sunmøre weekend

this weekend was my favorite kind here in norway--we enjoyed local art, cake, and lighthouses. saturday was an unusually busy day in Ålesund with two art exhbition openings, the unveling of the street to molja fyr (the lighthouse), and a streetfair concluding the summerday celebrations going on at the mall. our saturday plans were ambitious--especially considering owen hadn't quite recovered from his london jet-setting. we did manage to make it to the opening at our friend nihl's gallery at artifex where owen made friends with a young finnish guitarist and we enjoyed some collector's prints of tellnes (quite out of our price range but we do have a gorgeous one waiting to be framed back in the oc from our last visit) and a swedish artist lars jonsson among others--the browsing was brief since owen only wanted to visit with rosemari at cafe nomaden next door where he knew she had cake waiting. we had wanted to make it to a sculpture opening at the kube--the modern art museum where janniche tørlen had a collaborative sculpture exhibit with her sister (i'm smitten by her jewelery--michael had bought me a bracelet last year and i'm eyeing some of her new pieces to take home). i think owen and i will peruse the kube later on our own as he was art-ed out. instead we walked down to see if there were still pancakes by the molja (there wasn't) but we ended up chatting with ingrid about some of her gorgeous new glass art pieces (also on that ever-growing list of things to take home!). we ended saturday watching the sweeden-spanish futbol match over fish and chips in the sas lobby. . .

on sunday we celebrated father's day by getting out of town and driving out to the neighboring islands to picnic in godøy and see the alnes fyr. to get there, though, we had to drive through four tunnels which are a little crazy. the last one is a one-lane tunnel, and when you see oncoming cars you pull over in the little turnoff marked "m" (perhaps for move?!). we had gone last spring when my parents were visiting and it was a highlight of our visit. this time the lighthouse was open and there is a gorgeous watercolor exhibit by ørnulf opdahl which i know papa would have enjoyed. owen walked up all five flights of stairs to the top and was rewarded by some local pancakes in the cafe. we then hiked out around the cliffs and grilled some pølse and enjoyed the view. i think we took enough pictures to assmble a short documentary--but here are just a few. note the surfer in the last pic--one of the few surf accessible beaches nearby.