Saturday Snapshot – scenes from the last two weeks

This week I’ve uploaded pictures from the last two weeks. They have been eventful and enjoyable weeks 🙂

Last week we travelled to Kiel and Lübeck and went to the christmas markets.

Heiligen Geist Hospital Christmas Market, Lübeck

Fairy tales displays in Lübeck

Christmas lights in Lübeck

On Color Magic, the ferry between Kiel and Oslo

Laboe Naval Memorial outside Kiel

Freestyle skiers on the plaza outside the railway station, Oslo

When we got home it started snowing. It looks good, but is mainly a bother.

But we also came home to this passing tail 🙂

This meme is hosted by Alyce from At Home With Books

To participate in Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken. Photos can be old or new, and can be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. All Alyce asks is that you don’t post random photos that you find online.

Trapped – Review

Title: Trapped
Author: Michael Northrop

Publisher: Scholastic Press
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Published: 2011

Genre: YA
The dice landed on: 3
Did I finish?: Yes
Do I like the cover?: Yes, very much.

One-sentence summary: 7 high school kids are caught in their school while the snow keeps piling up outside.

It starts snowing in the morning. As the hour go by Tattawa High School decides to send the students home. When everyone else either get picked up or get on a bus home, seven kids stay behind expecting to be picked up later on. That doesn’t happen.

Scotty tells the story. He stays behind with his friends Pete and Jason. The other students staying behind are Krista, Julie, Les and Elijah. A teacher also stays behind, but he soon leaves hoping to get somewhere he can call for help. They never see him again. Days go by and the snow keeps falling.

First I want to compliment Phil Falco who created the book design. The cover is very good, but the pièce de résistance is the way each chapter starts. The bottom part of the page is white, representing the snow on the ground outside a window. The top of the page shows snow falling. As the book goes on the fallen snow gets deeper and deeper while the falling snow occupies less and less of the page.  During the last third or so the snow on the ground occupies the whole page. It’s great.

This story has every potential of becoming really good, but it didn’t. I never felt really close to any of the characters, maybe apart from Scotty. The author didn’t really manage to convey how bad the situation was becoming. I understood it on a theoretical level, but I never really felt the fear. I liked the ending though, it had some of the qualities the rest of the book was lacking. All in all it’s not a bad book, but it could have been so much better.

Book beginnings on Friday – Trapped

Book Beginnings on Friday is a bookish meme sponsored by Katy at A Few More Pages.

Here’s what you do: share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments section . Include the title and author so we know what you’re reading. Then, if you are so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and if you liked or did not like that sentence. Link-up each week at Katy’s place.

My beginning this week is from Trapped by Michael Northrop.

We were the last seven kids waiting around to get picked up fram Tattawa Regional High School. It sounds like an everyday thing, but this wasn’t an ordinary day. It was one of those bull’s-eyes in history, one of those points where everything comes together, where, if you were at that place at that time, you were part of something big. It meant that we weren’t going to get picked up, not on that day and maybe not ever.

I know this will be about snow, the cover leaves no doubt. A bit of a dismaying thought as we’re heading towards winter in these northern latitudes. I also have a feeling that it’ll be fairly claustrophobic. So far, it looks fairly good. We’ll see.

Snow, slush, ice – we have it all

I’m not fond of snow. It’s no secret. I try not to complain every day, but in my opinion winter could last from December 23rd. until January 2nd. That would do nicely, thank you very much.

And yes, I think it looks pretty too, it’s just such a pain putting up with it on a daily basis.

This is a picture taken by Askøy vgs. (high school).  This day wasn’t too bad, slush is a lot better than ice. Slush – you get wet and cold. Ice – you fall over.

December 17th – On the balcony

It’s almost christmas, so I figured it was about time to get the summer furniture inside. It was all covered in snow, and has been for a few days, so it seemed like it was about time.

We’ve also had a visitor on the balcony, someone with feathers I guess.

Snow

This is a complaint!

We woke up this morning to a snow covered city, and we’re not happy about it.

Snow, go away!

Melting snow, waiting for spring and a bit about chocolate

Groomed and grumpy

Everyone who knows me know that I complain about the snow if it comes before December 23th. and if it stays around after January 2nd. This means that I’ve been complaining a lot this winter. And today it snowed again.

I didn’t see it snowing because I had today off work and slept late. What I got was the treat of watching snow melting outside the window. I also got to watch the cars trying to drive up the road made very slippery by the combination of a fresh snowfall and above freezing temperature.

With all this snow melting outside I got a strong feeling of spring while I potted about doing all kinds of household chores that had been postponed for a while. The plastic and paper piling up in the kitchen has been put in the proper containers outside the house, the soda bottles are in plastic bags by the door so we’ll remember to take them with us to turn in at the store tomorrow, the kitchen counters have been wiped off, the cat has been groomed and the floor has been vacumed. I’ve even done some laundry.

On another note, I really like the commercial for Stratos (Norwegian chocolate) and its really cool cow. Too bad that I don’t like the chocolate as much as I like the commercial. The Melkesjokolade-cows (another Norwegian chocolate) are not as cool, but quite cute. What is it with this country that makes us use cows when we advertise for chocolate?