Easter brunch

Easter! This year Marco and I didn't travel anywhere, but stayed in Oslo. In previous years we had used the days off to visit some city (e.g. Edinburgh in 2013, London in 2012, Dublin in 2011 etc.).
The weather was mainly nice during the Easter holidays, so we had some relaxed walks around town.

Following a tradition in our family I baked the "gold and silver" Easter cake. It's an old family recipe for a cake that already my grand(grand)mother made for Easter. It's called "gold and silver" cake, because the cake is divided into two parts, the lower, heavier "golden" part golden part is only baked with egg yolk and the upper, lighter "silver" part is baked with only the egg white. In between those two parts comes a layer of jam. There are no rules for the outer decoration, this varies each time and leaves space for the baker's phantasy.
Since I was a kid I know my mum having baked it usually for Easter. But this year, my mum wasn't around - so it was up to me to keep up the tradition on my own. It was actually the first time I baked it myself - and I'd say it was a total success :-)

 HAPPY EASTER!!!

For Easter Monday morning we had invited some friends over for an Easter brunch organized at our place.
We had Mari and some friends of Marco (Daniel, his girlfriend Anne-Lene and Diego) coming over. Unfortunately my colleague Stéphanie was ill and couldn't make it in the end and others had left town over the Easter days.
Nevertheless, we had a great and vast brunch, with eggs, bacon, bread rolls, some oven baked stuff etc.

The weather was just gorgeous outside so in the early afternoon we had a spontaneous digestive walk along the Akerselva river which passes right around the corner of our apartment.

After that Mari had to leave as she already had plans later on. Together with the others we decided to meet up again in a couple of ours, again at our place; Marco had offered to make some pizza. And so we spent also the evening together.

What a very nice Easter day we had :-)

Dinner with uncle Jan at Louise Restaurant

My uncle Jan had recently bought an interrail ticket and still had some unused train rides left on it which were soon to expire. So spontaneously he decided to visit Marco and me here in Oslo. Living in Sweden, close by the railway line between Stockholm and Oslo, it was pretty easy for him to get here to Oslo. He wrote me an email during the weekend asking if it was possible to come on Tuesday. Spontaneously and nice :-)
We were free on that Tuesday and didn't have other plans yet so it was perfect to meet right after my work and we were looking forward to welcoming my uncle Jan here in Oslo. We had decided to go out for dinner at a very nice restaurant in Aker Brygge, at Louise Restaurant. And to our surprise Jan even invited us. So nice of him!!!
Thanks a lot, vielen lieben Dank, tusen takk, tack så mycket, merci beaucoup, dank u wel, Jan, for this lovely invitation!!! We have really enjoyed the evening with you :-)

And the day after, after having met a former colleague of his from his time when working at the Belgium Ambassy in Oslo some 30 years ago, he already returned to Sweden.
Short, but very nice and highly appreciated :-)