LOUDEST CAR ALARM SIREN. LOUDEST CAR

Broken glass is everywhere in the streets. Alarms have gone off everywhere. Sirens of ambulances, police and rescue cars can be heard all over the city. Police are continuously sealing off areas and guiding people away from the city center.

I arrived by subway at Oslo S. I could hardly believe it when I caught a glimpse of a man with a mirror, razor blade, and white powder in a photo booth. I hoped to find a police officer or something like that. The guy in the DVD shop nearby seemed very certain the police wouldn’t have time for that sort of thing now. I agreed with with as a matter of general fact, but I had no idea why he was so overwhelmingly sure of that.

I continued on my journey, and found myself going against the flow more and more. I thought a concert or something must have ended nearby. I picked up the quiet feeling you get from that kind of crowd. Then there was a female police officer that guided people away from a police barrier. I had already noticed some broken glass, and there was more broken glass and barriers along the street. I was starting to wonder what was going on.

I told her about the drug thing in the photo booth, and said "but I guess you don’t have time for that now" because she looked a bit busy, and she confirmed that. I must have appeared a little crazy to her and to the guy in the DVD shop. The blast from the explosion could be heard loud and clear far beyond the city borders, and you can imagine from my pictures what it must have been like within the nearest half kilometre or so, but I see no other explanation except I must have been underground in the subway at the time of the blast. Pretty much everybody in the area but me knew something very serious had happened.

I noticed lots of crushed windows along that shopping street. Had someone been driving around with a gun? I asked a woman if she new what this was about, and she told me there had been a car bomb in the area where the government buildings are located, some hundred meters away. I really started to worry about what was going on. I walked towards the photo shop, but walked into a police barrier just short of the shop. Ok, no lens replacement for my brand new but faulty 8-16mm lens today. I had bought it a few hours earlier. Instead I took out my camera and 100mm macro lens and started shooting. Luckily I brought it with me in case I needed to demonstrate the new lens was faulty, and not my other equipment. I also called my sister to ask what was on the news. Then for the next hours I walked and photographed, but never had a chance to get close to the disaster areas.

It’s an exceptional warm friday in february. Bartje and i are cruisin’ through France, somewhere north-east of Paris.
Some years ago i saw some amazing photos of an abandoned castle. There’s even a round theater to be found somewhere inside. We decided to check out the place and see if it’s still abandoned. An active hospital lies on the same property so we should be on our guard for people walking in the park and possibly around the castle itself. From a distance we can see the castle, it looks like the windows are new and we have some doubts about if it’s doable. When Bart parks the car next to the place we can see the windows are fake. They’re just wooden boards with windows painted on them.
Indeed there are people in the park and around the castle, we should be carefull. A car is parked at the front of the castle, four guys are sitting inside. We suspect them to be explorers waiting for the right moment to enter the castle.
We took some exteriors shots of the place and spot an open door down at cellar, out of sight from people walking by. The door ends up to be a dead end. All the basement windows have bars in front of them, but there’s one with one bar missing. We’re in!!

It’s completely dark inside and we can hear people talking outside. All excited and as quite as we possibly can be we start looking for a way up.
It takes us a couple of minutes to find a staircase leading up. Halfway on the staircase Bart stops and says, is that an alarm? The moment he points his torch towards it the alarms goes off with an immense loud siren. We did not expected this at all and the very loud sound keeps on going and almost gave us a moment of panic. We run back down the stairs and through the pitch black basement to get out asap.

We’re outside, but our car is parked right next to the castle. Outside of the castle the alarm is even louder and we realize that we have a foreign license plate.
If security of whomever is going to turn up, we’re suspects straight away. And try to explain without speaking the language why we got maps, torches, camera’s and a rope ladder in the car.
We jump in the car and speed off the property as fast we can. Five minutes later we wonder if those guys in the car at the front are busted now because of us.
We laugh, have smoke and are glad we didn’t got busted. Too bad about the castle though….