and after being given a private room with a double bed, we had to give it up and sleep in a room with 5 other women. There is barely room to move, but we are getting by.


We had no time to stop beyond dropping off out things, so off we headed to Siddis stova, where we set up for our next concert. We were sharing this concert – we did the first half, and the second half was done by a local fiddle dance band. Our part went well, and was well received, and then we had a wonderful time dancing with the locals until 10:30.



Happily, wireless internet is available here, so I started to get caught up with the blog and hope to actually get caught up in the next couple of days.