16 August 2021 - WORLD'S LARGEST BONFIRE MADE OF PALLETS - NORWAY

 

 WORLD'S LARGEST  BONFIRE 

MADE OF PALLETS - NORWAY

 

G'day folks,

On and around the 24th of June every year, you will find the people in Alesund, Norway stacking pallets.  This unique and seemingly dangerous tradition is how the people of this city celebrate midsummer. Sankthans, or ‘Midsummer’, is a festival held every year on June 24th in commemoration of John the Baptist’s birth. The day is celebrated in Scandinavian countries and other parts of Europe. These people risk their health, and even their lives to help assemble The craziest bonfire stack I have ever seen. Check out the pictures of what happens when they get done stacking pallets.  They stack them until it reaches an astonishing 130 feet high.

 

 

Clancy's comment: Extraordinary, but very dangerous.

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17 January 2021 - AMAZING SURVIVAL FROM FROZEN RIVER

 

AMAZING SURVIVAL FROM

 FROZEN RIVER

G'day folks,

Welcome to another story of survival.

In May 2000, Dr. Anna Bagenholm, 29, was skiing on a familiar trail outside Narvik, Norway, when she lost control and fell headfirst into an icy river. Her head and body became stuck under thick ice, but she managed to find an air pocket so that she could continue to breathe. 

 

After 40 minutes of trying to free herself, the exhausted woman was in the throes of hypothermia. Her companions found her, but it took them another 40 minutes to break the ice and drag her out of the freezing water. By this time, her body temperature had dropped to just 57 degrees Fahrenheit, and her vital signs were so low that she was clinically dead. Thankfully, emergency doctors managed to revive her by pumping her blood through a special machine that warmed it. 

 

After several months of rehabilitation, she was back to her normal health, except for a persistent tingling sensation in her hands. This case led to the development of therapeutic hypothermia as a protective procedure for some epileptic and stroke patients.

 

 

Clancy's comment: Now, that's almost unbelievable.

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11 December 2020 - ABANDONED RUSSIAN SETTLEMENT IN NORWAY

 

ABANDONED RUSSIAN 

SETTLEMENT IN NORWAY

G'day folks,

On the top of the world at Svalbard, an archipelago situated between Norway and the North Pole, is a place that the world forgot for nearly a decade, a Russian mining settlement established by Sweden in 1910 but then sold to the Soviet Union in 1927, then completely abandoned in 1998.

It’s only reachable with by driving 140km with a snowmobile during winter.

 

Clancy's comment: Brrr ... far too cold for me. 

 

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22 February 2020 - AMAZING SCULPTURES MADE OUT OF GINGERBREAD

AMAZING SCULPTURES 

MADE OUT OF GINGERBREAD

G'day folks,

Christmas means sipping hot choccy in front of the fireplace with your loved ones around you. But most of all, Christmas means gingerbread cookies! Now, there are some people who build gingerbread houses, which is all well and good. But have you ever tried making something… bigger?

Well, Swedish food artist and motion designer Caroline Eriksson has! And her designs are much, much bigger than you’d expect when you hear the word ‘gingerbread.’

Every Christmas, she designs and bakes incredibly detailed (and delicious) gingerbread sculptures. This year, she made Groot from “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Which might even be more impressive than last year’s creation—the Xenomorph from “Alien.” 

 Caroline has baked gingerbread statues since 2013 when she won a Norwegian baking contest, and every year she surprises her fans with new and impressive gingerbread art. It took the artist around 5 weeks to make Groot, and she had to add lots of syrup and flour to make the dough thick enough to support the sculpture. She even built the gingerbread sculpture around a metal frame to make sure that it wouldn’t collapse.

“I have been making gingerbread houses every year with my family since I was little,” the artist said. “After a few years, I got tired of houses and wanted to build other things, like boats, castles, and towers. My family didn’t have that patience but looked forward to seeing new creations every year.”

“Then in 2013, I had moved to Norway and I entered a gingerbread contest where you could win 40,000 Norwegian krone [4,505 dollars]. I had been thinking about building a robot for a while, taking houses and boats one step further! I thought it must be possible to do – if I started with very simple square inner forms and added details on top.”

“I had been thinking about building a robot for a while, taking houses and boats one step further! I thought it must be possible to do. If I started with very simple square inner forms and added details on top. Around this time a Transformers movie came out in theatres, and I decided to build Optimus Prime. It took 3 weeks but I got it done and was very happy with the result.”

“I won the contest, and for the money, I took a trip to Bali. The transformer got viral and after that, I have continued to make new creations every Christmas. I try to challenge myself with every creation, do something more advanced that I haven’t seen been done before, push the boundaries for what can be done with this medium. That’s what I find most fun: to solve how to get the textures and shapes I want. But that is also what is most challenging and it takes a lot of time and testing to get right,” said Caroline, who is from Stockholm but now lives in Norway.

Clancy's comment: Wow. Go, Caroline. So clever, eh?

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21 April 2018 - DEATH DIVING IN NORWAY

 DEATH DIVING

 IN NORWAY

G'day folks,

 When jumping off a diving board, a belly flop is not the outcome most people are looking for, but for those competing in the crazy Norwegian sport of Dødsing, hitting the water belly first is a risk that comes with the territory.

Dødsing, or “Death Diving”, is a Norwegian extreme sport that has daredevils jumping from a 10-meter-high board with their arms and legs spread out in an x-formation. The goal is to keep the pose for as long as possible and curl your body slightly right before hitting the water to prevent injuries. At the World Dødsing Championship, a wacky competition held every summer since 2008, the diver who manages to remain flat the longest during their jump is pronounced the winner.

But there are plenty of fearless dødsing divers at the world championship, so in order to determine the winner, judges also take into account other factors, such as the speed, height and power of the jump, the originality of the jumping style and the spray produced when hitting the water.

The painful-looking sport is believed to have been invented during the 1960’s, at the famous Frognerbadet pool complex in Oslo, probably by a bunch of kids trying to show off in front of their friends. The first ever dødsing championship was a small affair, with just six divers and about a dozen spectators, but after the founding of Det internasjonale dødseforbundet (The International Dødsing Association) in 2011, its popularity grew exponentially. These days, the World Dødsing Championship held at Frognerbadet is a big event, featuring close to 100 divers and thousands of spectators.

It’s no surprise that the popularity of has begun spreading across Europe in recent years. It is, after all, a fun sport to watch, as confirmed by the thousands of spectators gathering every year to see who can make the biggest splash. It’s fun for the divers as well, although they admit that coming out of the pool with a few bruises is to be expected, as well.

Clancy's comment: I might try it. Are you ready? Here I go ...

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