Weekend Again and Wet

We did our usual today being Saturday ... the only difference was the fact that the weather was gloomy and it rained now and again but not the kind of downpour we are used to. Here it's wet and cold at the same time, and it's on and off depending on which clouds passed through. Throughout the day we all got wet at least twice.

We started off the day at the Norvinna oriental store to pick up sambal oelek ... the kids have been complaining how our staple the past few weeks have been rather bland and consisted of way too much salmon. Even Daddy's curry now lacked the kick. We packed up two bottles of spicy sambal oelek and later acquired another large bottle from another oriental store up in Sandness.

For lunch we had a picnic near Sandness while feeding fries to the pigeons and admiring the mountains on the otherside of the fjord. We saved main dish at the halal burgers for eating at home.

Norinna located across from St Pitr's Kirke.

At the pier near sentrum, a local sucking up fresh air mixed with cigar smoke on his classic ride.

A very nice looking yacht which just sailed in from Germany. As the summer kicks up, there'll be more than enough cruise ship anchored around here to completely fill up the harbour. 

Stavanger's nouveau-riche play things, the start up cost has to be massive, wonder how damaging is the running and maintenance cost.

The well known church at the city center, behind it a small lake Breivanet, I've forgotten what the church is called.

The ambience of a pizza and kebab restaurant, for now our only relieve for that craving for red meat. 

A pesky Rock Pigeon sharing our fries near Sandness, barely visible in the backgroun is the towering mountain tops.

A yacht for sale, only NOK550,000 ... a steal and almost the same size as our current abode.

Shopping at the oriental store is an interesting experience in itself. As expected, there are not many non-nationals in them, shoppers are mostly new Norwegians and temporary Norwegians. They all kinds of halal stuff purportedly including Instant Pork Noodles from Thailand.  Quite a plentiful supply of authentic curry powders from India, cried fruits, tired looking vegetables and instant noodles. There's all kinds of soy sauce permutations from all over the world ... even budu from Vietnam.

All cities in the world has their oriental grocer, I can now add Sandness to the list which included the following: Los Angeles (Azusa and downtown), Nwe York City (Chinatown, Manhattan, Midtown, Bronx), Detroit, San Francisco, Sudbury (amazingly enough for me that is), Glasgow, Den Hague and now Stavanger. The smell is usually the same, the clientele with some degree of variation, it's most international here in Norway.

That Saturday the weather cleared up finally towards the later part of the day thankfully but the sun was still nowhere to be seen. The forecast predicted a gloomy, wet week at least all the way through Wednesday. We can consider Sunday a go-nowhere day.