Kelly's Adventures in Europe

Nesebar

2006-09-04T17:09:00.000Z

After taking our rest in the guesthouse we got up to find some breakfast to be overwhelmed with all the tourists walking up and down the main street. The vendors kept harassing us saying we should buy their stuff or go to their restaurant (there was this one fish place right near our house that would have a cute sailor trying to convince you to go to their restaurant, but we never ended up going there).
The places were usually selling alright knock offs of brand clothing or perfume, though we found some pretty cool stores, though I didn't buy as much as I had hoped.

Then there were the beaches. Sunny Beach is this tourist area that stretches along one of the many beaches on the Black sea. The main tourists come from Britain, Germany or Scandinavia. Tisho told us about this one hotel that holds all Swedish people, they serve Swedish food and everything is in Swedish. It is also common for people to just come fly here, as a getaway set up by their parents, bused into a hotel and have no idea where they are. Tisho had a friend who worked in one of the hotels who said one of the guests asked him where in Spain they were. haha.

The actual beach was really nice, nice soft sand but it stretched for miles so we usually had to walk a good 30 mins from Nesebar to a patch of sand we could sit at since there were so many people. There was even a small part that was a nudist beach right in the middle. Though many women were topless throughout the beach so not many people were at the nudist beach. The water was gorgeous. Probably about 25°C or so and the air temperature was about 30 but no humidity. Also there were a lot of nice waves. They seemed to get bigger each day we were there. The last two days we were there the tide had come up really high and the waves nearly went right over your head. But they were a lot of fun. (Chris would have loved them)

Sofia

2006-08-12T17:25:00.000Z

On the first day in Sofia, Tisho brought us a typical Bulgarian breakfast which was a pastry with Bulgarian cheese in it (which is similar texture to feta, but the taste is stronger) and the drink called Boza which is made of wheat with a milky texture and has a small percentage of alcohol in it, it was very rich tasting and filling.

After breakfast we got dressed and walked downtown. Once downtown we walked along a yellow brick road, saw the opera house and many churches (old and ancient). We walked by a few kiosk or bazaars on the street. One of them was a row of old ladies selling their doillies and table cloths. We stopped at one of the ladies table and she was determined to sell and give us stuff. She couldn't speak any english but with body language and Tisho, we could figure out what she was saying. "10 for 2 leva!" And she gave us each a doilly free. All the other ladies were staring at us, envious of this little old lady getting all the business.

We walked a bit further and Anna Vala found an old accordian. She felt that she HAD to buy it so gave in, but only later realised that there were accordians for sale all over and the one she got wasn't very good quality. Oh well. There were also many war items for sale, pins, clothing, helmets... many from communist times.

We did a bit more shopping and touring around, then headed to meet with Annie and Tisho's friend for dinner at this vegetarian restaurant. I forget the name of the place, but it was really nice with some picnic tables outside, and a colourful bathroom. Probably was one of the best meals I had in Bulgaria.

Then we had to head back to Tisho's place to pack up for the long bus ride to Nesebar. We pack our bags, then grab a taxi to the bus terminal to catch the bus for midnight. The bus was packed and they kept the lights off so people can sleep, but it is impossible. The bus stops halfway for a pitstop and we line up for the bathroom, I share my tissues with Anna Vala and Becca, since there was no toilet paper (which seems to be a rare luxury in many parts of eastern Europe). Then back on the bus. I think I may have slept 1 hour, but once the sun starts rising you can finally see the landscape. Fairly flat prairie land and you could see the sea approaching.

The bus drops us at around 6:30am in Old Nesebar, which is on a small island attached to the main land with a land bridge. The town itself was built around 600BC, so the buildings are very old with many Roman and Greek influence. The town was quiet so early in the morning (the earliest we would see the town for the rest of the week). It took us a while but we finally found our guest house and once we were assigned our rooms we crashed on the beds.

Blagodaria Bulgaria

2006-08-09T14:03:00.000Z

So Anna Vala, Tisho, Tisho's friend (I forget his name :S) and I landed in Sofia around 11pm and after customs and baggage claim, Tisho's friend's dad picked us up and drove us to Tisho's place. On the way I was actually surprised how many ads there were in English, though I guess it was near the airport and a lot of tourists come from England and Scandinavia (who can understand english quite well). We drove over cobblestone streets and by modern and communist looking buildings.

When the dad dropped us off we said goodbye and walked across the street to go to this small convenience store that is open late. The place is owned by a family with two women and a man that when you go in their store they follow you around the small space to make sure you don't steal anything. We bought some jogurt and then went to Tisho's apartment.

In his apartment there were two elevators, one which could only hold maybe 6 people standing right against each other, and the other one was regular size. I was so amazed that when you go in the elevator that there is no inside door and when you go up or down you can see the doors for each floor wizzing by and you can touch them!

Once into his flat, we were reunited with Becca, and the first sight we see is he do Tisho's roomate Annie's makeup. Back to the good old days. After showering and getting dressed, we all decided to go downtown to check out a Bulgarian bar. We took a taxi, which probably cost us $3 total, to go downtown and pumped into 3 Canadian guys who were on their way to Greece to visit family of the one guy, and we all went to this Mojito Bar. There weren't many people at the bar since it was after midnight when we got there on a sunday night, but there ended up being this large group of russian dancers there. They bought a bottle of vodka and were having shots and chasing it with orange juice. Then they showed their stuff on the dance floor. They were really interesting to watch. One guy was really giving it, jazz figures and all. We asked for some more drinks and the waitress shook her head. In Bulgaria they shake their head for yes and nod their head for no. Got pretty confusing. After a little while, and we were getting pretty tired, we headed back to Tisho and Annie's place to sleep.

Buda and Pest

2006-08-01T12:26:00.000Z

Last I wrote on my blog I was leaving Vienna on my way to Budapest. I spent a little over 24 hours in Buda and Pest. The first day, Saturday I believe, I met 3 English guys (who had just graduated high school and were now on their big trip around Europe) at the hostel and we all went out for dinner, on a mission to get Goulash. We ended up at this Mediterranean restaurant that had a few Hungarian specialities but I ended up being the only one who got Goulash. It was really good but intense with spicy flavour (though not hot spicy). After dinner we wandered towards the river Danube and crossed over the Pest. We walked by some magazine stands and one of the magazines is called Fanny and the English guys thought this was hilarious and took pictures of themselves in front of the large poster. The maps of Budapest are some reason really hard to grasp because none of the streets are parallel so we had a few detours before finally getting back to the hostel. I was exhausted so I decided to go to bed and the two other girls in my room were already sleeping when I got there. But oh not for long! It was around 11:30pm when I got back and I got into bed but my roommates had just had a nap and were now on their way out to party! They invited me along but I prefered to sleep. Though didn't even get much of that. The girls seemed to take about an hour or so to get ready to leave, then there were some Italians down the hall partying kind of loud, and then in another few hours the girls came back and took them another hour to get ready for bed. I have no idea how much sleep I actually got.

On Sunday I decided to do the grand tour of Budapest. My friend Csaba gave me some ideas of places I should see and I think I got to most of them, even though I was as exhausted as I was. I walked to Pest along the river. I was heading towards Andrássy the the big beautiful street that leads up to the Heroes' Square. I took the metro on the cute underground train (which I found out later used to be one of the earliest tram lines but then they put it underground). I saw the Heroes' Square and walked around the garden behind it (I had a disposable camera so will have pics up once I have developed the cameras). After walking around there a bit I headed back towards the river, deciding I should take a boat cruise along the river. By water you can get a better view of the Parliament, the Castle, Matthias' Cathedral, the university buildings, the Chain bridge, the Margaret bridge among many other buildings on the bank.

After the boat trip, I headed towards Buda over the Chain bridge, which is a pedestrian bridge, with kiosks, and there was a school brass band playing on one side and a rosk type band playing on the other side. I then walked up the hill towards the castle, Matthias' Cathedral, and the Fishermen's Bastion. I wandered around here for a while, on the hill you had a great view of Pest and the river. It was midafternoon now and was fairly hot and I was pretty tired so decided it was time to head to Gellért the hotel but also is one of the many famous hotspring baths in Budapest. The bath reminded me of the Roman Baths I saw in Bath, England, though this time you were actually allowed to swim in them. I only stay a short while, sat in the hot pools and the swimming pool (which was actually cool, but refreshing) and the sauna, and then had to head back to the hostel in order to get ready for my trek to the airport.

I packed my things up and took the tram to the subway all the way to the end of its line and then the bus to the airport. I checked up and sat around the lounge for a little while before Anna Vala, Tisho and his friend appeared. Then we were on our way to Sofia.

hop, step and a jump to Bulgaria

2006-07-15T08:54:00.000Z

Since I last wrote I spent about 24 hours in Munich, where I didn't really meet any Germans. I was staying at a hostel which had mostly Americans and one other Canadian, and even from the airport I travelled with a Norwegian, a Swede and a Greek by subway to the hauptbahnhof. After finding the hostel I wandered around alone for a few hours, seeing the Marienplatz and had some dinner (I am really loving the deep-fried Camenbert, sooo good) then went back to the hostel to go out to a beer garden with my new found North American friends, Andrew from Toronto, Stephen from Seattle, Pat from Alaska, and two New Yorkers who I don't remember their names. The beer garden we went to was probably all tourists since everything was stereotypically Bavarian, the women in traditional dress, litre mugs of beer and a German band playing (while the Asian tourists were crowded around them singing and dancing along). Then we went to another beer garden where we had some cake, I had a bite of Andrew's Black Forest cake, he got that last slice. It was pretty good but I always though Black Forest cake was more chocolatey and darker, this one had a cream icing and like chocolate cake.

The next day I walked to the big park (don't remember the name) in the middle of the city with the two New Yorkers. There was some nudity (an old man getting some sun) and even surfing. At one of the bridges there is a strong flow of water where people go surfing. Was pretty cool to see.

Then in the afternoon I took a train to Vienna. I have been staying with Florian who has showed me around to most of the sites in town. The first night we went to the cityhall where they have many stands with food from all around the world (India, Croatia, Spain, Hawaii, Japan...) was really neat. And there were also bign screens showing ballet, with classical music playing in the background. Then yesterday we walked around the city centre, saw the opera house (they love opera here), the royal palaces, th big cathedral and went to a museum with the exhibition "Why Pictures Now". It had some really interesting, some beautiful some grotesque photos and video. We got some icecream at an Ice Cafe and in the evening had some dinner at a Turkish restaurant (all across Europe it seems all everyone eats are Kebabs. Kebab house's are as common as Tim Hortons in Canada). The food was really good, and like most European (at least central/eastern European) cuisine it was mostly meat.

Today I will be heading to Budapest and then tomorrow head on a plane to Sofia, Bulgaria. I am really looking forward to seeing Tisho, Becca and Anna Vala again and relaxing on the beaches of the Black Sea. For most of our time there we are staying in this town Nessebar, which is suppose to be one of the oldest towns in europe, established in 6 century BC. Then we will travel north to Varna and then south to Bourgas. My goal is to get a tan on my pasty white legs. I have been trying to bear them to the sun some of my trip but they just don't want to tan. But luckily, so far, I have not been burned at all, so at least hopefully that remains true.

Jeg elske norge

2006-07-10T09:34:00.000Z

I am in Norway right now and wow... it is absolutely gorgeous. It reminds me of all the most beautiful places in Canada but concentrated in one place. I could see me living here (now I just need a norwegian boy..), it is beautiful but you don't feel isolated. Some of the plants are similar to Iceland, but there are so many trees. Sverre told me that I think the forest has been increasing about 10% per year (a lot of people are getting annoyed with the trees blocking the view now). It is also very mountainous and many lakes. Sadly my digital camera called it quits at Roskilde, but I have been collecting postcards and bought a disposable camera, so hopefully those photos turn out alright.

I started in Oslo which is a very beautiful city which is situated on the water surrounded by many huge hills, and of course trees. I was visiting Frode, he was in Iceland for the first semester, and he drove me to the top of one of the hills, pass the big ski jump, and the richest houses in Oslo, with an amazing view of all of Oslo and the surrounding area. On thursday, when I had the day to myself, I wandered around the city, walked by the royal palace, though didn't see any of the royalty (funny thing in Sweden was they had postcards of the royal family... the son was kind of cute). Then I took the ferry to one of the islands where a lot of the museums are and went to the Kon Tiki museum. This is the museum of Tho Heyerdahl who first conducted the expediton to sail across the Pacific from South America to Polynesia on a a reedboat raft (an made it) to simulate the possibility that Polynesia was populated from the east. Then in 69 and 70 there were the expeditions to sail from Africa to South America, the first attempt the boat fell apart after 2662 miles, and the second time they reached the reefs of Barbados... so it was possible.

Then on friday I took the train north to Åndalsnes, where Sverre would pick me up. the ride up was to beautiful and I met a really friendly norwegian woman named Sigrun. We chatted about Norway, and her time in the US and names (about how when people move around their last name or first name can change, but some norwegians were proud to have american sounding names). Then we parted ways and it was my long journey through the mountains. We passed by a stone bridge (actualy 3 times, the track zig-zagging down the mountain and one of the times over the bridge) then we passed the highest stone face in Europe. When I was united with Sverre he drove us to Trollstigen, this impressive widing road that climbs one of the mountains. they are continuously trying to improve it because tour buses get stuck on the turns sometimes. A really amazing view as well with waterfalls scattered among the rockface and a large one in the center.

Then we were off to Molde, which is known for jazz and roses (the city of roses). I miss the big jazz festival, it is on the weekend of the 17th, when I am in Bulgaria, but maybe I can come back for it next year. (So many places to come back to). On Saturday Sverre and I drove around the area, driving around the mountains towards the sea. We went by sandy beaches along the ocean. Then we crossed the famous bridge, which is a road which is connected to a series of islands. A lot of older men fishing on the edge. Then it was back to Molde to watch the bronze world cup game (Germany won, and they are very happy with being 3rd). Then sunday, Sverre, his friend Aurora and I hiked up the hills near Molde. Was a bit wet but was a lot of fun (again a stunning view from the top).

In between some of this Sverre and I were watching this DVD of a tv show of the norwegian Lars Monsen who travelled across Canada. Though, unlike most people who cross Canada, he was going along the north. He dog sled and canoed most of the way with some walking as well and it took him almost 3 years (he took rests in the peak summer months). Even though it was mostly in Norwegian it was really cool to watch. I hope they have it in Canada with english subtitles. I think Tom would really like the show. Sverre and I then checked out the map of Canada and I was so surprised that Toronto is actually equal with south Italy, and though Norway is equal with Baffin Island, it is much more temperate than northern Canada. While I have been here it was actually in the 30s (though I was told that was rare) and the winters never get insanely cold, and is more like Iceland, where is can be windy and rainy. This is due to the warm Gulf Stream, while central/northern Canada is just ridiculously cold.

Another thing i love about Norway is their brown cheese. Might sound weird, but it is actually really good. I don't know if it would be in Canada. Sverre told me his friend Emily who is from Canada saw some in the scandinavian restuarant she works at in Kingston, but it might be just for the restaurant, but if I can find it, that'd be awesome. Also, Molde has their own soft drink. My favourite is the pear flavour but they also have lime and pineapple (haven't tried those though).

I am really going to be sad to leave Norway, and Europe in general actually. It has just been amazing everywhere I have been. Everyone I have visited and their families have been so generous and kind to me. I will definitely bring back some of this with me to Canada. I have learned so much. (and it is not over yet, 16 days more, though I don't want to countdown).

I am back to Oslo tomorrow and then fly to Munich on Wednesday. Hopefully then will meet with Florian in Vienna on the 13th, then Budapest on the 15th and then flying to Sofia, Bulgaria on the 16th. 9 days in Bulgaria with Tisho, Anna Vala, Becca and friends of Tisho. Relaxing on the beaches and staying in Nesebar, one of the oldest towns in Europe.

I don't know if when I'll have time to write again, but bye for now.

Roskilde Festival

2006-07-04T09:14:00.000Z

Well I survived the Roskilde Festival. I got there on June 25th and left July 3rd, so a whole week of living out of a tent, portapotties, cold showers or paid hot ones, garbage everywhere, warm beer and crazy 24 hour parties. The whole week was just one big party. Most people were drinking all day everyday. And the bands hadn't even started yet. The night I got there (after 2 hours trying to find my friends among the chaotic camp ground. I had no idea how big the thing actually was) it poured and then rained heavily on and off for the next two days. A big mudfest. Rubber boots became very fashionable throughout the festival. Luckily my tent was waterproof but I couldn't believe how could it would get at night. After getting rid of all my winter clothes in Iceland and travelling around with 30+ weather I wasn't prepared for that.

By the time the bands started though on the 29th, it had dried up and warmed up a fair bit too. On the first day the highlights were Guns 'n Roses, which I thought were pretty good considering Axel had to take a 10 min breather between each song, he still runs around the whole stage, and they were an hour late starting. I felt kind of bad for the band members though because they can never be original, they have to always play the old GNR hits and when the band members tried to play something, like their own solo there was little feedback from the audience. Since GNR were an hour late, which I didn't realise, I ended up missing half of Sigur Rós, which I was hoping to get to early so I could get in front row but had to be satisfied with being squished on the edge and barely able to see. At least the sound was good, and I have seen them twice before (though still..).

The 2nd day there was the Kaizers Orchestra (from Norway) who were amazing. There was so much energy and crazy tunes, they beated metal barrels with crowbars and bats. So much fun. Then there was Bob Dylan, which was really disappointing and I felt really bad for him since so many people waited to see him but after a few songs most of the people left. He just had no energy and didn't play any of his hits. also the camera was set to about 20 meters away from him and the band for the whole show which was really boring to watch. The main highlight of this day was seeing the Scissor Sisters. Wow they were so crazy and so much fun. Even though I was exhausted at this point (they started at 1am) it was so much fun to dance with everyone else to their songs.

The 3rd day the big bands were Deftones and Tool. They were both good but when tool was on I was really tired and still had to wait another 2 hours till HIM came on at 2am. I decided to go back to the tent to have a nap but my clock was wrong and I only got to see the last 10 mins of HIM. Was still good.

The last day was probably one of the best performances. I saw Placebo, a bit of Franz Ferdinand (then went to the Balkan Beat Box) and at 9pm, the last band, was Roger Waters... wow.. that was amazing. The first hour he played random songs from their albums, including one song he wrote about the war in the East. Roger told the story about when he was 17 or so he was hitchhiking in Lebanon and this one family took him in and took care of him. The song was really powerful. Then the second half he played the Dark Side of the Moon. Brilliant. Was so amazing. A perfect ending to the festival.

There were many other bands I saw but I will insert them later when I have more time.

I really enjoyed the music part of the festival though the partying part was a bit too much for me. I couldn't believe how people could go on for so long. Though by Sunday people were starting to slow down and more people were drinking water than alcohol.

I will be going to the Hillside Festival in Guelph when I get back and it will be interesting to see the difference between music festivals in other countries.

Right now I am in Stockholm, Sweden and will be heading to Oslo and then Molde Norway. So I will try and write next in Norway.

Bye for now.
Kelly

Czeching in

2006-06-24T08:28:00.000Z

Greetings. I am now in Lübeck but was in Prague for 3 days. I left Bettina in Hof on the 20th take the train.. well for the most part. I changed at Cheb in Czech into an old train which after a few stops had to call it quits and we had to move to a bus to take us 20 mins or so to another train station. I had no idea about this but luckily this Czech woman, who couldn't speak english, and I no czech or german, tried to tell me this. I realised after that what she said made sense but it didn't click in, but she was really nice and waved for me to follow her and made it to the train and then onto Prague.

Well, I think I may be the only one to say this but, I think Czech guys are pretty hot. Not all of them of course, but the ones that were attractive were very nice looking. The girls are very beautiful too. Maybe it is just the Polish part in me to find this.

Anyway, Prague is a very beautiful city. The architecture is quite amazing, though many buildings are a bit run down and need some cleaning up, was still an amazing place. On Thursday, Christian's friend Clair played tour guide and showed the visiting friends myself, Jack and Malorie (friends' of Will, Christian's roommate) and Dina (cousin of their friend Illiad?) around prague. Showing us the Prague Castle which is more just a huge palace, the royal gardens, Charles' bridge (which was made back in the 1400s and they used eggs in the concrete to hold the bricks together) and the touristy streets.

The first night I was there Christian and I went to the old tow square to watch the Germany vs Equador game (Germany winning) and later saw the England vs Sweden game (Sweden winning and now Sweden and Germany play tonight, perhaps my last game to see in Germany). Then on Thursday it was the big game for the US vs Ghana, but also Czech and Italy were playing, and since we were with many Americans we had to try to hunt down a place that was showing the American game live. Took a while but we finally found a sports bar that out of 6 screens, 1 was of the American game. But both the US and Czech lost. ("They're going home, they're going home. US is going home").

Now you may ask, how did I get from Prague to Lübeck which is in northern Germany? Well luckily for me Christian had a Red Cross meeting in Schwerin, a beautiful city in northern germany, renting a car and let me join him on the 7 hour drive. We left at about 6:30am and drove through Prague, which seemed even more beautiful with the early sun, and by the Czech countryside. Occasionally you could see castles or fortresses on the hill tops. Was really beautiful. Right before the German boarder there is this small town which is full of erotica shops and bars. But at 8am we didn'T see any prostitutes walking around, damn. Then once we got to the Germany Christian decorated the Czech car with a German lay and German flag. We travelled through many small towns, Christian really itching to finally get to the Autobahn. When we finally got to the highway, Christian decided to try out how fast the little rental car could go and I think he got up to almost 200km/hr. I couln't believe I was in a car going that fast. Then most of the rest of the way he was driving steadily at 160km/h as if it was only 100. When we did drive at 120 or 130 it felt so slow. But it was really cool to experience that. The trucks though or only allowed to drive the max 80km/ which is much better than in Canada at like 120km/h.

but I have to jet. cheers and talk to you from Sweden.

World Cup

2006-06-19T08:47:00.000Z

I have been in Germany now for a whole week. It has been amazing. As I told my dad, though I am in Germany during the world cup, I have felt very safe here and have had no problems. Just great excitement. It is just amazing to be a part of something that is so huge and so many countries get into.

Even coming to Germany was an adventure. I came on Tuesday, June 13thI was travelling by train from Zürich to Stuttgart on the day it happened to be the Switzerland vs France game. The train was completely full of Swiss supporters, though I think I sat beside the only French guy on the train. His name is Gilbert and he was born in France but has lived in Switzerland about 40 years. He was with a group of Swiss fans, who playfully made fun of him that he wasn't wearing the French colours, supporting his team. There was also a guy from Argentina who was with them, wearing the Swiss colours.

Wearing soccer colours I think is kind of funny, since there are so many countries with the same colours on their flags. There are some flags that look exactly the same but is upside down or sideways to another. The Netherlands fixed this problem by having their soccer colour bright orange.

Coming off the train was definitely a sight to see, and I was right in the middle of it. All the Swiss fans were coming down the platform towards the station, waving their flags, cheering and some guys were banging drums. It was like a parade. Then once in the station they continued cheering and tossed flags in the air and everyone around was looking on. Later on, when I was walking around, you could see Swiss supporters everywhere, but I only saw a few French flags. Some Swiss police were added to the force for the World cup, since the Swiss are known to be more rowdy, but nothing that I know of happened. Just good fun.

I met up with my friend Christian Fett and he showed me around part of town and then later in the evening, Christian, his girlfriend Ingnes and I went to a beer garden on top of one of the many hills in Stuttgart. Two of the many things I like about Germany are their Beer Gardens and their Ice Cafes. Our friend Christian Paul (yes another one, and there is one more yet) and his girlfriend joined us and we sat chatted (mostly about school, seems most people in Stuttgart are Engineers) in this cute beergarden, with stone floor and wall, trees surrounding it and looking out at the gorgeous view of the city.

On Wednesday was the Germany vs Poland game, and of course I had to go see the game on their big screens. All the cities have several areas where screens have been set up (food and beer is available to purchase) for people to come together and watch the games for free. Wow. It was like my train ride in but 10x more exciting. We weren't even standing inside the beer tent where the screens were; we were standing behind the fences and we were still in a huge mob of German fans. There were black, red and yellow wherever you looked. Christian (Fett) said that he had never seen so many German flags in one place. Germans are finally feeling proud again to be German. There were a few Polish flags but you really had to search for them. For most of the game it was hard to see the screens, even though they were huge, due to all the people, but Christian would update me on what was happening. Even though not much really happened in the game until the last minutes, the energy of the fans remained at a high level. In the last minutes of the game, Germany finally made a successful goal and all of Germany must have been cheering. After the game, most people, including us, went to beer gardens to celebrate. The day after, everything seemed to have gone back to normal.

In the days I was in Stuttgart, Christian showed me Birkenhopf (I think that is how it is spelt) this hill which after WW2 a lot of the remains of old buildings were piled on top of this hill. We also went to their TV tower, which at some point was the tallest building. Both places had a great view of Stuttgart and the surrounding area. When we were at the tower there was a guy there who was going to run up the stairs of the tower to beat the record. We got to the top before him by elevator but when he reached the top, he seemed like he did it every day.

I even got to see Mario and Brian, once Gamli Gardur mates. It was really a coincidence since Brian was only there for 2 days because he was passing through to head back to Iceland, hoping to work on a fishing boat for the summer. It was nice to see them again.

On Friday, June 16th, the day I left Stuttgart, it was the Netherlands vs Cote D'ivoire playing and there was orange everywhere. The dutch even had crazy Elvis like hairdoes that were orange and orange clogs.

I was now heading to visiting Bettina. We met in Würzburg where we walked around the downtown, she showed me the little brother of the Versaille Castle and we enjoyed milkshakes and a sundae at an Ice Cafe. We went to a music festival, all bands I didn't know. German rock/emo bands. After wondering around the festival and the bazaars looking for something nice and cheap to buy but unsuccessful, we decided to head home, to Bettina's family'S house in Grettstadt.

On Saturday we took a train to Nürnberg where we did some shopping, and then headed to one of the beer tents to watch some soccer. On the way there, really in the middle of it, was the place where Hitler made many of his speeches. Was kind of weird to see that in the middle of such world wide excitement for soccer.

On Sunday we went to a swimming pool and basked in the sun and cooled off in the pool for most of the day. When we got home we ate some strawberry cake, drank champagne with Bettina'S mom, aunt and uncle, brother and his girlfriend. They add some elder icecream to the champagne which makes it fizz up and taste very sweet. Bettina's uncle is learning english in order to be able to work in England as a general practitioner. To me, his English sounded very good and he had only been learning intensely for the past 8 weeks. I wish him luck. I was so amazed that even a man of his age, maybe in his 50's or 60'S, was working so hard to obtain his dream even though if he gets the position he might only work another 10 years. It as refreshing to see his dedication.

Right now I am in Hof, where Bettina goes to school. We had to wake up early in order to get a ride here so she and the car pool could get to class by 8am. I got to experience being on the Auto Bahn though. Seemed like we were constantly excelerating and even still people were passing us. I wonder if it is true that Germans are better drivers.

Tomorrow I go to Prague, to visit another Christian.

Swisstown

2006-06-10T10:09:00.000Z

Just a quick message. Sorry it has been awhile but have been busy and have had little access to internet.

I was in Belfast, Northern Ireland visiting my friend Fionnuala. Ireland is really beautiful, though I didn't like Dublin so much, but I was only there for 3 hours so couldn't see much of it. The countryside was gorgeous and peaceful, after so much city life. Despite what Fionnuala says, Belfast is really nice too. Was weird going on a bus tour of the city and the guide was pointing out places that had been bombed, one hotel is actually in the guiness book of records for being the most bombed building at 45 times. The city feels realy safe now though and I had no problems, haha except Finny's brother hitting on me the first night at the pub.

Then I flew back to London on June th in the morning and met up with Martina and Sonya again and we wandered around the Camden Market. I only bought some sunglasses that can fit over my glasses that kind of look like Dana's bugeye sunglasses (sorry mom your glasses broke and didn't fit comfortably, but I will get you new ones).

I spent one night in Brussels on mz way to Switzerland. Again I wasn't there long enough to really get to know the place. I tried to find a store that sold Tin Tin books but I guess I was in the wrong part of town. I also didn't see any belgium waffles. I was really happy when people were speaking French and I could actually understand them. So there is nothing wrong with my french, it is just crazy quebecois talk funny :P

Now I am in Zurich with Sereina. I think Switzerland is my favourite stop so far. The landscape and the architecture is so beautiful. I'd really love to work or live here for a while. Sereina showed me Winterthur, Stein am Rhein and Shaffhausen yesterday. In Shaffhausen we watched the German vs Costa Rica game in a beer tent. Was a lot of fun but a lot of the Swiss were cheering for Costa Rica. Then last night we went to a Russian Disco. Wow, never heard so much Russian music before, but was so much fun. I really missed dancing (can't really dance in Bar 11). And Swiss boys are cute :)

Well I should go. We are heading downtown Zurich today. Sereina lives in a suburb which is surrounded with trees and plant life that it doesn't feel like we are actually in a city so will be neat to see the downtown.

bye for now.

Greetings from the UK

2006-05-31T23:09:00.000Z

Sorry I won't be able to write more about my trip around Iceland but I will try to do it once I get home (hopefully I remember everything).

Well, I am in London at the moment, at a hostel near King's Cross. My mom just left this morning to go back home after our two weeks together, first half in Iceland and second half in the UK. We started by flying into Glasgow then the next day took a train north to Mallaig, it was raining for most of the time there though it was very beautiful. The train ride there is suppose to be the most scenic in the UK. It was nice to see trees and forests again and more variety of plant life, but I feel I was spoiled with the Icelandic beautiful landscape I didn't appreciate the scenery as much. But also it has been sinking in that this past year is over. It was still an amazing trip.

After that we headed to Edinburgh for 2 days. We took a bus tour around the city and went to the castle and the art gallery. Then we came to London on Monday. Mom showed me around some areas, including Lennox Gardens where she lived and the building which used to me the hospital she worked at back in the early 70's. Much has changed since then. Both London and Edinburgh are beautiful cities and have so much history. The architecture is beautiful and is neat to be around so much history. I went on the bus tour of London today and will probably try and see some of the galleries tomorrow. And should be meeting up with Martina and/or Sonya in the next two days then will be heading to Northern Ireland. Taking a ferry to Dublin then up to Belfast to meet up with Fionnuala. It will be nice to see some familiar faces again.

Well should go. Don't know when I will post again but will try at least once a week to update on things.

bye for now.

Ring Road and then some

2006-05-21T22:56:00.000Z

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted anything. So much has happened in the past month it is hard to recap on everything, but I will try to sum some of it up.

I was very busy with essays and exams for most of April and beginning of May, but some how made it through and finished them all. It felt strange to be done school because I knew that it meant the end was coming near. Summer was finally coming (April 21st is seen as the first day of summer, considering Iceland really only had 2 seasons anyway). The sun is out much longer, barely any darkness if any at all and the plants finally blossoming.

Next my dad came for his second trip to Iceland in the beginning of may, arriving May 4th and leaving May 16th. He busied himself for the first 4 days while I was studying for exams. Then on May 8th, dad, Tisho, Adrian and I rented a car and spent 5 days driving around the West Fjords and the Ring Road of Iceland. The trip was amazing. It is hard to describe how beautiful, but also intense, the areas of Iceland are. I have posted my photos (though unfortunately my camera and the photo program didn't upload them in order) and have added Tisho's photo site to the links list.

The first day we didn't leave Reykjavik until around 2pm, after stocking up on groceries and packing up the car, we drove north. One section of the roads we took was under construction and so had huge piles of rocks to maneuver around but we managed through it, will little damage to the car, and continued on. When we got to the beginning of the fjords, we stopped in the small town Reykhólar where we filled up on gas and had some sandwiches for lunch. An adorable tiny dog came to visit us, though it was hopping on 3 legs since one was bandaged in a little cast. The owner tried to call the dog back but the dog was ecstatic, making a new friend out of Tisho. We drove up and down through the main street of the town, which didn't take long, saw some horses, sheep and baby sheep and then continued on. Once we had reached the West Fjords we encountered many gravel, steep roads but the scenery helped destract some of the worries. The roads winded around the fjords and over the mountains. Sometimes there were some sheep along side or on the roads. It was beginning to get late, though not really near dark, so we began looking for a place to stay for the night. We tried one farmhouse but they were renovating for the summer for the tourist season, but they suggested we tried a place down the street. We drove down the road to Krossholt and walked around the town (which took about a minute) found the owner of the guesthouse who let us in, though none of the houses were locked. The place was kind of messy, wasn't cleaned up after the last guest, but it was still really nice and had a beautiful view of the sea and mountains.

Second day, we woke up at the crack of dawn, or at least the sun woke up and blaring before 5am and we struggled to get a few more hours of sleep in. We finally ended up leaving around 9:30am. We were heading to Ísafjörður, the largest town in the west fjords, in hope of meeting up with David, Sarah and Erin, some friends from Gamli Garður, who were also travelling the West Fjörds (ended up being a popular place to go that week). On the way we travelled over mountains, some snow covered, and steep cliffs, and we passed an impressive water fall, which both Tisho and I have photos of. We winded around more fjords, with beautiful countryside and tiny farms and hamlets. We made it to Ísafjöður by around 12:30. We phoned David and he told us they were about an hour out of town, so Tisho and I went to the pool and my Dad and Adrian wandered around. After an hour or so we reconvened and met up with the Gamli crew. They had gone the opposite way around the fjords so we exchanged notes on about the ways we went, describing nice areas and places to watch out for. We had some coffee, took some photos, but then soon had to get ready to leave. We said goodbye to Sara, because she was going to be heading back home before we would make it back to Reykjavik, and then continued on our journey. This part of the fjords was also very beautiful, appearing somewhat different than the ones we had passed. The sun seemed brighter now and the mountains more green. We drove for about 4 hours, zig-zagging around the fjords, and more construction areas, and made it to Hólmavík by around 8pm. Here there is a witchcraft museum, which the others had been to the day before. We phoned the owner and he came and let us in. We got headsets and listened a commentary while walking around the museum. It told us of Icelandic beliefs in magic, the burning trials (where 21 men and only one woman were burned at the stake) and then a few magical practices like necro-pants and tilbaris (which steal milk from farms). After spending about an hour here we headed to a guesthouse to stay for the night. We stayed at Kirkjuból which again had a beautiful view of the sea. We made dinner, then Adrian, Tisho and I wandered the area a bit, finding a small water fall near by and then walked along the beach, seeing birds and shell remainings on the beach and we even glimpsed the head of a seal popping in and out of the water.

This is all for now but I will post the rest of the trip soon.

Only in Iceland...

2006-04-03T20:25:00.000Z

I have been trying to collect little quirks about living in Iceland which are different than from Canada. So here is my list so far:

1. A yellow traffic light means slow down AND speed up. And red lights are optional.

2. You look forward to expired food in the grocery stores because then it goes on sale.

3. You can have official alcohol drinking contests (apparently there was one somewhere in the northern part of the country, and several of the contestants were underage)

4. You will have sun, rain, wind, snow, hail, sleat (though no thunder or lightning, seems weird to go a year without a thunder storm) all in one day.

5. You can drink as much alcohol as you can on weekends and that is considered normal, but if you drink during the week you are considered an alcoholic.

6. In Canada you would predrink at 9pm, go to the bar at 11pm and come home at 2am. In Iceland, you predrink at 12am, go to the bar at 2am and come home at 6am.

7. You do not drink alcohol at dinner, even holiday dinners. You drink pop or coffee.

8. You can buy not only water and power drinks at the pool or athletic areas, but also pop, chocolate milk and all kinds of coffee as well (don't they dehydrate you?)

9. If you need to ask for information for anything, never ask the people that it is their job to know the answers, because they won't know.

10. Icelanders are so trusting that they would leave their laptop on a table in a cafe and leave for a half an hour and return and not fear it to be missing. Or they would ask a complete stranger to watch over their kiosk at a flea market while they leave for 10 mins. BUT their bikes are stolen and their $200 boots are snatched at the pool.

11. People will dress up in their best clothing to go study at the library. You actually feel like a hippy if you are wear comfortable jeans and a sweat shirt.

Well that is it for now.. this list will grow more, just can't think of anything more at the moment.

at the edge of the world

2006-03-27T12:33:00.000Z

On the weekend I went to Bifrost, which in Norse beliefs was where the world of the gods and earth met with a rainbow bridge connecting them. It is also a very small town of 1800 people, 100 km north of Reykjavik. I was visiting my friend Bettina who is from Germany but studies in Bifrost at their Business University of 700 students.

I got there early evening on Friday. Bettina picked me up from Borgarnes where the bus dropped me off. The town is really small. It looks like a middle class suburb from a town but in the middle of nowhere, without any stores, just houses and the school with one cafe that is part of the school. There are a lot of young families and single mothers and a large portion of the population are the students.

So we get to her place. It is quite cold and windy, compared to Reykjavik which was cool but little wind when I left. We struggle dragging a mattress from Mathieu's (Bettina's friend at the school from france) room to Bettina's place. We made some pizzas and watched The March of the Penguins (which I thought originally was a cartoon but ended up being a beautiful documentary of the antartic penguins) with Bettina's roommate Monica (also from Germany). Later the three of us plus Mathieu went to the school's "swimming pool" (more of a kiddie pool) and hot tub, thinking there was suppose to be a party but only two other random Icelandic guys were there. The sky was very clear, but no northern lights to be seen. After the hot tub we hung out in Mathieu's room for a bit listening to some french music. But I really exhausted and nearly fell asleep on his bed so we headed back to Bettina's place and crashed.

On Saturday, the sun woke me up (which has now become my natural alarm clock). We ate some of Bettina's home made dense, seedy bread with jam and apples and tea. Then we got dressed (I was stupid and somehow forgot to bring a sweater and a touque) and prepared for hiking around the area. There is a volcano crater near by that we walked to. It was insanely windy and cold. When we were on the top a few times it felt like we would have been blown off the edge. It was hard to take pictures with the wind and my hand feeling like it was freezing. After walking around the top we tried to find a short cut back to Bettina's place. We first tried walking down one road which ended up leading to some summer houses and a fence. We back-tracked and found and opening in the fence, then walked through a lava field, finding a frozen river, so we followed that for a little while. There were lava cliffs around us and we weren't sure where we were and climbed up it and found we had actually walked past Bettina's house but at least we had made it to Bifrost and went home to warm up with some tea and lunch. After a bit of a rest we met up with Mathieu and then headed out again to see the lake near by.

On the cold windy walk down the dirt road, we must have looked quite funny all wrapped up with only our eyes not covered. Then all of a sudden some Icelandic guy (maybe 16 yrs old) stomps past us with big head phones wearing a black trench coat that wasn't even closed. We thought it so typically Icelandic (they seem to be immuned to the cold, or at least some, the rest use their cars as coats). We wondered what he was listening to and why he seemed so upset. We continue walking down the road, taking some pictures of the scenery. After some time when the guy was further in the distance a silver car drives passes us and stops beside the guy and he gets in and then they drive off. I think that perhaps he may have had an arguement with a parent and stormed off and the parent came to pick him up and discuss what ever the arguement was about. But who knows..

The lake seemed to not get any closer and we were really cold so think of walking to a river near by (which was probably actually a 45 min walk away). On the way though we decide it would probably be more sensible to go back to Bifrost and get the car to drive to the river, and also warm up a bit. On our journey home some purple car kept driving by, I guess crusing for the lack of anything else to do in the town. We made it home and more tea was boiled. Bettina was then preparing to make a new loaf of her bread while I wrote down the recipe to try out later. While we waited for the bread to rise we tried warming up in the sunlight on the couch and had a small nap. Once risen and popped in the oven we headed out to the river in the car. It was quite pretty, with a small walk through a birch scragly forest and a waterfall and fish stairs. We watched the sun set behind the mountains surrounding us then headed home. We all had dinner together. We made a pasta caserole with salad and wine. Really yummy. We watched some tv (I saw the most amount of TV this weekend than I had since my trip to Akureyri with my dad) and then Mathieu and Bettina tried to dance to Beyonce. Then I was off to bed.

Sunday I woke up again early from the sun. I watched some cartoons, which I was surprised were in english and not Icelandic, for most of the morning and then Bettina drove me to Borgarnes for the bus at 2:45 and then off home. The cold weather had followed me to Reykjavik, now being windy and cold again here (where did our nice spring go?).

Fear of Regret

2006-03-22T17:59:00.000Z

Last weekend I had a dream, I don't really remember everything that happened but I remember the feeling. I know I was coming back to Canada but felt so unfullfilled, unsatisfied, disappointed with myself. Like I had not done everything I possibly could in Iceland. It was quite a shock. Really got me thinking of what I want to accomplish here. I have about two months left, though I have three papers and two exams, there are a few more things I want to do.

My list will probably grow more but so far I know I have to:
- hike up Esja,
- hitchhike (at least once, considering it is probably much safer to do it here than in Canada, or anywhere really),
- go all the way around the Ring Road (which I will be doing in whole or split between my mom and dad in May),
- try the Icelandic's hard liquor Opal or Topaz (which I think is suppose to taste like licorice and the candy called the same),
- need to eat more Icelandic hotdogs with everything on them (haven't had one in months)
- eat as much Skyr and Surmjölk(sour milk, really good with crunchy muesli) as I can, considering I can't get them in Canada (at least I know Skyr isn't, but not sure about sour milk, perhaps it is similar to buttermilk? or unsweetened yogurt)
- try one of every type of Icelandic candy (Brian, I don't remember if you liked the stuff I gave you or not..) But I am starting to like licorice now.
- knit myself an Icelandic sweater. It will be so much cheaper (probably around 3000 kronur (less than $60) instead of buying a store bought one for 14000 kronur (around $300) and I will have the satisfaction of having completed the sweater myself.
- and finally try and hang out with my friends here more that I may not see again or not for a long time. I feel like I have not been working hard enough on my friendships here and worry I will lose them.

I think I have been concentrating so much on my trip this summer that I sometimes forget that I am already in another country filled with adventures to experience. So I need to live to the fullest here. And not regret anything.

The Fall of the Pharoahs

2006-03-21T10:18:00.000Z

Day 4:

The last day in the Faroe Islands. Most of us woke up around 8am and then we had to pack and clean up the hostel. then the cars were to drive the luggage downtown to the bus terminal around 10 and then they had to be returned to the rental place by about 10:30. We were able to do one load with both cars that carried all the big luggage of everyone and perhaps more than half of the people down to the bus station. We still had about 4 hours till the bus to the airport at 3pm. We stuffed all our luggage into lockers at the station, and with most of us split up into groups we wander around the city once more.

It is still raining. I found out that it actually rains quite often in the Faroes, it is quite rare and you are very lucky if there is nice weather. Oh well.

So we walk around in search of more yarn. Julia, Fionnuala, Anna Vala and Ásta actually knit regularly but the knitting bug had effected most of us. I didn't buy any yarn in the Faroes but I knitted a scarf and now want to attempt knitting my own icelandic sweater, but before that I should probably knit one more thing before, probably leg or arm warmers. I just need to try and start the sweater here so I have people to help me if I screw up.

I think we ended up going to every single possible knitting store in Tórshavn. We also went back to the organic wool store where Gunnar bought a sweather, Julia bought a sweater/jacket and Ásta bought a pin made of sheep horn. We went back the Galleri Jinx for lunch and Leif and Roisin were there, and then Tom and Hannah later came. Then Julia, Ásta and I wandered around the older part of the city. It was really pretty, cobbled streets and all turf roofed houses. It was kind of strange because I think people still live in some of them so we were kind of trespassing, but I guess they would be use to crazy tourists. The 3 of us went to Kaffi Natur where everyone was resting and then it was time to head to the bus.

We unloaded the lockers and piled up the bus and off we went. It was insanely foggy at this point and some parts of the way you could not see anything around us. We get to the airport with nothing happening.

We check in our luggage and get our tickets only to find that our plane has been delayed. It is now about 4pm and our flight is suppose to leave at 5pm but the plane is not expected until close to 8pm. Everyone then uses this time to buy and write postcards. Luckily there was a computer in the terminal with the internet so you could look up people's addresses. I also bought this chocolate bar which I think is now my favourite. It is called Drifter by Nestlé, and I think it is made in Switzerland, but it is as if a Twix and a Kit Kat made love and this is its offspring. I have decided I need to try (almost) every type of chocolate bar on my trip. There are some good ones here. They are obsessed with licorice and they try and put it in all types of chocolate and candy. I used to hate black licorice but now that it has sneaked in through chocolate I am starting not to mind it.

After waiting for a few hours they announce of the intercom that the airport will be providing us a free meal due to the delay. At this point almost everyone in my group had already purchased a thing of fries from the kiosk thing in the airport. So the meal they provided was an assortment of open-faced sandwiches. One which had a mountain of shrimp on it, another with sliced hard-boiled eggs and shrimp, and the last had either smoked beef or lamb with some mustard and horseraddish sauce and crunions on top (crunions being crispy fried onions, commonly put on hotdogs in iceland). They were pretty good but I think so much shrimp was giving many people stomach aches, at least I was starting to feel funny.

Perhaps 30 mins later they announced they were boarding the plane so we collected our things and headed to the gate. The plane was about the same size as the plane to the Faroes, but I think this time it maye have been half full rather than one third full. More chocolate and alcohol were bought at duty free on the plane and at the airport in Reykjavik. It was somewhat cooler in Reykjavik, and it apparently snowed over the weekend, but there was little wind and it wasn't raining (haha yes Reykjavik was as so!).

Faeroe Islands

2006-03-19T11:28:00.000Z

Day 3:
On Sunday morning most of us were awake by 7 or 8am getting ready for our day of adventure. Mathieu and Gunnar had planned to go hiking on Vágar for the day and then Fionnuala decided to join them and they rushed to the bus station. Tom, Ásta and Julia were originally going to bus to Leirvík then ferry to Klaksvík and then bus back, but while waiting at the bus station they met up with Mathieu, Gunnar and Fionnuala and decided to join them. I should add that it was very cloudy, rainy and windy day.

So it leaves me, Leif, Roisin, Maren, Hannah, Adrian, Anna Vala and Linda. Leif, Roisin and I were trying to arrange cars to rent for the day. First problem, we are not sure if we can even get the cars because the only drivers with liscences with them (me and Leif) are not 21 which is the age limit for renting cars. Second, if the cars don't work out we want to be able to get to the bus station for 10:55 to Leirvík, and at that moment it was 10am. Third, none of the taxis are available (still busy with business from the night before!) and the rental place is probably a good 30 min walk away. So Roisin phones the rental place asking if he can pick us (Roisin, Leif and moi) up. We get there and hope that they don't mention the age restriction. Luckily he doesn't say anything, BUT they only have one automatic car to rent, we end up having to get the second in standard. So Leif drives me and Roisin back in the automatic, we pick up Maren, who can drive standard, we get back to the rental place (the guy had already given us the key, didn't even care about seeing her liscence, which was lucky considering she had left it in Iceland), her and I hopped into the standard, both cars drove back to the hotel and picked up everyone. Then we were on our way.

Originally Linda was going to take the helicopter to Klaksvik, meet up with people there and then take the bus back. Then she was going to drive with us to Klaksvik and then take the helicopter back to Tórshavn, but really there was no point because it would be rainy, windy, foggy all day, so she would not see anything.

Several of the people were still quite tired or hung over, so we were going to drive until Oyrarbakki, which said on the map had a Shell station and a restaurant. So off we went. Even though the weather was kind of crappy, the view was still nice. There were many waterfalls streaming down the mountains/hills/cliffs. We saw many wet looking sheep munching away on soggy grass. After maybe 30 mins or so of driving we arrive in Oyrarbakki, but the Shell station is closed. So we look at the map and it says there is a restaurant in Eiði, so we decide to head there. At this time both Maren and I have to pee really bad. Perhaps another 10-15 mins we arrived in Eiði. We parked by this info booth which said WC on the side, but only the guys washroom was open which only had urinals. The day before Anna Vala had bought this gag gift of these cardboard funnels for girls to be able to pee standing up, and at this point I thought it would have been really useful to have one of these. So we trek through (more up) Eiði looking for this supposed restaurant. It is almost getting painful now. Maren and I had run ahead of everyone hoping to come across something. She decides to pee behind some barn, but it was part of someone's property, just beside the garage so I was worried someone would come out and see us. So I continue on my way and it seems never ending. I come across this school which is deserted. I run behind the building which has a rock cliff right behind, drop my pants and relieve myself. I come out and meet up with everyone else. Leif and I decide we should probably go back and get the cars to drive up and look for the restaurant. We all return to the cars and drive up the windy roads up the cliff of Eiði. We have to double back a few times but we finally found this restaurant, which looks like it has been closed for several years now. So no food or coffee for us, but now that Maren and I are relieved we can continue on.

Next stop is Gjógv. Here there is suppose to be a Sea-stack, some rock formation that comes out of the sea. We arrive and it has a pretty river flowing through the town. Similar style of houses as the other towns we have been in and is right on the ocean. We drive around and find this hotel-looking place. We park and wonder in side. It looks like a family reunion and just in time for dinner. The owner of the place though comes and greets us (seems every Faroesean can speek perfect English). We actually happened upon a hostel and said we were welcomed to the food once the others had their fill. We just wanted some coffee so he made us two big pots of it. Roisin had some of the soup, which was cream of broccoli. I tasted some, it was good but I had brought food and had eaten earlier in the car.

After "lunch" we take a walk to see if we can see the Sea-stacks, though the guy at the hostel said it was a good 2 hour walk. We walk up to the end of the cliff and look out to the ocean. It was really windy here and I felt like I'd be picked up and thrown over in to the sea. We took some photos and then continued back in car.

Now we were heading to Leirvík to catch the ferry to Klaksvík. At this point Leif had switched places with me and I was now driving. It was fun to be driving again. The roads at least were not back, but it was still raining and getting foggy. After perhaps 20 mins we made it to Leirvík but just then we had just missed a ferry but we saw a building with a Bowling sign so we decided to pass the time playing. Leif and Roisin said the next ferry was at 5pm I think so we had lots of time to spare considering it was 3:30pm at the time. In Bowling I was playing with Maren and we were doing really well in the beginning but by the end Leif some how jinxed me and all my balls went into the gutters, so then Leif and Adrian ended up winning. When we were returning the shoes Leif had asked about the ferry and we found out that actually ferry left at 4:30 and the next ferry was at 6. So we went to the restaurant beside the bowling to discuss what to do. If we took the ferry at 6pm would not get to Klaksvik until 7pm, and it would be getting dark, and would be just a waste of money. So we decided to drive more around the island we were on.

We started heading out but then it was raining more and was getting even more foggy as well it was starting to get a bit darker. So we pulled over and agreed to just head back to Tórshavn. We got back in 30 mins.

When we got back Fionnuala and Ásta were already back and told of their hike, and attempt to climb a mountain but they, and Tom and Julia decided to head back and Gunnar and Mathieu continued on. Tom and Julia were going to take the bus, and Fionnuala and Ásta hitchhiked back to the hostel. Tom and Julia had not showed up yet though. Around 6:30 Mathieu and Gunnar arrived. They had actually taken the 4:30 bus home but stopped for dinner in the city. Perhaps and hour and a half later Julia and Tom finally showed up. They had decided last minute to try and walk to the waterfalls at the south of Vágar, then took the bus back. Everyone was soaking wet.

After warming up a bit and eating we were going to head downtown. Because we still had the cars we were able to drive everyone down, though in a few shifts. A few went to the pizza place I had been on Friday, then me Mathieu, Gunnar, Roisin, Leif, Adrian and Kristján went to some sports bar with pool tables. It was me and Mathieu against Leif and Roisin. Leif was really good so their team kicked our ass the first game, but I think we won the second game. The the others that had gone to the restaurant joined us, we hung out for a bit then went to our hang out place Kaffi Natur where Maren, Hannah, Linda and Julia were.

I found it weird in the Faroes because I am used to having a good sense of direction but some reason in Tórshavn I never had a clue which way was which. So when I was driving people back to the hostel (I had to do two trips) the first trip I wasn't sure which road I had to take to the right which would take me all the way up to the main road, so I went a bit too far and had to wind around back to where I started and finally found the right street. The second time I picked people straight from the bar and we had to find the street which would get us to the street where I could turn right then drive up the road up to the main road.. but there were many one way streets and one street had construction halfway between so had to turn back. After some more detouring I finally found the way back up.

When we returned Anna Vala and Fionnuala had bought some chocolate bars and milk and made some hot chocolate. Was so yummy :) Then Tom made nylon roped- bracelets/anklets for everyone, except Adrian (who is a wimp). We have to keep it on until it falls off and it will remind us all of our trip to the Faroe Islands with the friends we met in Iceland.

Far Faroe way

2006-03-17T09:37:00.001Z

Day 2:
on the second day I woke up around 7am, still tired, and glanced out the window and it looks beautiful. The sun is rising, gold light illuminating the landscape. I thought to myself it is going to be a nice day. But I laid back down for a few more winks of sleep and actually get up around 9am. I showered, dressed, ate some oatmeal and then a group of us head downtown to explore the "city".

By this time the nice sun I saw at 7 had decided to hide behind some white clouds. It is beginning to rain when we decide to go to this Gallerí Jinx café. We all get hot drinks and something to eat for breakfast. Most of us got the breakfast sandwich which is a crusty bun with butter, jam, cheese, and ham. I have started to love having cheese and jam sandwiches (inspired by my norwegian friend Sverre, he said that it is only good with red jams but I tried it with apricot jam and it was still fine. I also tried peanut butter, jam and cheese, would have been really good but I was eating it on a whole wheat tortilla I made and it was quite dry and floury and was starting to taste like harðfisk by the end of the sandwich). Adrian bought an actual breakfast with the tiniest sausages, some kind of pancakes, eggs, bacon and the same sandwhich thing the rest of us had.

When we were done eating, it had stopped raining or snowing or hailing, whatever it was doing, and we continue on our exploration. We stop by a knitting store (Faroe Islands are as well known for their sheep and wool as Iceland) and browse around. Mathieu and Gunnar were modelling the stylish wool tuques for us. In the place there were a variety of styles of wool jackets, sweaters, skirts, slippers, mittens, tuques, all which were organical coloured so all were brown, beige or black. They were quite beautiful, but quite expensive and I didn't know when I would wear it so I didn't buy anything, but we would end up at this store several times through out or trip.

After wool shop we finally start exploring the streets. Tórshavn is quite hilly so we were walking up and down these steep elevations throughout the day. I think my calves had a good work out from the weekend. The streets are more windy than in Iceland, and some are cobbled. The houses are somewhat similar but as I said before there were a lot more turf roofed houses. There was also more nature it felt here than in Reykjavik (well relative for its size). There were trees, and mossy stone walls, grass, and lets not forget the sheep. One house in the middle of town had 3 sheep in its backyard. One major difference we noticed is in Tórshavn there were a lot more dogs. We kept stopping to pet the cute dogs tied outside. In Reykjavík you see cats more frequently. I think I only saw one or two cats the whole trip in the Faroes.

Then we went to the mall to find some food. The mall was quite small, probably smaller than Conestoga Mall, though, as Adrian described it, it look like a type of mall you would see in a dream. The outside was blue cast-iron with yellow stairs spiralling down, kind of looking like a childrens playground. Inside it was marble with stairs spirally up to the main level, high ceiling with a large sky-light, glass divider between the mall and the foodcourt. We found another knitting store and more yarn was purchased. On the ground floor was a kind of grocery/convenient store, so we load up on food to last the rest of the weekend. The store even had cheddar (Irish cheddar) so I bought some. I hadn't had cheddar in so long, well maybe one or two bites throughout the year from people bringing it back from North America, but when I ate some it wasn't as magnificant as I remembered, but perhaps it was only mild cheddar, not the fort kind. It will be weird to go back home and cheddar being the norm again and gouda a rarety. I wonder if gouda would even taste the same back home?

While at the mall we end up running into the other half of our group of people. We discuss for a bit what we were going to do today and our big plans for tomorrow.. perhaps bus ride, perhaps helicopter ride, perhaps some hiking. We'd decide later. So my original group and I continue on our way, this time heading towards the Nordic House. It is much larger than the one here in Iceland. On the outside there is a zig-zag stone stairway up, metal sheep and all the nordic flags up at half mass (not quite sure what happened but heard some kids were killed in a town somewhere in the Faroes). Inside the nordic house it was quite pretty, some artwork was up for display, but there really wasn't much to do in the place. There were two auditoriums, perhaps for movies, concerts or conferences.

After a bit of a rest, our backs were killing from the weight of our food, we head out towards the art gallery. Gunnar takes us through a short-cut which ended up being a bog and Fionnuala got her feet soaked. But it did end up being quite faster, and on the way we ran into Leif and Roisin, also heading to the gallery. This one Faroesean artists was on display, nickname Mikines after the island Mykines. He painted mostly scenery from the island where he grew up, but also several paintings on death. Most of his family had died from tuberculosis or the war, so much sadness in his life. A lot of the artwork was really beautiful but some, mostly of other artists, were kind of plain or boring.

After this, I was quite tired and my back was sore from the groceries, so me and Marin decide to trek back up the hill to our hostel. On the way we walked through this forest in the centre of town. Marin commented how fake the forest looked, considering the trees didn't look native and like Iceland, there are very few trees there. But it was quite beautiful and nice to be among trees again. There was even a little pond with many ducks and swan, though one swan seemed quite threatening so we kept going. We dragged ourselves up the hill and finally made it to our hostel and crashed.

Later in the evening, Mathieu and I made spaghetti together but he had the bright idea to add sardines to the sauce. So it ended up being a very fishy meal. He even admitted it had been a bad idea. After our meal we all had a cup or two of coffee (really bad idea, tossed and turned most of the night) and planned out Sunday (which I will talk about in the next post, considering most of our plans didn't turn out how we thought).

Faroe way

2006-03-15T12:21:00.000Z

I am back from the Pharoahs, the land of dry deserts, pyramids and scarabs. Well maybe not quite.

Day 1:
I got all packed up (all in one backpack, practising for Europe), then Adrian and I took the bus to Mathieu's place to help him carry his luggage to the airport. He was bringing his bike and planning to bike around the islands this week. Good luck to that bastard.

There are 15 of us in total (from Gamli: me, Tom, Adrian, Julia, Leif, former gamli Mathieu; from Álfhús: Roisin, Fionnuala, Hannah, Marin and Linda; & our icelandic friends Anna Vala, Ásta, Gunnar and Kristján) and we get all checked in, and around 2 they open the doors towards the plane and everyone loads up on duty-free merchandise (mostly alcohol and candy) and pile into the plane. We get sandwiches, drinks and chocolate, and we have a beautiful view of Iceland through the plane window as we fly over it (pics will be on my site soon).

As we are nearing our destination we can see large cliffs emerging from the ocean as we fly in between them. We land on Vágar island, take out some money in the airport (the Faroes use Danish kroners, though are starting to have their own bills, kind of easy to convert from icelandic because you just move the decimal to the left when going to danish, though it is slightly more) and then take the bus to the capital Tórshavn. On the way we go through small towns, with similar looking to houses as in Iceland but more turf-roofed buildings. And a lot of sheep. Many lightly snowed mountains, cliffs, and waterfalls.

We arrive in Tórshavn and Gunnar arranges taxis, and most of us, except Anna Vala, Leif and Roisin who decide to walk (ends up being about 45 mins, which we end up having to walk up and down many times), are driven up to our hostel on the top of the cliff looking over the city. We get settled in and eat some food, some starting to crack open the booze, using drinks from some vending machine with what might be 5 or 10 year old pop as mixers. A group of us head down the cliff, through the maze of streets towards downtown to some pizza place, where pizzas and fries were bought, except for my pepsi (I kind of walked out and forgot to pay). After food we headed to the café/pub Kaffi Natur, which would be our hang out place for the rest of our trip.

Taxi home and then sleep...

2006-03-07T10:12:00.000Z

So what is new?

I am officially going to the Faroe Islands this weekend, from the 10th until the 13th. I believe there is a group of 15 of us going. Most will probably stay in the hotel Gunnar has been organizing for us but some (including myself though may not) want to camp out in a tent. I have no idea what to expect. I just hope there is nice weather. It will be nice to get out of the city and be among nature again and see new places.

I also have a job.. kind of.. I worked for the first time on Saturday at this cafe Kaffi Vín. My dad and I went there once when he was here. The boss was just giving me a try but I won't actually be hired until my residence permit is renewed and I get a work permit. But also the boss is going into hospital for surgery for the next few weeks and said something about her daughter would be taking over but wouldn't be there until the 17th, which I don't understand, but I suppose I can't work until the 17th anyway, but I guess that means I will only have a month of work and can't work too much considering in April I have all my essays and exams, but then again I have barely any classes so have a lot of time off. Any money is a help.

But on my first day of work, overall it went alright, though a few things went wrong. First I ended up spilling milk all over a customer. I was collecting the dishes from this table where there is a step up to it and I forgot this and missed the step and the dishes were going to start flying everywhere though I managed to balance most of them the milker went flying and fell on the guy and the seat and the floor, luckily it didn't break though. The guy started splurring out (I know it isn't a real word but should be) things going back and forth between icelandic and english, making a big performance of it but not actually seeming like he cared that much. He asked for some soda water to clean his jacket, hung it over a chair to dry then continued on with his conversation, paying little attention to me. But I didn't mind. I just wiped up the milk and continued with my work.

Then later in the day it was just me and Roger from Indonesia working. He had said the cook/boss had gone out for a bit for a rest and would be back later. Everything was fine until an English couple came in and wanted some food. I took their order and hoped Kristín would show up soon. Throughout the day people had been coming into visit her and she would go chat with them, so I thought she might be with some friends but I glanced through the place and didn't see her. After about 20 mins or so, we started to get anxious. We told the couple that we didn't know where the cook was and when she'd be back, and perhaps they'd prefer to either order some dish that was easier to make or go somewhere else. But right when they were leaving, we saw Kristín, she had been sitting at some table socializing. Well Roger and I felt pretty stupid, but I guess Roger didn't understand that she wasn't leaving the building.. but oh well. Doesn't really matter. Though I don't know when I will next work. The experience will be good though, so maybe when I go back home I can get a job in a cafe during the school year next year as well.

And last for now, I finally bought my Roskilde Festival ticket. One of the biggest music festivals in Europe. I am really excited about it. Several bands have already been listed and some of the bands playing include Sigur Rós, Radiohead, Tool, Deftones, Franz Ferdinand, Roger Waters, Placebo and many more! OOH I am so excited. Should be an awesome show. Now I just need to find people to go with...

The vikings

2006-02-23T10:36:00.000Z

The days are getting much longer which is nice. We have had wonderful weather that past week and now the last few days have been cloudy and rainy, but still not too cold. All traces of snow are gone except for on the mountain. I still need to go up it some day but I will wait until spring when there will definitely be no snow or ice.

So a bunch of us are planning a trip to go to the Faroe Islands on March 10th. For those who don't know, they are a group of small islands between Iceland and Norway. They were also inhabited by Vikings and they speak Faroese which Icelanders think sound funny because it is similar to Icelandic though some words that would be one thing in Icelandic mean something completely different in Faroese. There is also some influence of Danish, because they were also under control by Denmark though I think they are their own country now. I am looking forward to the trip though I am not quite sure what to expect. I have this image of the Faroe Islands as something like the Vestmannaeyjar, but more beautiful. I saw pictures of the Faroes in the Nordic House here and it looks like some mythical place where fairies and elves live. Probably there was some camera effects and taking it at the right time of the day to make it seem like that.. but I am still sure it is nice. Leif was saying that it is probably a smaller version of Iceland, and then he used the metaphor of Iceland being a chihuahua and Faroes being a smaller chihuahua, how can there be that? Iceland really isn't THAT small... Well whatever it is it will be something. Tom was getting excited because the Faroes is another country so that means there should be a duty free...

For my one class, North Atlantic Archaeology, I have to do a presentation and write a paper as well. My topic is graves of the Viking Age, looking mostly at how they differ or are similar between Iceland and Scotland, maybe Norway if I can find sources not in Norwegian. Norwegian is a pretty cool language though. I have become really fascinated with languages, it is just so neat how they are all connected and the different influences on them. Like english has been influenced so much by Norse (ie. Icelandic), and I found out that apparently Friesian (from Friesland, country in the northern part of the Netherlands) is English's closest relative. And of course English has been influenced by the latin based languages especially French. My French Canadian friends told me that they found English somewhat easy to learn because there are so many similar words from French, just pronounced different...

Well anyway, to my assignment, the graves are interesting because you can see Celtic and Norse influences, the christian and pagan aspects of the burials. There are several boat burials, where men and women were buried in boats or even large ships. They were usually buried with many of their possessions as well were given gift offerings throughout time. Some cases if it was a person of high status, one of their slaves (usually female) had to "volunteer" to sacrifice herself and be cremated with her master... in one of my readings they described one of these ceremonies which was pretty gruesome. First she was liquored up on this special alcoholic drink, then the head men of the clan would have sex with the girl, as well as the male relatives of the deceased. Then she would be lead to the pavillion where the cremation would take place and would be held down and strangled and stabbed to death. The other men would bang their shelds with sticks so the other slave girls didn't hear the screaming so wouldn't want to escape their fates with their masters.. It said the purpose of this was for the men of the tribe to show their love for the man who was deceased, and the girl was suppose to be the messenger of their love.

crack open a beer and smile

2006-02-11T14:54:00.000Z

So this morning I had my exam for my Cultural Heritage class. I think that was one of the first times I had an exam and was not stressed or worried about. I think it went really well. Wrote the essay part on the cultural heritage of Elmira, a hybridity of rural and urban, clinging onto the farmer/Mennonite identity but most inhabitants work in the cities, making Elmira just another suburb. So now that this exam is over I am free, for a while. This calls for celebration!

So tonight Leif and I will concoct some kind of drink. I have suggested Apple-Brenivin Smoothie (Brenivin being the Icelandic Schnapps, my dad tried some but never told me what he thought of it. It is usually used as a chaser for Hákarl, the rotten shark). We have a new food processor so most people on my floor and the second have been making a variety of smoothies and milkshakes. I attempted to make a peanut butter smoothie from a recipe on the back of my Kraft peanut butter I got from my mom. It was ok but kind of disappointing, I thought it would be more peanut buttery but was very banana-y. I want to try peanut butter and apple next time but will wait until I get the more liquidy natural peanut butter.

Speaking of drinks, Tom, Guillaume, Ane, Julia, Allison and maybe others have invested in a brewing kit to make beer. Alcohol is really expensive here so might as well make it yourself. Tom had been talking about doing it since he got ot Iceland back in August but never did anything until now. So we will see how it turns out in about 2 weeks or so.

The weather is still unpredictable. It has been warm, it has been cold, there has been snow, there has been rain, there has been sun. I saw northern lights on Tuesday, very faint though but it stretched right across the sky. Still no pictures of it though. Still haven't seen any spectacular ones though but I guess seeing any is fine enough for me.

2006-02-01T17:47:00.000Z

Winter in October and Spring in January.. who would have thought? I think today it was 8°C, cloudy today and some light rain but the past two days were bright and sunny.

Side Note: My dad did finally receive the lighter in the mail from US custody, though apparently it does not now work (perhaps just needs some fuel). And to defend myself, I did not buy this thing to make my dad's life harder. Considering a lot of people smoke in North America, and would therefore have lighters on them, and more extravagant ones than this little keychain, it did not even dawn on me that it would cause issues in customs. Crazy Americans...

It is kind of funny that no matter how the weather is outside someone is able to complain about it. I bumped into a friend on my way to class and she complained that it was so cold out, even though it really wasn't. Good weather depends on such weird standards. Like to me, today was really nice weather, but that was based on being warm and not too windy, though it was drisly and cloudy. As long as I am not cold and soaking wet, I am happy.

Adrian, Tisho and I have been watching Twin Peaks episodes for the past few days. We have watched all of the 1st season (7 episodes). It is suprisingly addictive. For people who don't know it (which was me a few days ago, never heard of it before), it is a show directed by David Lynch (who I got confused with Ryan Lynch, *gasp!*) and Mark Frost from 1990. It is a murder mystery soap opera. There are so many subplots though, it is really complex but really neat. I found it so funny that no one in this town is able to have a good relationship and everyone is having an affair. We are watching the next episode tonight.

I also learned how to knit yesterday. I have attempted knitting before and everyone on my floor last semester was knitting. I don't know why I delayed knitting for so long, but I really like it. I am currently knitting a scarf, and I think it is coming along alright. I think all of iceland (well at least the women) can knit. They have classes on it in school I guess so they can keep up the tradition of their knitted woolen sweaters and other garments. Well I hope I can live up to being one of those cool grandmothers that knit their kids and grandkids sweaters, scarves, mitts and touques. I was thinking the other day that it would be cool to knit some pants. I really need some, mine are falling apart, but I don't know how good knitted pants would be because they would be holey and the wind would go right through them. Also probably would be itchy.

Well more later... gotta to go read.

Fred’s Adventures from Iceland – Part 2

2006-01-14T22:45:00.000Z

In an earlier, brief posting I was speculating how my trip from Iceland would turn out. Well today was the day I would find out. I had called Icelandair on Friday and they said everything was a “go” but do you blame me for being skeptical.

I got up at 8 AM and thought “I should be packing.” But I’ve always been a last minute packer. So I lay in bed just thinking. It has been an incredible couple of weeks. I’ve had a great time. I had a terrible start to the trip. Well documented. The weather was just the pits for most of the time. Well documented. I got into several fights with my daughter. Not so well documented but then that’s private. Last night was just spectacular with all the fireworks going on. I can still hear the occasional “boom” here and there.

After all this thought, I finally got up and had my last shower in Iceland. Maybe not for the last time. I plan to be back. It was about the same as the first. An experience. Have overcome the hot and cold dilemma. Have overcome the showerhead demon.

I finally started packing about 11:30 AM. I was literally done by 12:10 PM. Kelly had checked the bus schedule online and there was a bus leaving at 1 PM. We were about 15 minutes away walking. Kelly made breakfast. The not-so-soft-boiled eggs that I had requested. They were like halfway between soft boiled and solid. They were perfect.

At about 12:40 PM we headed off for the bus terminal. I said my goodbyes to Yassu and Liu but Kelly didn’t want me to wake Remy. I gather he can be a French-Canadian bear at times. I think he’s a pussycat. All talk and no action.

It was overcast and dull. We got to the terminal and Kelly went to check when the next bus for the airport was running. They said 2 PM. Damned holiday schedules. We had another hour to kill. We went to the coffee shop and Kelly had a Swiss Mocca and I had a Viking beer. This could be my last beer in Iceland. No more suspense. It was.

About 1:30-1:45 PM there was a bus outside that had a small Kaflevik Airport sign in the window. We went over and sure enough that was the bus. I said my goodbyes to Kelly and got on. I feel a lot better knowing her circumstances and what she has to cope with and how well she can handle them. I’m really proud of Kelly. She’s doing everything right.

By now it’s raining and it’s dreary and miserable. About the same way I came in. God-forsaken country.

I get to the airport and get in this humongous line. I guess it speaks volumes when you’re the dominant player and your competition is a puppet of yours, Iceland Express. It has a couple of counters over to the side, out of the way. They finally split the line in two to speed up things. I get my turn and am checked in. No problems. I must be on their list. I’m supposed to check in at Gate 31. Fine.

Boarding was scheduled at 4:30 PM. At about 4:15 PM they started processing people through the gate. Wow. Early I thought. I’m still a novice. Little did we know that this was just an interim step. We were supposed to be going on a 757-200 airplane. I’m not totally sure but I think the 200 means a capacity of 200 passengers. Before we got funneled through the gate there may have been about 50 seats in the holding area for this jumble-sized jet.

Once we got processed we got to stay in this stairwell area designed for maybe 50 people and there were 200 of us. Finally they started loading us as I like to term it. A couple of families were led to the elevator and whisked off to God-knows where. At this rate I thought it would take a couple of days to get us boarded. But finally they gave the okay and there was a mad stampede up the stairs and escalator to get in line to board the plane.

It seemed to take forever to get seated. But finally we did and things got back to some normalcy. I think we took off about on time, about 5:20 PM. They announced that the flight would take 5 hours and 10 minutes. So we were supposed to be arriving around 5:30 PM Boston time with the 5 hour time change.

I tried to read, I tried to sleep, I tried to occupy my mind with drivel. God is 5 hours a frigging long time to kill. We finally land in Boston. They make us fill out these custom and immigration forms. We go through customs and everything goes fine.

However unlike the trip to Iceland where they checked the bags through so that you didn’t have to worry about them, this time they wanted you to retrieve your bags from the Icelandair flight, hall them over to the Transfer Desk about a couple hundred feet away and check them in there again to be put on your next flight. It seemed like they didn’t want to sort through the luggage themselves so they made us do it.

We then had to go through security check to get onto the Boston to Toronto flight. I have my backpack, I empty my pockets, I take off my coat and my shoes and go through the screening door. I pass, but the backpack doesn’t. The lady comes over and says, “There’s something in here that we don’t like. Do I have any shot glasses?” Of course I did, I had a couple and Kelly had given a couple others as gifts.

The lady brings the backpack to me and says she has to search it. There is something there they don’t like. She opens it up and takes out a couple of things. She then sends it through the screening device. It doesn’t pass. She takes a few more things out and redoes the process. Again they’re not happy. She comes by with this package that is all wrapped and says “I think this is it.” “I have to open it.” She says. She tries to do it gingerly at first but I said go ahead and rip it open. She does and she finds a shot glass. Inside is another package that she takes out and opens it. Low and behold, it’s a tiny lighter. “Yippee’ she cries. “We found it, we found it.” as she’s waving this poor little lighter around. I feel like 2 inches tall.

She says you have three options. “Go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200” wasn’t one of them. You can leave it with us. That means they confiscate it. You can go back to the check-in counter and check the offending backpack or you can mail it to yourself. As far as I know it wasn’t very expensive but I didn’t just want to give up on it. As for the second option, I had less than half an hour before the plane was supposed to take off. It should have boarded by now. So I picked the third one.

To do this I had to go out of the security area, fill out these forms and drop the lighter into a receptacle. After all this I had to go through the screening line again. As I went through, the guy at the entrance looking at my passport and boarding pass as if it was ‘déjà vu’, and I say “yea, you’ve seen me before.” And he says “It’s just standard procedures, sir.”

I managed to eventually get through. I forgot to take off my shoes which set off a bunch of alarms. But finally I was through. Thanks Kell. I needed that experience?

I go to the waiting area for Gate B25 and then I think “This plane was supposed to board at 7:09 PM according to the boarding pass and now it’s 7:45 PM.” So I go up to the counter and ask, “When is this plane boarding?” “A few minutes, sir.” A couple of minutes later they announce that Flight 4547 is boarding for Toronto, Canada.

The plane is a frigging EMB, whatever that means. And although I’m booked with American Airlines, it’s an American Eagle plane again. Just like the one from Toronto to Boston a couple of weeks ago.

We take off, sort of on time. It’s a very light load. There are only 5 people in the first 20 seats. I don’t know how many are behind me. We manage to get to Toronto okay. I think the plane was skidding a bit when it was landing in Toronto but it did manage to come to a stop eventually. But we seemed to have landed in the middle of nowhere. They called it Gate A1c or something like that but when we got off we had to board this bus which took us over to Terminal 3.

Then we go through customs. On the plane I had filled out the custom declaration form and there was only one question that I had a little problem with. And that was the question about sending something to yourself that is not in your possession. Remember the lighter. I hadn’t intended to send it to myself but I ended up doing it. So I checked that as a “Yes”.

So what does the custom officer focus on, not the excess booze that I was carrying (I had no booze), or the drugs (I had no non-prescription drugs) or even the handguns (I had no guns) but the fact that I had sent something to myself. She doodles a few circles on the front and the back of my declaration and sends me on my way.

Then we had to wait for our baggage but I wasn’t sure if it was going to show up but it eventually did. I get my baggage and go out the exit dropping off my doodled declaration with the agent at the gate. He looks at it and shrugs his shoulders.

So I’m free and clear. I try to find the Airways Transit counter. I wander around a bit but eventually find the Ground Transportation counter and the Airways Transit guy who has this itty-bitty sign in front of him. Get a bigger sign people so that we can find you. I check in at 10:13 PM according to the official log. On my watch it was 10:10 PM. “Someone will be with you shortly.” I get the word.

Well, I sit and wait. No-one else has checked in at the Airways Transit desk so I’m thinking that I’ll be the only one on and get home in short order. Fat chance. I wait for 50 minutes before the driver shows up and by then there’s been a whole slew of people checking in at the Airways Transit desk. Most of them are Oriental students that I think are returning to UW or Laurier for the next term in bunches. I think “It’s gonna take all night to get home.”

By about 11 PM the driver shows up and he calls me and another guy and I think, “This is OK. Only two of us.” When we get to the van there are two other people already in it. So that’s four. I’m sure I’ll be the last one to get dropped off. He picks up another passenger at another stop. It’s a little after 11 PM when we leave the airport. How long could this take?

I will avoid the unpleasantries. I didn’t get home until almost 1 AM. I had a discussion with the driver about the injustice of this. I was probably the first one to check in with Airways Transit almost 3 hours ago and the last one home. His suggestion was that I book a private car for an extra $60 and I wouldn’t have this problem. Such a wonderful service you people provide. Hope I never have to use you again. At least when I’m paying.

My son Brian was still awake so we had a nice visit. He brought up my suitcases and put them outside my bedroom door. At about 2 AM I decided that after 23 hours I should get some sleep. I turned off the kitchen light and walked to my bedroom in the dark. I have done this hundreds of times. However this night there were a couple of suitcases in the way and I happened to hit one of them with my left foot. I think I broke my second to baby toe. It was very painful. Still is, almost a week later.

Over and out. Done with this puppy.

Fred’s Adventures in Iceland – Part 4

2006-01-09T17:11:00.000Z

On Friday morning, the 30th ,Kelly and I decided that we would try to go to the malls. We had been to the Kringlan Mall briefly. You’ll remember the toilet incident. We also wanted to go to the Smaralind Mall. Infamous for being shaped like a penis.

We decided that we would walk there and then take the bus back. A good plan you might think. Anyways, we set out and everything seemed to be going fine. The weather’s co-operating. Not too windy and not to rainy.

We arrived at the Kringlan mall about 12 PM. We looked around. I checked out the washroom with the world’s smallest toilet and sure enough it was there. I took a picture for posterity. There was no sign that it was intended for kids only. Kelly found a similar one in the ladies room.

At about 1 PM we went to the Blue Café for lunch. I had the cream of mushroom soup and the scrambled eggs with toast and a beer. Kelly had salad.

After lunch we looked around a bit more and then headed off for the other mall. Kelly thought she knew where it was. We crossed the main highway and walked along the sidewalk for a number of blocks. We came to an intersection that had a few stores around it but nothing that looked like a mall.

We walked around for quite a while and we convinced ourselves that this wasn’t the mall. Neither of us bothered to ask anyone where the mall was. Finally we decided that we had had enough and we would take the bus back. We had this big fight over the fare. It was 220 Krs each for the bus ride. I had 110 Krs left from my cash stash.

We were still arguing about the fare when the bus driver said get on or he’ll leave. We got on and Kelly dumped some change into the receptacle. Her patience had run its course and she had dumped in 300 Krs for a 220 Krs ride. So be it.

The bus dropped us off downtown and we browsed for a while. I got the champagne for New Year’s Eve and we looked for a few more gifts. Kelly was able to find the things for Jon and Natalie and her brothers. We managed to get back to Gamli Gardur in one piece and had some dinner. Kelly cooked up some chicken wings.

Later we discovered that we were nowhere near the Smaralind mall. It was another 5 or 6 blocks over and a few blocks down from where we were. On the bright side we did find the KFC outlet for future reference.

Saturday morning Kelly and I went downtown to do some final shopping. Read my lips. Almost everything was closed. How does this country operate? We found one gift shop open and I got what I wanted. I think. Other than that it was a dead zone.

We went back to her residence after that and called it a day. Sporadic fireworks were going off all day.

We had a leftover dinner that evening. We had a quiet evening listening to the fireworks going off every so often. About 9:30 PM we headed out to find this bonfire that was burning near the coast. Anna Vala had alerted Kelly to the location. It was Kelly, Remy and I that went a-searching for the big flame.

When we got there we knew it. It was a gigantic bonfire. At least 50 feet across and 20 feet high. Where the frigg-a-frack did they get all that wood. Iceland does not have that many trees. Someone said it was drift wood that they collected all year long and saved it for this one day.

There were 3 tour buses lined up along the street with people looking on this spectacle. We hung around for a while and then headed back to the residence. Just incredible.

The fireworks were going off all evening. Mostly one offs. However by 11:30 PM they were going off continuously and for the next hour there was nothing but a bombardment going off constantly. It was incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it. All over the sky. In every direction. Nothing but bursts of light and sound. Incredible. When they said you had to wait to see it and believe it they weren’t kidding. Amazing. I’m lost for words to describe it.

It lasted a good frigging hour. At 12:30 AM we finally went back inside and broke open the bottle of champagne to toast the new year. It was great. This was the best damned new year’s I’ve ever had. And God knows I’ve had a few. There were Yassu, Liu, Remy , Kelly and me.

This was the best damned fireworks display I’ve ever seen.

Fred´s Adventures in Iceland – Part 3

2006-01-09T01:05:00.000Z

On Monday morning the 26th of December, we got up early since we needed to get to the airport in Reykjavik for the flight to Akureyri for our three day escapade. I think Kelly set her alarm for about 8:30 AM but I had woken before 7 AM and was already by the time she got up.

We got packed and shortly after 9 AM we set out for the airport. Kelly had not been there before but she thought she knew where it was. So off we went. It was still pretty dark. It actually was snowing a bit. It would have been nice if it had happened the day before. We walk over to what Kelly thought was the terminal but everything looked shut up tight. We walked around a bit to see where we were supposed to go but couldn’t find anything open.

There were a couple of people getting ready to get into cars and take off. Fortunately one of the cars stopped to ask us what we were doing there. Kelly told him that we were there to catch the flight to Akureyri. The guy just said, “You’re in the wrong place.” Then he said, “Get in.” We got into his car and he drove us over to the terminal which was across the road and almost halfway back to where we had come from.

Fortunately again, this was like 9:30-10 AM an hour or so before our flight at 11 AM. Sometimes you got to be lucky. I think I’m using up my luck. We waited for our flight and managed to get to Akureyri without further incident.

After we landed we looked around to see how we were going to get to our hotel. There were a bunch of people waiting for taxis. A couple of taxis came and people got in and the taxis took off. Finally there was just Kelly, me and this gruff looking guy waiting at the airport. Another taxi came and it was for this gruff looking guy. The driver asked us if we wanted a taxi and we said yes so he called one for us.

A taxi eventually came and it took us to Hotel Kea. We checked in and went up to our room. It was nice but it overlooked into a courtyard that was bland to say the least.

We decided to venture out to see what was around. We walked up the street from our hotel, and by up I mean a 45% angle. It was steep. At least it felt that way. We got the sense pretty quickly that most places were closed. We already knew that the bar and the restaurant at the hotel were closed. As we walked around we found that most everything else was closed.

We found a convenience store and a café/bar that were open. And the local cinema. We went into the café to see what we could have for lunch. It was already after 1 PM. They only served cakes and drinks. It was called the Café Amour. Cute. My daughter and I were in the Café Amour. I ordered a beer and Kelly had an Irish coffee. Guess which one was more expensive.

Kelly had contacted her friend Gunnar who lives in the area and who had actually arranged for us to stay at the hotel and he suggested that we try the Griefinn, a restaurant that he was sure was open. We wandered over there and sure enough it was open.

As we were approaching the restaurant we ran into the gruff looking guy from the airport. He was outside the restaurant having a smoke. “I see you made it alive.” or something like that, he said.

We go in and get seated. I order a chicken sandwich and a beer and Kelly orders just a tea. The gruff looking guy comes into the restaurant and sits down at the table beside us. He turns around and the first thing he says “You are Polish, No.” I say yes and he says he’s Bulgarian and goes back to what he was doing.

We get our food and I split my sandwich, my fries and salad with Kelly. The Bulgarian comes over and continues talking to us about a number of things. He goes back and orders an appetizer.

A while later, he orders his meal but then has to step out to have a smoke. He stops by our table and I say “That can kill you.” He then starts into this tirade about how “smoking causing cancer” is a government conspiracy and that he has it on good authority that smoking does not cause cancer. I let that slide.

Kelly and I continue with our meal. Once we’re finished we say our goodbyes to the Bulgarian and head out. We go back to the hotel and relax in the room. Somebody should have told us to avoid Bulgarians and December 26th in Akureyri or anywhere else in Iceland.

Kelly wanted to see the Chronicles of Narnia which was opening that day. We had gone by the theatre several times but forgot to check when it was playing. So we venture out again and go by the theatre. It was after 6 PM so we missed that one. The next showing was at 8 PM. We could make that. The next one after that was at 10 PM and I didn’t want to wait for that one.

We went back to our hotel. It was now 6:30-7 PM and Kelly was getting hungry. We checked at the desk to see if the restaurant in the hotel was open and the lady said “But of course, the Griefinn is open.” “If you’d like I can order a taxi and you can go there, no charge.” Later she said we can order a pizza if we would rather not venture out and they would deliver it to our room. Again it would be from the Griefinn. (Pronounced Grey Inn)

Kelly decided that she was hungry so we ordered a pepperoni pizza. This was around a quarter after 7 PM. It would take about 30 minutes. We wanted to catch the show at 8 PM. The pizza came about 15 minutes later. Kelly had about a half of it, I had a tiny slice and the rest is still in the mini bar.

We went over to the cinema about 7:45 PM. Where there wasn’t a soul around about an hour earlier, there was a large crowd milling about waiting to get it. The line-up for tickets was fairly long as well. We got in line and waited our turn. The tickets were 800 Krs each. (That’s $16 a ticket) By this time they had started letting people into the theatre. When we got in, the theatre was filling up. We got seats at the end of the aisle about 20 rows from the front.

Within minutes they started showing previews for upcoming shows. Finally the movie started. I had read the book many years ago but I really didn’t remember the story very well. The movie actually was pretty good. Lots of action and lots of scary things.

Kelly had warned me that for no apparent reason they have an intermission during the showing. Usually she said that they stop the movie about halfway through at no particular point. This time they stopped this movie about 9:30 PM just before the lion was to appear.

I got out of my seat and was pushed up the aisle and down the stairs. I thought Kelly was behind me. I couldn’t believe how pushy these Icelandic people were. They were pushing passed me like I wasn’t even there.

When I got down to the concession area I looked back and waited for Kelly. She was nowhere in sight. Once the crowd dissipated from the stairs I went back up and down the aisle to our seats. Kelly was sitting in her seat. She said she didn’t want to get pushed around. Now she tells me.

The movie started up again while a lot of people were still coming back to their seats. Most of the people in our row were not back yet. Once they started coming back, not only were they pushy but very impatient. Before I even had a chance to stand up to let them by they forced their way past me without an “excuse me” or even a grunt.

The movie finally ended and I get up to go up the aisle. Kelly hadn’t warned me that here in Iceland you go down the aisle to some side exit that lets you out into the street. I got pushed down the aisle and out. Another nice Icelandic experience.

We went back to the hotel and caught the last half of Santa Clause 2. The room was rather warm so Kelly tried to turn the heat down but it didn´t seem to help. So instead she opened the window which let in the cool breeze but also all the traffic noise which was pretty loud considering there weren´t that many cars out there.

We tried to sleep but the traffic noise kept us awake and periodically a bunch of revelers kept passing by the hotel, yelling and screaming and making all kinds of racket. They did this about every half an hour or so for the rest of the night. I don´t think I got much sleep at all although Kelly tells me otherwise. She said I was snoring a few times which kept her awake. I have no recollection.

We finally managed to get through the night. I showered and got dressed and we went down for breakfast at about 9 AM. It was quite good with lots of choice. After breakfast we headed over to National Car Rental. We got a Grand Vitara for two days and 600 kms for 12000 Krs. The regular price was 4500 Krs for 100 KM for 1 day. It sounds like we got a steal.

We headed off to Husavik. We´ve been driving for a while and Kelly tells me that we should have turned left some time ago. But not to worry we can turn left at the next road and double back. By the time we got to the next road and crossed the river and got back to Highway 1 where we were supposed to turn we had put on 25 Kms. Kelly´s excuse/reason was that I was going too fast and once we passed the road she didn´t think that I would want to turn around and go back.

It reminded us of a trip we took out west to Alberta in 1999. We were on our way from Weyburn Saskatchewan and we were supposed to take a road that went diagonally across the province to Saskatoon and North Battleford. We missed our turn and kept going all the way to Swift Current and then up to Saskatoon supposedly because I didn´t want to turn around and go back. This move probably added a 1000 Kms to our trip. So what´s 25 Kms?

We were finally on the right road to Husavik. It was a little after 10:30 AM now and getting lighter by the minute. The sky was clear and blue and although there was some wind it wasn’t too bad. The road looked dry with no patches of ice or snow. However the road looked narrow with no shoulders and if you happened to go off the road you would have gone straight into the water or down a steep slope and into water. Neither was welcomed.

We were driving through the mountains and we could see them clearly on either side of us. They weren’t the caliber of the Rockies but not too shabby. As we went along and climbed into the mountains the slopes off the road got steeper and higher. Except for a few places, there were no guardrails. Where there were, it must have been really dangerous.

The drive was very scenic with the snow covered mountains on either side, and the treacherous narrow road beneath us. We finally made it to Husavik a little after 12 PM. The speed limit along the highway in most places was 90 KPM but I don’t think I went much over 70 KPM at any point.

We drove around and quickly found that we had covered the whole town in about seven minutes. We were looking for some place to eat and something to do afterwards. We stopped at this building that had a big RESTAURANT sign on it. It was closed. As we found out most everything else were closed too. There were a couple of gas stations with little eat-in areas so we stopped at one of them. We each had a classic Icelandic hotdog with the works and a coke. Try it once but never again.

After lunch we walked around to see what else we could do. Kelly had said that there was supposed to be a phallic museum in town. We found it but it was closed for the season. It was only open from May to September. I guess they can’t keep it up, I mean open, once it gets too cold. We went down to the harbour and took some pictures of the ships docked there.

By now it was around 1:20 PM and we had been there a little over an hour. Nice little town but pretty dull when it’s all closed up. We started heading back to Akureyri. We took a slightly different route back going across to Highway 1 instead of taking Highway 85.

When we got closer to Akureyri and it was still around 2:30 PM Kelly suggested we go over to Grenivik. She was looking at a map and thought it might be a nice side trip. We had plenty of time. We were less than half an hour from Akureyri at that point. We turned off Highway 1 and onto the road that led us to Grenivik. The road was much lower and closer to the ocean and it seemed fairly sheltered from the wind.

As we were going along we could see that up ahead there were signs of a river flowing into the ocean. On the water you could see the change of currents where a triangle was spewing out into the normal flow of the ocean. Also you could see that definitely this was the mouth of a river, the so-called delta that was spreading into the sea.

As we were getting closer we could see that the road disappeared around a corner and we thought that when we got there we would see the river rushing down to the ocean. What happened when we turned the corner was this incredible gust of wind that I thought would blow us off the road. Before us there was this narrow spindly metal bridge that we had to cross. Fortunately we were not blown over and we managed to get across. Kelly said, “I think we should go back.” I didn’t want to venture back so soon. I had this chill run up my spine.

Once we crossed the bridge we took a left and carried on to Grenivik. It was only 8 Kms away. We pressed on. When we got to Grenivik we saw the cutest little town. The houses were painted different colours and there were all kinds of Christmas lights on already although it was still before 3 PM. At one house there was a Santa Clause on a swing. We passed a cemetery where they had placed a cross on each grave site that was lit up and it looked so festive. It was like bringing the deceased into the Christmas spirit.

After that we decided to head back. I was dreading crossing the bridge “over the river that flowed into the ocean”. But when we got there the winds had died down and we had no problems getting over the bridge and then back to Highway 1. We got back to the hotel a little after 3:30 PM.

Kelly wanted to take a nap so I went out to look around. There was a book store across the street that was open so I browsed there for about a half an hour. Then I went to look at the toy store. I wanted to get something for my great nephew Andrew and my other great nephews and nieces. Well, that store was closed. As it turned out most of the other stores around were closed too. Now this was the 27th.

For dinner we decided to go to the Bautinn Restaurant next door. It was one that was highly recommended in the brochures. I had gone earlier to make reservations and the waitress said “You don’t need reservations. I guarantee you.” As it turned out we didn’t need reservations. There was one other couple in the restaurant when we got there. A few more people came after we arrived but not very many.

Kelly had the vegetarian tortilla dish and I had the lamb. Mine included a soup and a salad. The soup was cream of mushroom and it was delicious. We had a bottle of wine as well, a German Riesling. Very nice. It was about half the price of the meal at Caruso. Very nice as well.

After dinner Kelly went for a swim. She was to meet Gunnar if he was still around. I watched some TV and updated the journal. Shortly after Kelly came back from swimming we went to bed.

I woke up around 2 AM and Kelly was nowhere in sight. The covers, the comforter and the pillows were gone. I lay there for a while thinking where did she go? I came up with nothing. I needed to go to the bathroom and as I opened the door I heard some moaning. Kelly was trying to sleep on the floor in the washroom. “I couldn’t stand your snoring Dad so I came in here.” she said. I tried to help her fix up her make-shift bed.

I went back to bed and lay there wide awake and thinking. “Poor Kelly, She can’t sleep because of my snoring. I have to do something.” I went down to the front desk but nobody was there for about 10-15 minutes. Then the night person came and I said, “I need to ask a big favour. My daughter can’t sleep because of my snoring and I was wondering if there was something you could do.” “Of course”, he said. “Take this key.” It was for room 411. “411” I said. “Oh, excuse me. 414”, he said. So I took the key and went back up to the room and opened the door to the washroom. “Here Kell, go to room 414 and have a good sleep.”

I hoped she did because I sure didn’t. I was awake the rest of the night. I watched some TV but nothing good was on. I tried to write in my journal but couldn’t get very far. I just tossed and turned until about 8 AM in the morning. I showered and got dressed and then sat and waited. Shortly after 9 AM, Kelly came to my room and we went down for breakfast.

Gunnar, Kelly´s Icelandic friend who lives in Akureyri met us at 10 AM in the lobby and we headed off to Lake Myvatn. For the first 60 Kms it was basically the same route that Kelly and I did yesterday. However there were a couple of differences. First, it had snowed during the night, not much but enough that the road was snow covered. It looked more treacherous than it had yesterday. Second, Gunnar directed us to the Godafoss (The Waterfalls of the Gods) which we had missed the day before. It was quite the falls. It was also really windy when we were there so we did not venture too close.

We got back onto Highway 1 and carried on until we got to Lake Myvatn. We stopped at the Zanzibar Restaurant. I ordered a clubhouse sandwich and a beer. The poor lady had a heck of a time getting the draft dispenser to work properly. I told her that I would be happy with a bottle if she had a problem. But she was determined to get it going and eventually she did. Gunnar ordered a pizza and Kelly had a coffee.

Afterwards we explored the area. The first place we stopped at was Dimmuborgir. There are elaborate lava formations including the “Elves’ Church” in the area. However the paths were coated in ice and the church was some 50 minutes away. We looked around briefly but did not venture very far.

The second place was Grjotagja. It is a small cave with a thermal spring inside. You used to be able to swim in it but because of the eruptions from 1975 to 1984 the water got too hot for swimming. The temperature is cooling down so that at some point in the future swimming may be allowed again.

The third stop was this field of hotspots. There were marked paths where you could tread and the rest was out of bounds for fear of severe injury or death. The water was several hundred degrees. Gunnar said that every year a number of people got seriously burned or killed because they ventured where that shouldn’t have. We made sure we stayed on the paths. However they were very muddy and our shoes got caked. Even the scrapers were not sufficient to get the mud off.

Finally we drove the rest of the way around the lake and headed back to Akureyri. I gather that Lake Myvatn is much more breathtaking in the summertime and you’re able to do much more exploring but it was still a great experience.

That evening we had dinner at La Vita & Bella restaurant which was next to the Bautinn. Kelly had the primavera pasta dish and I had the sedani with monkfish, shrimp and scallops. We had a bottle of the Riesling white wine again. Dinner was very nice.

Thursday morning Kelly got a call from the TV station that they still wanted to do the interview. As part of the foreign student having a traditional Christmas dinner with an Icelandic family, the national TV network wanted to interview the student and the Icelandic family about their experience. Initially it was supposed to be done before the dinner but Kelly never heard from them. But now they wanted to do it this evening. She explained that we were in Akureyri and weren’t expecting to be back until after 7 PM.

They suggested that they have a crew meet us somewhere in Akureyri and do the interview there. As it turned out they met us in front of the cathedral just above the hotel at 11:30 AM. The interview went fairly well. They said that they would shoot as many takes as needed but we never repeated anything. They asked us only a couple of questions about the actual dinner. They seemed more interested in asking about Christmas traditions and customs in Canada and Poland and how they compared to the Icelandic Christmas that we had experienced. I was only seven the last time I had Christmas in Poland so what do I remember.

The interview was supposed to be shown on Channel 2 between 7 and 8 PM that evening. We didn’t know whether we’d be back in time to catch it.

We had checked out before the interview and they hadn’t charged us anything extra for Kelly using a second room. That was a nice thing to do. We drove around Akureyri to see what else we could find to explore. We discovered that indeed we had been in the heart of downtown and there wasn’t too much else to see. We did find a small shopping centre and stopped to have a look.

Kelly got a call from the TV station again to see if we could send them the photos we had taken at the dinner. There was a camera store in the mall and we stopped to find out if they could download some photos for us. The guy said that he didn’t have the right equipment but their main store downtown should be able to help us. We went and found the shop and sure enough the guy there downloaded the photos and emailed them to the TV station for us at no charge.

We wandered around and stopped at the Bláa Konnun and had a drink. We did a little more browsing. We decided that we should stop and have some lunch. We went to the Striked Restaurant which was on the top floor of this office building downtown. Kelly had a Caesar salad and a tea I think and I had a shrimp and scallop appetizer and a beer.

We got back into the jeep and this time Kelly drove us around Akureyri. She hadn´t driven a vehicle since July. She also hadn´t experienced a roundabout.

We then drove to the Christmas House which was about 10 Kms from Akureyri. Although it had all kinds of knickknacks most of them were made in China or Germany or some other place other than Iceland. We didn´t find anything interesting to buy.

On our way back we stopped by the airport to see if we could catch an earlier flight. This was a little after 4 PM. It was a good thing we did because Kelly had booked us on the 8:20 PM flight which meant we wouldn’t have got back to Reykjavik until after 9 PM sometime. We were able to change to the 6:10 PM flight. We had almost 2 hours to kill.

We went to the nearest gas station to fill up the jeep. There was a restaurant right beside it so we went there. We were the only ones in it other than the poor waitress. Kelly had a hot chocolate and I had a beer. We nursed these until about a quarter after 5 PM and then we headed for the airport.

We decided that if we had to wait we might as well wait at the airport. We got there and dropped off the jeep. We just parked it in the National Car Rental spot. We went into the terminal and they were checking people in for Reykjavik so we checked in. Then we just waited with the rest of the folks. Not much else to do. Since there was no one at the National Car Rental counter we left the keys at the check-in counter.

Finally they boarded us and off we went. It was about a 45 minute flight. We arrived at Reykjavik a little after 7 PM. We got our bags and headed off to Gamli Gardur. It took us about half an hour to get there. We ran up to the fourth floor to the lounge where the TV was and when we got there we were informed by Raphael the don that the news was over. We missed the broadcast of our interview. I don’t know what the hell he was watching but it wasn’t the news so he hadn’t seen it either. Some French don.

I got a craving for chicken wings. I don’t know why. I just did. Chicken wings are not easy to come by in Iceland. Kelly contacted a few of her friends and we called a few take-away places (translation – take-out) but none of them had any. The only place that might have some was a KFC place across the city and I never liked KFC wings anyways.

So wingless we were. We had some leftovers for dinner and I went to bed.

Gamli Garður 2006

2006-01-05T13:29:00.000Z

Well my dad is still writing up the end of our holiday together so I will be posting those soon but thought I would write something in the meantime.

New people have been starting to move in this week. They seem nice, but I have realised that first impressions mean nothing. Not that any of their first impressions were bad, but you can't tell what a person is really like from just meeting them.

So on our floor we already have 4 new people. There is Florian who is now living in Mathieu's room, he is from Germany, studies in Austria and is studying business. There is Megan from Vermont in Nathan's old room, I think she is doing Earth Sciences. Then there is Guillaume from Québec living in Harald's old room(there is also a girl upstairs named Lorance from Québec. Too bad Mathieu moved out because the Québecois would be taking over). And then there is Adrian from South Africa... haha Rémy won't ever live it down. He told us that Adrian was from South Australia (which is actually correct), but he was thinking South Africa so made a comment how it was too bad Chrissy wasn't living here anymore (She lived in South Africa for a while). I was thinking why would she care there is an Australian here? Then he thought he made a mistake and told us he was from South Africa. A lot of people already have had their nationalities mistaken. Adrian from South Africa, Florian from Austria and Lorance from France... New arrival today, Mario from Germany as well. There is suppose to be a girl named Allison coming but apparently she's been stuck in Boston for the past two days.. This time around we definitely have a more diverse floor. I have also met a guy from the second floor named Brian from the U.S, but besides that don't really know who else has moved in from up stairs.

And apparently they are doing renovations in the second floor kitchen so things will probably get pretty hectic around here for a few weeks. My classes really don't start until the 15th (I have been off since the 1st of december) so I decided to take an intensive course which is only a week long next week on Cultural Heritage, looking mainly Scotland as the case study but looking at other cultures as well. Problem is that with taking this course I will have an over load and still haven't heard back from Trent on what I have to do about being allowed to take an overload in my courses, so I think I will just take the class anyway and if they don't want me to I guess I can drop it but it will give me something to do in the meantime. I have also applied to work at Ömmukaffi (grandma's café) but haven't heard from them yet so I am going to go there today and ask.

Well Tisho gets back today and Tom get's back Saturday, so probably by the weekend we will have a full house.

Heyrumst

Fred´s Adventures in Iceland – Part 2

2005-12-31T17:44:00.000Z

Thursday we went on the tour of Reykjavik. It was included with my airfare so I might as well use it. I bought a ticket for Kelly as well.

The tour started at 11:30 AM. Although today December 22 was supposed to be the shortest day it was pretty light out. The sky was blue and there was a hint of sun on the horizon.

Kelly and I were the only ones on the tour bus except for the driver and the guide. That was fine by us.

The following is taken from the internet.

“Reykjavik Grand Excursion

Reykjavík city, also known, as “smoky bay” is the world’s most northerly capital. The name derives from the first settlers who noticed steam rising from the ground from the hot springs in Reykjavík. The city, although small in population, has everything larger cities have to offer. Several cultural and social events and various recreations are available. Not to forget interesting museums, galleries, delightful restaurants and cafés. Reykjavík’s unique proximity to nature, with salmon river Elliðaá running through it, a thermal beach at Nauthólsvík, green valleys and outdoor swimming pools, make this city second to none in the world. The Reykjavík Grand Excursion is a detailed and comprehensive introduction to Reykjavík’s past and present. During this tour the city’s main attractions are highlighted on foot and by bus. The main landmarks, such as The Pearl and Hallgrímskirkja church are visited. A tour where Reykjavík’s renowned charm and bustling life is brought to light.”
The first stop on our tour of Reykjavik was the Hallgrim’s Church which we had been in a day or so before. We hadn’t gone into the church itself before since there were a bunch of maintenance people vacuuming and cleaning the pews, the floors. Etc. This time we actually went inside up close to the altar and we could see the huge organ with it’s over 5,000 pipes. It was very impressive. It took a long time to build the church, from 1945 to 1986. It’s the tallest building and one of the jewels of Reykjavik.

We then drove through the main part of down town. I had walked it a number of times over the past week but this was a first in a tour van. Reykjavik is all dolled up with lots of colours and lights and evergreen trees everywhere. They seem to go all out.

The guide pointed out (and I can’t for the life of me remember her name although she must have said it at least three times) the prison that was right in downtown Reykjavik. It’s the only stone building in the city. According to her there are only five prisons in all of Iceland and this one holds about 20 inmates. I read somewhere that in 2004 there were 110 prisoners in Iceland. And here is another interesting fact. In 1806, so almost 200 years ago, Reykjavik had a population of 300, 17 of whom were in prison for inebriation.

The following is taken from the internet.

“OLD PRISON REYKJAVIK

The old prison, on street Skolavordustigur, was built in 1874. Originally it also served as a courthouse and housed 23 inmates. In 1989 the number of cells was reduced to 19 and nowadays they are 16, there are two isolition cells. It is the only prison built as such in the country and has been used for a period of 130 years (2004). It is a two story building with a basement, which is not used any more. The prison cells are on the ground floor as well as the rooms of the wardens. It contains no recreational facilities for inmates, but behind it is an open recreational area.”

We then headed over to the harbour to see the ships that were docked there. Although we had been to the harbourfront, we actually didn’t get to the harbour so that was interesting. I think they put the rustiest ones, closest in. The guide sarcastically (at least I think it was sarcastically) said that Iceland doesn’t have it’s own army or navy, just the Salvation Army.

We went and drove through the University of Iceland campus, which we had toured a day or so ago, and then we ventured up to hill to the Perlan (The Pearl) that I had talked about in an earlier post. This was our stop for lunch. So I had my usual. Second time here, second soup and beer special. Well, it was special to me. Then we went on the deck and took some more pictures. It’s quite the panoramic view of Reykjavik from there. You’ll have to wait until the pictures develop.
After that we drove around Reykjavik and the guide pointed out a number of points of interest like the power plants, the hospitals and the car dealerships like Toyota, Nissan.

We then stopped at another museum. I think Reykjavik has the most museums per capita than any other city. The following gives some details of this museum.

The following is taken from the internet.

“Asmundur Sveinsson
The Man and Material

A retrospective exhibition of works by Asmundur Sveinsson.

In the beginning, Ásmundur's choice of material was much like that which was closest at hand while he was growing up in Iceland. Later it reflected the traditional material used by century sculptors. As a young man, Ásmundur practiced woodcarving according to the Icelandic craftsmanship tradition. In addition to this he shaped works out of clay and concrete, choosing material to serve his ideas. As a student of Carl Milles in Stockholm, and during his years in Paris he worked in traditional material, molded and chiseled in stone.

After returning to Iceland, Ásmundur abandoned stone chiseling for the most part. Up until the 1950s, his work was characterized by the feeling evoked when an artist has shaped the sculpture with his own two hands. The handling of the material by the artist becomes an important part of the work; the concept and the treatment of the material shape its final form. As the 1940s progressed, space played an increasingly important part in Ásmundur's art. At that time he began working with wood again, as well as creating his massive clay sculptures.

There was a watershed in Ásmundur's art in the 1950s, when he discovered iron. He began welding together metals as well as other objects that he collected and used in their original form, or slightly altered. The works moved closer to a pure abstraction and the empty space within the works became more important. The work became removed from the massive forms of the sculptures that Ásmundur shaped with his own hands and were characterized by references to Icelandic nature. Towards the end of his career he once again turned to stone chiseling, although now his subjects were not references to a classical tradition but rather quiet variations on the natural shape of the stone.”

After this there were only two stops planned, an art museum that we had already been to and the city hall that we also had been to. We passed on the art museum but said okay to the city hall because the guide said she had some interesting things to show us.

Along the way we stopped (a non-scheduled stop) by the Hofdi House where Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachov met to discuss a number of strategic issues. This happened on October 10-11, 1986.

“The best reminder of French presence in Iceland today is Höfði house, the official reception hall of the city of Reykjavík. The French authorities built Höfði for the French consul Mr. Briouin (Bríon) whose main function was to render assistance to the fishermen. The origin of Höfði can still be seen in the reception hall where the initials of the French Republic - R.F. - are carved in the wall along with other French symbols such as the French coat of arms and the hat of the Jacobines.

In 1986 Höfði was the venue for the Reagan-Gorbachov summit held in Iceland.”

“Logo Design

In 1986, Different Creations was commissioned to design a LOGO for the Reagan-Gorbachov Summit in Iceland.

It had to be flexible in use - advertising, letterheads, T-shirts, buttons, souvenirs and commemorative medallions.

The four equally shaped areas represent U.S.A. (the west) and Russia (the east) joined for peace talks in Iceland, which is a small country (the eye of the peace bird) in the middle of the north Atlantic Ocean (the blue wave).”

Then we went to our last stop, the City Hall. Once there the guide took us down to the large model of Iceland and pointed out a number of interesting features. Then the bus took us back to Gamli Gardur.

In the afternoon I took a walk by my self downtown to see if I could manage not to get lost. Kelly and I had gone downtown a number of times already so I should have no problems. And I didn´t.

That evening, Remy cooked up a salmon steak and Kelly made rice and vegetables. It was a great meal.

Friday we were supposed to go to the Blue Lagoon but when Kelly called to book the trip they only had 6 PM spots left. She booked us for Saturday morning at 11 AM. The bus would pick us up at Gamli Gardur at 10:30 AM.

Instead we went downtown and did a little more browsing. We stopped at Ommukaffi (Grandma’s Café) for lunch. Afterwards we looked around a bit more and then headed back to Kelly’s residence. We were planning on going back later because traditionally the day before Christmas Eve was the busiest shopping day of the year and there was going to be a huge party atmosphere all evening and well into the night.

For dinner Kelly made spaghetti. She added a whole bunch of vegetables to the sauce. It turned out very nice.

We headed back downtown. By the time we got there the streets were packed with people. They had shut down the main street and people were wandering all over the place. There were a few cars that had got stuck when the street was closed and were desperately trying to inch their way out of their predicament.

There were carolers on several street corners trying to be heard above the din of the crowd. I don’t know how you could do any shopping at all. The stores were packed with people so there was hardly any place to move. And the pushiness of the Icelanders came into the forefront so you didn’t want to get stuck in the crowd.

Saturday morning we got ready for our trip to the Blue Lagoon. The bus came shortly after 10:30 AM to pick us up. It turned out to be fairly steep for what amounted to an hour and a half of bus rides and an hour in the water. It was 3900 Krs each. Kelly thought that students were supposed to get a discount but the guy behind the counter said, “No discount for students.” There were only 8 passengers when we left the terminal a little after 11 AM. The trip lasted about 45 minutes. We couldn’t really see much of the countryside as it was overcast and very foggy.

We got there and got these wrist bands which were used to let us into the locker rooms and also to lock the lockers with our clothes. I went and changed into my swim suit and showered (mandatory) and went out to the Blue Lagoon. The air was pretty nippy so we didn’t dally very long before getting into the water. It was nice and warm. You could almost feel the healing, rejuvenating powers instantly (well not really). It wasn’t very crowded. There must have been only about 20-25 people in the lagoon.

We waddled around in the water occasionally finding really warm spots. It felt so good. Sometimes it got so warm it was almost unbearable. We were in the water for over an hour. We wandered over to the sauna for a few minutes. I found it hard to breathe in there. We got back into the water and started heading towards the exit. The water was getting extremely warm now. I think they had cranked the heat up because they wanted us out of there. We obliged. I went into the locker room, showered and changed.

The bus headed back about 10 to 2 PM. The bus driver made announcements along the way. He said that each time you go to the Blue Lagoon it takes 10 years off your age. He also said he got this concerned father come up to him because his son was only 10 years old. He had to modify his general rule to say that the improvement only started at age 25.

We came to the road that we were supposed to take back to Reykjavik and the bus pulls over and the driver announces that we are waiting to meet a bus from Keflavik and take its passengers to Reykjavik. We must have waited 10-15 minutes before this minibus shows up. Ten passengers and the guide get onto our bus. I tell Kelly that we’re probably going to be the last ones to get off this bloody bus.

The guide kept announcing about all these places that were going to close at 4 PM and all these other ones that were going to close by 6 PM because Christmas starts in Iceland at 6 PM and everyone is either supposed to be having dinner or listening the Christmas program on the radio before having dinner.

As you might have guessed, when we got back to Reykjavik and everyone else got let off Kelly and I made it back to Gamli Gardur.

That evening, Christmas Eve, Kelly and I went to the home of Margret, her husband, Kjartan, their son Bjarni and their daughter María Vigdís. Also there were Margret’s mother Maria and her Grandmother’s brother Jon.

This gathering with an Icelandic family was arranged by the International Student Council at the University of Iceland, to place a foreign student who was staying in Iceland over Christmas with a family for a traditional Christmas dinner. I was invited along.

We got a warm reception when we got there and exchanged pleasantries. We felt very comfortable from the start. Shortly thereafter we sat down for dinner. Bjarni poured each of us some blund?, a traditional drink that he had helped to make. It contained orange soda and malt. Next we had these seafood tarts, filled with shrimp and other seafood, mushrooms, vegetables and cheese. They were very tasty. Maria, the daughter, preferred these to the soup she used to like as a starter.

We then had the main course which was called Hamborgarahryggur (a saddle of pork or pork steak). We had this with caramelized potatoes, corn, gravy and pineapple. For dessert we had a fruit pie with ice cream. Everything was very delicious.

After dinner we gathered around in the living room and Bjarni started handing out the presents. Everyone got at least a couple, including us, which was very nice of them. I got a book on Iceland and some chocolates. Kelly got a book and a candle.

The present parade came to an end and Grandmother Maria looked a little perturbed. As it turned out she had forgotten to bring the presents that she was giving to everyone. There was a scramble to go up to her room and get the bags of presents. These were handed out and everything turned out fine.

We had a very nice visit sharing stories about Iceland and Canada, Christmas traditions and things in general. It was very enjoyable. At the end of the evening Margret drove us back to Gamli Gardur.

On Sunday Christmas morning, Kelly had set out all the presents that she had received or wrapped on the kitchen table. I think it was after 11 AM. I don’t think anything starts here, at least in the winter, until there’s some daylight out there no matter how dull. We didn’t get a white Christmas, we got a wet Christmas. It rained all night and was still raining once daylight hit. Remy, our French-Canadian has been singing “I’m dreaming of a dry Christmas.” for the last couple of weeks. He had given up on the ‘white’. He didn’t get his wish.

Kelly and I opened our presents. I got four books by Icelandic authors and an Icelandic beer mug for my collection from Kelly. She got a whole bunch of stuff from her mother and step-dad, her grandparents and from Uncle Bill and Auntie Pam. She even got a present from her brother Jeff.

We had eggs and toast for brunch and quiet and relaxing afternoon.

Remy was making another one of his specialties for dinner, a meat and potato casserole. Kelly made mashed potatoes, broccoli and the famous Stove Top Stuffing as side dishes and Eskimo snowballs for dessert. There was still no sign of the pickles. Nicola from upstairs joined Kelly, Remy and I for dinner. She brought a chocolate cake. My contribution was the Two Oceans South African wine. Everything was great.

Gleðileg Jól from Iceland

2005-12-25T02:29:00.000Z

It´s still me, Fred, using a little bit of Icelandic.

I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

To my sons, Brian and Jeff.

To my brothers, Joe and Frank and their spouses, Linda and Halina. My nephews and nieces, Jennifer and Chris, Mary and Bruce, Mike and Carrie, Steve, Theresa and Chris #2, Andrea and Peter, and my grand nephews, Andrew and Ryan and grand nieces, Lauren, Sidney and Kenadee.

To my cousins, Irene, Charlie and Marie, Betty and Elma and their families. To Frank and Dyanne, Dianne and Whitey, Larry and Terry and Dennis and Shelley and their families. To Cathy and Garry, Cindy and Bill and Mark and his wife and their families. To Ron and Dennis and their families. To David, Gord, Ken and Chris and their families. To Tom, JoAnne, Joy and Terry and their families.

To my friends, Peter, thinking about you buddy, Bill and Pam, Rob and Marilyn, Rob and Ruth and their families. To Richard, Bill and John. Cheers.

To my friends and colleagues at Manulife, including Dawna and Scott, Lisa, Neil and Donnie and all the rest of the gang.

To Dr Stevenson who looked after my arm and to Ningsih, my physiotherapist who’s trying to get my arm back into shape. I’m exercising as much as I can.

To Chris, Kim and Dennis who drove me to and from work all those days when I wasn’t allowed to drive.

To Jon and Natalie for taking care of Buddy.

And to anyone else I might have missed.

And finally to Kelly who´s here with me and who´s had to put up with my ways for the last week or so and will have to continue to do so for another week.

I´m so glad I could share this time with you. Love you, Munchkin.

Fred’s Adventures in Iceland - Part 1

2005-12-22T17:50:00.000Z

Saturday afternoon was totally wasted. I had been awake over 24 hours. I wasn’t sleepy, I was just physically exhausted. We went to do some grocery shopping since Kelly didn’t know what I would be in the mood for so she waited until I got there.

I met a bunch of Kelly’s friends that I recognized from the pictures that Kelly had posted on her blog. There were Becca, Chrissy, Mathieu, Harold, Tom, Remy, Lief, Yassu and Liu. Did I forget anybody? It was like I had known them all.

We walked to downtown Reykjavik to the Bonus store and got a bunch of things. It was around 3:30-4 PM and it was already pretty dark. Reykjavik was all lit up with Christmas colours and there were real Christmas trees hanging from the sides of most of the shops. The trees weren’t very big but they were everywhere. Everything looked so beautiful. It wasn’t too windy and it wasn’t too cold, yet. It was just dark.

As we were walking back to Gamli Gardur (Kelly’s residence) with our supplies we stopped by the City Hall, looked around and got some maps and other flyers. We got back and Kelly made some dinner. I don´t recall much after that.

I finally went to bed around 8 PM, 31 hours after getting up at the Comfort Inn in Boston. You´d think I would sleep like a log for a long time. Fat chance. At 10 PM I was wide awake. I tried to stay in bed to see if I would fall back asleep. I was thinking about my ordeal over the past two days.

I got up and started to write it down on paper. Occasionally I would crawl back in bed to see if I could sleep. But no I kept getting up and continued to write my saga down.

Finally I was almost finished and it was getting onto 6 AM. I managed to fall asleep for a couple of hours. I got up, showered (That was an experience in itself. The basin kept filling up and I´d turn off the shower to let it drain and then I would turn it on again. The hot water was really hot and the cold was really cold so you had to get just the right mix to be comfortable. I finally finished my shower and turned the water off. The shower head fell out of its holder and almost crushed my toes.) and got myself dressed.

I continued to write down details of my ordeal for a while. Nobody was stirring as yet so I lay down on the bed and the next thing I knew Kelly was knocking on the door and it was now 10 to 12 PM. I had managed to get about 6 hours of not so great sleep in the past 16 hours.

Kelly and I decided to go up to the Perlan (The Pearl).

The following is taken from the internet.

There was a picture here but it got deleted when I posted.

“Perlan (The Pearl) is a remarkable building, built in 1988, unique in Iceland and probably in the whole world. On Oskjuhlid hill, atop the huge tanks in which natural hot water is stored for heating the city, a glass dome has been constructed: under the dome is a rotating restaurant serving fine cuisine.

In addition, the dome houses a café, while around the outside is a viewing platform with panoramic views of the city and its surroundings. Below the dome, between the hot-water tanks, is a spacious atrium where various exhibitions and other events are held. Inside the building is a small artificial geyser which spouts every few minutes.

Interestingly, one of the tanks contains, not hot water, but a museum: at the Saga Museum, waxwork figures bring old Iceland to life. The museum, like the Pearl itself, is open from 10 AM.

Close to the Pearl, to the left of the car park, is STROKUR, a man-made geyser that imitates the natural spouting hot springs at Geysir in the highlands of southwest Iceland.

Oskjuhlid hill, on which the Pearl is located, is a pleasant wooded area with many footpaths, ideal for a relaxing walk.”

We decided to walk. It is not very far from her residence, only about 20 to 30 minutes. When we set out the weather was ok. It was overcast and dreary. As we went along the wind started to pick up and it felt colder. By the time we got half-way up the hill it was very windy and very cold. I had my winter coat on, that I use all the time in Canada but it seemed like the wind and the cold was going right through it. I was chilled to the bone.

We finally got up to the top and into the building. We looked around a bit and then decided to go up to the restaurant to have some lunch. After lunch we went out onto the deck for a few minutes. It felt really cold and windy. I think it definitely was.

We decided to go through the Saga Museum that´s at the Perlan.

The following is taken from the internet.

“The history comes to life in Perlan - Saga Museum
For the first time you can see historical figures and major events in Icelandic history from the time of the earliest settlers right up to that of the Reformation, brought to life in a unique and exciting way. A guided tour on CD is included in the entrance fee and guests can choose between 30 min. and one hour tour.

Vibrant museum
The Saga Museum intimately recreates key moments in Icelandic history, moments that have determined the fate of our people and which give a compelling view into how Icelanders have lived for more than a millenium.
Visitors to the museum are guided through the museum´s many attractions as well as through a chronological history of the country. In this vibrant, multidimensional museum, both Icelandic and foreign visitors are given an opportunity to learn about Icelandic history in a way that is both educational and fun.

Replicas of historical Icelandic figures
Life-like replicas of historical Icelandic figures have been created, based on descriptions found in the Viking sagas and chronicles. In order to achieve authenticity, clothing, weapons and everyday objects were constructed using traditional methods passed down through the ages. The weapons were specially crafted, and the wool and linen articles dyed by hand.

Journey into a turbulent past
Throughout the period of settlement, everyday life in Iceland was very difficult. The weather was hardly friendly for most of the year and the land was still volcanically active. The Icelanders often fell victim to eruptions, earthquakes, avalanches and other natural catastrophes that made their lot even harder. And, if that was not enough, they were also subject to the notorious Black Death that led to the destruction of more than a third of the population. However, none of this deterred those who lived here and they developed a remarkable culture with a literature that equals that of any other country in Europe.

No such museum would be complete without its tally of horrors, and among the more gruesome events which can be experienced there are the execution of Jón Arason (Iceland’s last Catholic bishop), the burning at the stake of Sister Katrín (Iceland’s first heretic), and a taste of the famous and bloody battle at Örlygsstaðir.”

I bought the booklet that complements the museum displays so hopefully it will be a good keepsake. I didn’t take any pictures.

We left the Perlan and headed into the city. Kelly wanted to retrieve her purse that she had left at Anna Vala’s place (an Icelandic friend) the night before. The wind and the cold were terrible. I was glad when we finally got there.

We rang the doorbell and were let in. There was a whole throng of people in the house. As it turned out it was the Christmas bread (or laufabrauð) making gathering at Anna Vala’s family’s place and along with her own family there were uncles, aunts, cousins and friends for the annual event. There must have been at least 25 people gathered in the kitchen some manning the kitchen counters while others were at the tables creating their designs on these thin cakes.

The cakes were the size of a plate. Actually a plate was used to put on the flattened-out dough and a knife was used to trim the excess away so that what was left was a circular thin sheet of dough. Using a knife, a fork and a leaf bread cutter, intricate designs were made into these thin cakes.

The leaf bread cutter made diagonal slices and you could remove some of the “leaves” or flip them over to make interesting patterns or virtually do whatever you wanted. I actually tried to do some designs on one piece and Kelly did two. I never got to see the final product after it was fried but then in my head it looked really great.

This was a great experience to be part of, a traditional Icelandic family occasion. Everybody seemed to have a great time.

The following is taken from the internet.

“Laufabrauð (Leaf Bread)

Iceland used to be very isolated. Everything not grown or raised on the island had to be brought by supply ships from Europe. They were often small and badly prepared for the perilous waters of the Atlantic. In the winter season with its severe weathers, no ships sailed at all. Commodities such as flour, sugar, salt, tobacco and many other things were considered a luxury and the poor could only buy it for special occasions, like Christmas.

On the farms it was customary for each member of the household to have a special bowl to store food in, Everyone got a weeks ration of food at a time to dispense of at will. It was thought a necessity to serve bread with the Christmas rations, which were always a little bit larger than normally. The poorer households couldn't afford to buy much flour and to make sure that each member of the house got his/her share of bread, the cakes had to be rolled out really thin. In fact, some said that if you could read the Bible through a cake it was thin enough. To make these plain cakes look more festive, patterns were cut into them before they were fried in tallow. There were several traditional patterns but improvisation was allowed. Today, the decorating and frying of leaf bread is a family event and part of the Christmas preparations.”

And here’s an additional item from the internet.

“Laufabrauð, the traditional Icelandic Christmas flatbread, has sometimes been called “snowflake bread” in English because of the intricate cut-through patterns. It is first mentioned in writing in the early eighteenth century and more than 100 years ago, it had become the one and only Christmas bread of Northern Iceland. Now it is made all over the island, especially by people of northern descent.”

We left with 2 or 3 of those fried breads in tow. “But the weather outside was frightful.” It was snowing, not really snow but these small ice pellets that were being whipped around by this fierce wind. On the way back to Kelly’s residence we went by the Hallgrim’s Church. The wind and snow was at its worst by now.

I was holding the paper bag that the girl at the Saga Museum had given me to hold the booklet that I had bought. Plus now it included the Christmas bread that we got at Anna Vala’s place and my return airline tickets that I had been carrying in my coat pocket. Kelly thought I might as well put them in the bag.

Well a gust of wind blew up with this pelting snow and the paper bag just shattered. The booklet, the bread and my tickets went flying all over the place. Somehow we were able to track them down and catch them before they totally disappeared.

We managed to get back to Gamli Gardur without any further incident.

Kelly made some roast potatoes and cooked up the shrimp for dinner. After dinner I started to transcribe the saga that I had written as pen to paper onto the electronic media. It took me from about 8 PM until 1:30 AM to put the written word into edited electronic Word.

I had another restless sleep the rest of the “long” night. It was still dark at 11 AM. For the second day in a row I finally got up around noon.

Kelly and I went to get some more supplies, this time in a totally different direction. We ended up at Kronan’s getting most of the groceries we needed. On the way back we stopped at the Bjornsbakari and got some bakery items.

When we got back to Gamli Gardur we started to make lunch. We had the fresh buns and the ham that we had bought on Saturday. One of the things that I had brought with me besides the maple syrup and the Stove Top Stuffing was a jar of Strub’s Baby Dill Pickles. They were a big hit on Saturday when I brought them out. My understanding of Icelandic pickles is that they’re something sweet and disgusting. And as Kelly said, ”You won’t like them, Dad.”

After I had made my ham and bun sandwich I said a dill pickle would go really good with this. So Kelly went to her fridge and looked on her shelf. They weren’t there. So there was a frantic search through the other shelves and the other fridges, and then all the cupboards and then the rooms but no Baby Dill Pickles could be found. Where did they go? To this date, no-one has fessed up to this heinous crime and they have not resurfaced.

After this heart-wrenching lunch, we bit our lip and went downtown Reykjavik so that Kelly could do some Christmas shopping. She didn’t see anything that she liked so we headed back to her place.

Kelly made a stir fry and then we watched “Christmas with the Kranks”. I got a half decent sleep that night and woke up around 7 AM.

Tuesday morning we walked around the campus of the University of Iceland. Kelly had to sign up for her last course. It’s a small, very compact campus. There are about 8,000 students registered at any one time. It’s slightly bigger than Trent where Kelly goes to in Canada.

After the tour of the campus we headed off to downtown Reykjavik again. We were going to try to hit some art galleries today. But first we went by Kelly’s apartment building where she stayed at during August when she was attending the Intensive Icelandic Course.

The first art museum we got to was near the harbourfront.

The following is taken from the internet.

“Reykjavik Art Museum – Hafnarhus

Currently there are 3 different exhibitions on display at the Reykjavik Art Museum - Hafnarhus. A private exhibition of works by Gudrun Vera Hjartardottir, works from the Erro collection and an exhibition of works that the Reykjavik Art Museum has acquired over the past three years.”

Today was a two for one day and we got to go to the following museum for free. It was a fair hike to get to this museum. It was raining and the wind along a couple of the streets was just ghastly. But we made it.

The following is taken from the internet.

“Reykjavik Art Museum - Kjarvalsstaðir

The exhibition hall at Miklatun Park was inaugurated in 1973, and was soon named Kjarvalsstadir in honour of the painter Jóhannes S. Kjarval.
Annually it hosts exhibitions of Icelandic and international art, with special emphasis on contemporary art. Exhibitions from the Kjarval Collection are always a feature in the schedule at Kjarvalsstadir.”

After the museum we headed to the Kringlan Mall, supposedly the biggest in Reykjavik and the biggest in Iceland. It was very busy with shoppers. Although there were some strictly Icelandic shops, most of them you’d find in any mall in North America.

The only interesting thing that happened to me was my visit to the Men’s Washroom. For some reason I needed to go rather urgently, so I went into this washroom and entered one of the stalls. I had undone my belt and was pulling down my pants when I looked behind me and saw the world’s smallest toilet. I really had to go so there was no turning back. I did my business. At first I thought I’d fill up the sucker and then I thought “I’m not going to be able to get up.”. But I didn’t and I did. I got out of there as fast as I could. I looked around to see if there was any indication that this was for children only but I didn’t see anything.

We caught the bus back to Kelly’s place. We had dinner and then watched a movie, “The Forty Year Old Virgin”. It was pretty hilarious.

Wednesday morning at 11 AM we went to the National Museum of Iceland which is next door to Kelly’s residence. When we got there we heard singing of Christmas carols. I could recognize the tunes but the words were something else. So we went and listened for a while. Even though I didn´t understand the words it was nice to hear the music. Then one of those Yule Lads got up on stage and started chanting away something or other. I listened for a while but I couldn´t understand a word he was yammering so I started going through the museum. Kelly soon joined me so I think she had enough as well.

The museum had some very interesting exhibits.

The following is taken from the internet.

“National Museum of Iceland

New state of the art galleries for more than 2,000 national treasures have been combined with conceptual exhibits and never before seen artifacts to make the National Museum of Iceland a source of inspiration and discovery.
Making of a Nation–Heritage and History in Iceland is the dynamic new installation for the permanent collection which asks visitors questions, with clues to possible answers from Iceland’s 1200 year culture: Who, and what, make a nation?
Tying the Knot–Icelandic Wedding Customs in Arc Hall illustrates marital traditions with objects from pagan times to the present day.
Formative Icelandic Photography inaugurates the National Gallery of Photography with a landmark exhibit featuring highlights from the Museum’s archives of over two million photographs.

There are wonderful interactive exhibits designed for children and fascinating guided tours for special interests. The Museum Café and adjacent Museum Shop are on the first floor.

The National Museum of Iceland is dedicated to communicating knowledge of Iceland’s cultural heritage from the time of its pioneering settlement in 874 to the present day. The museum reopens with renewed purpose as the national center for conservation, research, and illumination of Iceland’s extraordinary history.”

After the museum we went back to Kelly´s residence and had some lunch. Kelly was meeting with one of her profs at 1 PM about one of her courses for the next term, so I had some time to kill and updated this post.

Later we went over to the Hallgrim´s Church. We went up into the tower and heard the bells chime up close and personal. They´re pretty loud. Since the tower is one of the tallest structures in Reykjavik you get a very good panoramic view of the city. I took a number of pictures. I´m not sure if I´ll be able to post them here.

The following is taken from the internet.

“HALLGRIM'S CHURCH

The church of Hallgrimur is the crown on Iceland's capital with its magnificent 73 m high steeple rising above all other buildings in Reykjavik. It is the largest church of the country with a seating capacity for 1200 people in the nave. It was under construction longer than any other building in Iceland and has at times generated considerable controversy. Ideally situated on the hill Skolavorduholt, overlooking the centre of old Reykjavik, the site for Hallgrims church was in fact set aside early this century for the purpose of building just such a large church to serve the eastern part of the rapidly growing town.

The name of the Rev. Hallgrimur Petursson (1614-1674), without a doubt Iceland's most beloved poet, was soon linked to the plans for the proposed church. He influenced the nation's spiritual development perhaps more than any other person, and generation after generation of Icelanders have read, memorized and quoted his best known work, Hymns of the Passion. Iceland adopted Christianity in the year 1000 and was a part of the Roman Catholic Church until the Reformation in the 16th century, when the Icelandic church became Lutheran. to this day about 95% of the Icelandic population belongs to the Lutheran Church.”

Across the street from the church is another art museum. It was called Einar Jonsson Museum. Although the museum itself was closed you could still go into the yard and see the sculptures that were displayed there. Although it had some interesting sculptures, the one that sticks in my mind is the one of a guy lying underneath a cow suckling on her teats while her head is between his legs. Get the image.

We went down to the harbourfront and came upon the following sculpture called the Sólfar (Sun Voyager). It´s been referred to a stylized Viking ship.

The following is taken from the internet.

There was a picture of the ship but it didn't show up when I posted.

In the evening Kelly and I went for dinner at Caruso, one of the fine dining establishments in downtown Reykjavik and very expensive. I really need a raise. It was a nice meal. We had garlic bread for starters, a bottle of wine, Kelly had a pasta dish and I had the fillet of lamb and Kelly had a dessert. That must have done it. It was the dessert. Total came to over 11,000 Kr. About $225 for two people.

Fred´s Adventures from Iceland (Yet to come)

2005-12-22T17:47:00.000Z

My travel agent reassures me that I’m still booked on both flights, Icelandair from Keflavik to Boston and American Airlines from Boston to Toronto on January 1st. So what is going on? Why would Icelandair tell me that my flight was cancelled when it’s not? I guess I´ll find out. Stay posted.

Fred’s Adventures TO Iceland (without a Cell Phone) - Part 2

2005-12-19T16:59:00.000Z

The next day I had the breakfast and checked out before 11 AM. I didn’t have to pay for the room but I did have to pay for the phone call to Iceland which turned out to be 35 $US once the hotel added its service charge. For less than two minutes.

I thought I’d do a little sightseeing of Boston before I headed to the airport. Well it was a cold, wet, miserable day and I didn’t feel like walking around. Besides, this was Boston, the home of the dreaded Red Sox. Go, Yankees, Go.

I went to the airport around noon. The flight wasn’t leaving until 8:30 PM. I spent almost 3 hours in the Dine Boston Bar and Grill. I had a few pints. At 5 to 7 $US I think I only had three. But I did have a good lunch.

I went to the Icelandair counter but there was nobody there until almost 4 PM. Finally I checked in. No problem about this flight. There was room so I was all set.

However the agent said that since I missed the flight yesterday and did not rebook in time my return flight on the 1st was cancelled. I said I did try but couldn’t get through. He said that the flight had been overbooked and as soon as my reservation was cancelled it was reassigned.

Then he said that there was good news. There were two flights on the 2nd so I should have no problem getting on but I had to contact Icelandair as soon as possible. So I said couldn’t he do it right then and there but he said that he was just there for the current flight.

I went through security and waited. This was now after 4:30 PM and boarding was at 7:55 PM. So I waited and waited. I tried to read the book I had brought, I tried to browse the shops but there weren’t very many and there wasn’t much to look at. I basically walked around or sat.

And I observed. I saw all these people with cell phones that were constantly talking to somebody. I’m sure it helps to pass the time but do you need to be connected 24/7. I have heard that some people pretend to be talking on their cell phones so they look like they are with it. I’d rather be without it.

I’m sure that there were people out there looking at me, thinking that I was a dinosaur, watching them and envious while they were enjoying chit-chatting with each other. Not bloody likely.

At about 10 to 7 PM the girl at the counter announced “Paging Icelandair crew, please report to Gate 5”. A little while later they started arriving. I thought “This is strange.”

7:55 PM rolled around and we were not boarding. It wasn’t until 8:30 PM that we started to board. We took off at 9:01 PM.

About an hour into the flight, they gave us this meal in a box that I only ate a 3rd of. I think that it was chicken cordon bleu or something, a dry bun, a cracker and a tiny Rolo bar. I’m no gourmet so I’m only guessing.

I tried to read, I tried to sleep and I tried to watch the crappy monitor showing Notting Hill. The time passed. And then the captain announced that we should be landing in about 20 minutes, 10 minutes ahead of schedule.

We got closer and the plane started to descend. I saw the ground and the lights from the airport, I thought. It was still very dark at 6 something AM. As we approached the runway, the plane started to shake and shimmy. It was jostled and jerked about like a kite or something. It moved up and down and sideways and tilted a bit. Things didn’t seem right.

I could see the runway and the plane was very low and very close but I felt uneasy. Finally it pulled up and took off again. The announcement came that because of high winds they had to abort the landing. The plane kept going. It was hard to tell what was happening since we were in this dark thick cloud. We had no further word until about 30 to 45 minutes later which was after 7 AM when the captain announced that the tower had said the wind conditions had improved and they would try another landing.

They made their approach again and very soon the plane started to shake and shimmy and jerk about like before. Again it pulled up and aborted the landing. I’m thinking “I’m a goner. The plane can’t land here. How many airports do they have in Iceland that can accommodate a 757 and have favourable weather conditions?” We found out later that there were only 2 or 3 airports in other parts of Iceland that could handle the size of our plane.

I had this vision of us slamming into the ocean or the rugged Icelandic terrain. Neither was a welcomed sight.

Then the captain announced that we were being diverted to an airport on the other side of Iceland in a town called Egilsstaðir about 30 minutes away. So off we went.

We managed to get to Egilsstaðir and land safely, first time. Everyone applauded. They wanted us off the plane and into the terminal. We all filed out and walked over to this rather small building. We entered at the baggage level, then up the stairs to the main area which had a concession stand and a bunch of tables and chairs on one side and some couches on the other. There was also a second level that had more couches and seats.

However this place was not built for more than 50, maybe a 100 people. I’m sure there were more than 200 of us. There were people wall to wall.

We didn’t know what would happen, whether we would wait until the weather cleared in Keflavik, whether we would get bussed back or whether we would be put up for the night (I guess this was a long shot. Although it was still dark, it was only 8 AM). This town supposed only had less than 10,000 residents.

The concession stand was doing a booming business. I’m sure they had never had this many people at one time, unless this kind of thing happened regularly. They probably could have charged double and the people would have paid. After getting two beers for 1300 Kr maybe they were.

They had said that as soon as they find out anything they would let us know. We ended up waiting for over two hours.

As I sat there sipping my beer, I observed this mass of humanity. For one thing, there didn’t seem to any panic or concern. In fact there was a lot of laughter and chatter, which I didn’t understand much of except for the bits of English here and there. Some of the people had connecting flights to catch, like Stockholm, Copenhagen, London, Amsterdam, etc. so they seemed a little antsy. You could almost tell who they were.

The other thing was that almost everyone, me excepted, had a cell phone and they were constantly talking to somebody. I was thinking of asking one of them if I could use their cell phone to call Kelly and tell her what was happening but I got so intimidated by the fact that virtually everyone had one, even many of the kids. There were a couple of families with 2 or 3 kids and everybody had a phone and seemed to be using it constantly. Who are these people talking to, why so long and about what?

I didn’t want to look like someone that didn’t have a cell phone. So I stayed quiet.

Actually I broke down and asked a guy who was sitting beside me and with whom I had struck up a conversation, if I could use his phone. He was sitting there just pawing it. He said he was sorry but his phone did not work internationally, only back home in Sweden. Then I thought, “Sorry, Kelly, You’ll just have to wait this one out.”.

I wish I had my camera to record this, but they had asked us to leave our carry-on bags on the plane and unfortunately my camera was in my backpack. Oh, well. Maybe next time.

Cell phone moment #5

If I had a cell phone, I could have called Kelly to tell her about our situation so that she did not worry. However there wasn’t much else I could tell her except that we were in a wait and see mode. I was hoping that she had called Icelandair to find out about our situation.

Finally the announcement came that we were to re-board the plane and that we were heading back to Keflavik. The weather conditions had changed dramatically. So we all filed back onto the plane and got ready for the return flight.

Cell phone moment #6

If I had a cell phone, I could have called Kelly that we were on our way back to Keflavik. I hoped that she already knew. Also she was supposed to wait until I called her to come and get me.

It was a forty to forty-five minute flight to Keflavik. As we flew back I could see this bright yellow and orange streak trying to peek over the clouds on the horizon. But soon we were below the clouds and the streak disappeared. We landed without further incident. Everyone applauded again when we landed.

Other than apologizing for the delays, Icelandair had offered us nothing, not even free drinks. I guess they had felt they had done enough by landing us safely. For this, I’m very grateful. I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t. But it would have been nice.

I must admit that the two flight attendants who sat in front of me (I was in seat 9A which was right beside the main exit of the plane) gave me a lot of comfort as they didn’t seem phased at all. They were talking and laughing as if this happened all the time. They may have been thinking something else, but it was a relief to see.

We deplaned, as they say, and were funneled through the airport building to the baggage claim area. Those who had connecting flights were scrambling around trying to find their gates. They had announced that except for London and Amsterdam which had already left, the other flights had been held back awaiting our return. So much for a no-hold policy.

I got my bags, went through customs and before I knew it I was out the door right in front of the Flybus that was to take me to the bus terminal in downtown Reykjavik.

Cell phone moment #7

If I had a cell phone, I could have called Kelly and let her know that I was on the bus and would be arriving in about half an hour. She could have been there when I arrived. However she was worth waiting for.

This was 11:30 AM local time, 6:30 AM EST. I got to the bus terminal a little after 12 PM, called Kelly on a pay phone (30 Kr), she came down and we walked back to her residence which was about 5 to 10 minutes away by 12:30 PM. The weather was rainy and dreary but not as cold as Boston. And it was fairly light outside considering the weather.

I finally made it, 43 hours after I left my home in Canada.

Cell phone moment #8

If I had a cell phone and we were actually going down I would have prayed instead of trying to call Him. It would have been a lot cheaper and I would have reached Him quicker. But fortunately I did not have to resort to that.

Will I fly Icelandair again? I’ll have to. It’s the only way to get off the bloody island.

Stay tuned for more postings of Fred’s Adventures (who’s now safely) in Iceland.

A final word on cell phones. If I had a cell phone, I could have saved some money on the call to Iceland, maybe. I could have let Kelly know about the delay when we got diverted to Egilsstaðir and again when we flew back to Keflavik. Finally I could have called her from the bus to let her know when to meet me at the bus terminal. The other times it wouldn´t have helped any. Kelly survived. And so did I, without a cell phone.

Fred’s Adventures TO Iceland (without a Cell Phone) - Part 1

2005-12-19T16:57:00.000Z

Hi All. It’s me, Fred. This is the first part of a two part post.

As everybody who knows me, I was very excited, as excited as I can get, and I was looking forward to going to Iceland to visit my daughter, Kelly, who’s going to school there. Since Kelly is calling her blog, Kelly’s Adventures in Iceland, I was planning on adding a chapter about Fred’s Adventures in Iceland. I didn’t expect it to turn out to be Fred’s Adventures TO Iceland.

It all started on December 15 at 12:30 PM when Airways Transit picked me up. They had called the day before to move up the time from 1:30 PM to 12:30 PM because of the expected snow storm that was in the forecast for Thursday. I was finishing packing as the guy was ringing my doorbell. Off I went on my merry way.

He had one other person to pick up so he swung into Waterloo to get him. As the driver was helping the guy load up, an announcement came over his communication transmitter that there was a backlog at Sportsworld Drive and he was advised to take an alternate route. I don’t think the delay had anything to do with the impending storm which hadn’t started as yet.

When the driver got back in the van, I mentioned that there was a problem at Highway 8 and Sportsworld Drive. He called in and was advised to take the alternate. He went along some sideroads and eventually got back onto the 401.

When I got to Pearson I went to the American Airlines counter and checked in. This was before 2 PM and about 3 hours before the trip to Boston at 5 PM. We were supposed to be boarding at 4:15 PM.

So I waited. As I was waiting I made a few observations. Most of the people that were also waiting had cell phones that they were constantly using. Who were they talking to and why? There were a number of people that had these “things” clipped over their ears that they were listening to and talking to while they were browsing through a newspaper. There were also people that had headsets with these mikes wrapped around their jaw that they were speaking into while they were browsing through one of the airport shops. There was one guy who seemed to be describing every move he made while he was walking around like “I’m in front of the departure screen and I can see that the flight is still on schedule.” And he went through a lot more. Who are these people?

4:15 PM rolled around and nothing happened. Sometime later an announcement was made that the flight from New York was delayed due to the weather and since we were supposed to be using the same plane to go to Boston, our flight was rescheduled to leave at 5:30 PM. Between 5 and 5:30 PM another announcement was made that the flight had arrived and that we should be boarding by 5:45 PM.

We actually did board starting at 5:45 PM. Things were looking up. The flight to Iceland wasn’t leaving until 8:35 PM so we had two hours and fifty minutes to get there. Once we were boarded they announced that the plane needed to be de-iced before we could take off and that wasn’t expected to take too long.

It was interesting to see the de-icing even in the dark. There were two large trucks on either side of the plane each with this big arm and two hoses sticking out and a guy in a small compartment at the top of the arm controlling the hoses. They swung over the plane spraying some sort of anti-freeze or chemical (I didn’t think it was just hot water) all over the plane. I was near the front of the plane so I didn’t see anything further so I assume that they were spraying the wings and the tail of the plane for the other five to ten minutes.

By the time we got de-iced it was after 6:30 PM and time was getting tight. Now we were waiting in line for take off. At about 10 to 7 PM, the captain announced that we were about tenth in line and we should be taking off in 15 to 20 minutes. That would have made it about 7:10 PM.

I had this horrible feeling that I wasn’t going to make my connecting flight at 8:35 PM. We left at 7:16 PM and the flight time was expected to be one hour and eleven minutes, so arriving at around 8:27 PM. Plenty of time you might think.

I spoke with the flight attendant about my predicament and he said that they had no direct way of contacting Iceland Air but if they somehow did he would try to see if they would hold the plane for me. Fat chance I thought! He came back to say that they had text-messaged American Airlines in Boston who were going to try to contact Icelandair. This was between 8 and 8:10 PM.

Cell phone moment #1

If I had a cell phone, there was nothing I could have done. Cell phones were not allowed used while in flight.

He also said that our flight was landing at Terminal B at Logan Airport (for domestic flights only. Isn’t Canada its own country?) and that Icelandair was going to be leaving from Terminal E. There was a bus shuttle between the terminals.

We landed and they let me off first. I ran to the area where I was supposed to catch the shuttle, which took forever before it finally came. By the time I got to Terminal E it was 8:50 PM. The Icelandair counters were closed.

What was I to do? I went to the Information counter and the guy confirmed that the flight had left. I could try calling Icelandair on their 1-800 number to reschedule. I did that but when I dialed 2 for reservations I got a message that their system was down and I should try again another time.

Cell phone moment #2

If I had a cell phone, I could have called the toll free number for Icelandair and got the same response. I dialed the toll free number from a pay phone free of charge and got nowhere.

I went back to the information guy. He said that there wasn’t much more he could do. Then he said, just wait and he called someone. He told me to go to the Icelandair counter and someone would meet me there.

I met a lady at the counter and she said that they got the message but that Iceland Air policy was not to hold up flights so it had left. But there was good news. My bags had arrived and they were in storage. Also there was room for me on the Friday flight. I asked if I had to do anything and she said to just show up at the check-in time and show my ticket to the agent.

Also she said that airlines normally do not put up passengers overnight because of weather conditions. But she suggested that I go back to Terminal B and talk to an American Airlines representative and they may be able to do something for me.

I took the shuttle back to Terminal B. I got to the American Airlines counter and it was shut down. By this time it was 9:30 PM. Since the information guy was so helpful at Terminal E, I went to the Information counter at Terminal B and the guy suggested I go to the American Airlines baggage claim people who were still there across the way.

They said that they couldn’t do anything but that American Eagle (which is affiliated with American Airlines and it was an American Eagle plane that I had actually been on) was still open.

I went back to the departure level and, by golly, they were still there. I told my sad story and the agent took my ticket and went into the back room for about 10 minutes. At least it felt like 10 minutes or maybe more. She came back and made a phone call. Eventually she got the OK, I guess, and issued me a voucher for the Comfort Inn. The shuttle was to leave for the hotel at 10:10 PM. It was 9:50 PM now.

The shuttle got me to the hotel by about 10:45 PM. I checked in and got to my room. It could have been worse. I hadn’t eaten anything since the afternoon. On the flight they had given me a package of pretzels and crackers which I didn’t eat and some juice.

“I’ll order room service”, I thought. It closed at 10 PM. There was a restaurant in the hotel but it stopped serving food at 10 PM as well. I didn’t feel like venturing out. And there wasn’t a mini bar in the room so I couldn’t even drown my frustration. However there was a continental breakfast waiting for me in the morning.

Cell phone moment #3

If I had a cell phone, I could have called for take-out food and had it delivered. But then again I could have used the hotel phone for the local call.

I decided that I had to call Kelly to let her know about my missed flight because she was going to meet me at the bus terminal in Reykjavik. It was too late now to call because it was 4 AM her time. I had to stay awake another two hours which would make it 6 AM.

I couldn’t find anything interesting on the TV. I really wasn’t in the mood but I had to stay up. I kept flicking the channels just to stay awake.

Cell phone moment #4

If I had a cell phone, I could have called Kelly if I had the right plan and maybe saved some money. Read below to see how much it actually cost me to call from the hotel.

I finally called at about 1:10 AM local time and she answered. She actually had been awake since about 4:30 AM because they had walked a friend, who was leaving to go home, to the bus terminal. I told her what happened. It lasted less than two minutes.

I had a hard time falling asleep after that.

Alone in Iceland

2005-12-14T21:28:00.000Z

Holly, and anyone else who doesn't know, I am staying in Iceland for Christmas. I won't be back in Canada until July (I think the 9th). My dad is coming to visit me, he will be here this Friday and stay until January 1st.

I was in the Saturday newspaper. My friend told me about it and I was like "what? really?" completely forgetting why I would be in the newspaper. But last week I had an interview with these people who are organizing foreign students having Christmas dinner with an icelandic family. They asked me to come back later to have my picture taken, and that is the picture that is in the newspaper. And the article called "Einmanaleg jól á Íslandi" (lonely christmas in Iceland) is about this and they even quoted me, but they spelt my name wrong, Kelly Kaipaly, haha even though I even spelt it out for them, but oh well. I thought that was cool. I should see if I can scan it somewhere and post it, but if not I can give it to my dad to scan when he gets back in Canada. Though it is weird that I am the main piece for the article but they haven't even responded to me yet on whether I will be having dinner with an Icelandic family. It would be a neat experience for me and my dad to have an icelandic christmas dinner. It was funny though because my icelandic friends told me about me being in the newspaper and their mom's felt so bad for me that they offered that I could come over for dinner at their place some time during the holidays, and we joked that it would be funny if everyone felt bad and sent me christmas presents :) hehe that wouldn't be so bad. Speaking of presents, I got my package from my mom and step-dad yesterday. Was so excited, I really wanted to open it but feel I should save it for christmas morning.

People are beginning to leave now. Tisho left Monday but he will be back, but Kate and Nathan left today and it was kind of sad because they are not coming back to Iceland. By next weekend pretty much everyone will be gone. Will be sad, but at least I will have my dad here.

Christmas Parties

2005-12-11T07:42:00.000Z

Wow, this has been a good week. I completed my exams by Tuesday and then we had our Christmas party for our floor Wednesday and then a christmas party for the whole building last night.

The floor party was pretty fun. We all made some food, I made lasagna, and there were mashed potatoes, stir fry, soup, garlic rice, and more and some cake for desert. We listened to Christmas music and exchanged gifts. I got this cute little bird that you can clip on to things. Then after all of this all of us, except Harald, went to the pool for a late night swim. Was a lot of fun.

Last night we had a little birthday party for Kate. She just turned 20 and both her and Nathan are leaving on wednesday. Wow everyone is leaving really soon! Nathan made chili for her birthday and Chrissy mad this wonderful cake with circus candy animals on top. Was really tastey.

Then immediately after there was the christmas party up stairs. We now have a christmas tree and christmas lights. I made some chocolate chip cookies and attempted to make turnovers but they didn't turn out that great, the dough was too brittle. But I think both were a big success because now there are none left. Csaba made lots of crepes (I think he said he was aiming to make a hundred!) and there were other goodies. Also christmas music playing. Was a fun party.

Sigur Rós.....

2005-11-28T11:25:00.000Z

Just have to say that the concert was amazing. Has to be the best concert I´ve ever been to. The place was packed. Luckily the venue was reasonably small, I think I heard it fits 5000 people. I took pictures but don´t think they turned out very well, but hopefully some of the pictures my friends took came out alright. Sigur Rós said that they were really nervous playing because they haven´t played in Iceland in about 3 years, so I was really lucky that they played while I was here. I felt complete in the concert, since they were one of the major inspirations for coming to Iceland, and Jon introduced them to me by playing their song Popplagið from the ( ) album over 2 years ago, and they played that song as a finale at the concert. Was phenomenal...

Exam Crunch

2005-11-25T16:35:00.000Z

So it´s coming down the end of the semester. Weird to think it is almost over and a lot of the people I have been living with and friends I have made will go back to their homes. I don´t know if I will ever see them again, but I do hope that I will.

So for the whole semester, all the work that actually counts for marks is concentrated into next week, but I don´t think it should be so bad. At least I am trying not to get too stressed out about it. It will all get done and it will all work out, "þetta réddast!"

ok, I finally found another (better?) photo page, so I will add that to my list. Flickr ended up not being good at all cause it couldn´t even hold many photos on it. It will take a while to get all my new photos on the site, so be patient, but I do have pictures from the Snæfellsness trip up, which is a collaboration of pictures from my travelling buddies Hannes, long-haired Christian, other Christian and Anna (just so you know I did not take the pictures, but there are two that are mine before my camera died).

It´s girls´ night part two tonight. Might go to the that, but first Becca and I are going to the art store to buy some finger-paint and have some fun and a break from school. I need more colour and excitement in my room. Thinking of buying some christmas lights from the flea market for my room. Then my room will be BRIGHT and HAPPY during the dark days of winter.

Seeing Sigur Rós this Sunday. Should be good. Long bus ride to a place I´ve never been but have the slightest of vague ideas of where it is. Fun times :)

I need lessons on improving my memory. Was looking on the internet for suggestions and it is the same as the techniques they try to teach you in school, but some reason you forget anyway. Needs to be a way of life. But my memory sometimes scares me. I forget certain things very easily, or some things just don´t occur to me and then the whole learning aspect needs a lot of memory work. Same with languages. I think I would be better at learning languages if I could just remember everything. I also wouldn´t seem to be so stupid sometimes if I could remember details. I was watching a movie last night called Centre Stage and took me a while to actually recognize characters, because some of them looked alike and others I didn´t remember where they came from, they seemed to just pop out of nowhere. It is kind of embarrassing if you have to ask someone constantly "who is that?". Being isolated and on my own has really helped to bring light to my limitations and perhaps weaknesses, but still haven´t found my strengths... I have to have them, just not sure what they are yet.

What? Less than 7 hours of sunlight? Less each day...

2005-11-09T23:50:00.000Z

Not much new is happening with me right now. Been researching for a paper for my Oceania class. Having difficulty finding good topics so might have to change topics, though I think it is a good one. Was going to talk about how the cultures in Melanesia have changed of the years, looking specifically and which Western technologies and ideas have been accepted easily and which have caused much conflict with traditional beliefs. But they have very limited resources in the library so have to dig through internet sources.

I have created a new pictures site. I am trying Flickr out, see how well it works. Tell me which one you like better. I might keep looking for a site which is easily to upload pictures for at mass quantities so I can put all my pictures on it, but for now they will be divided.

The days are getting shorter. Sun is up around 10am and it is dark by 5pm though Monday it felt like the sun never got to it´s full heightness and just started going back down around 1pm. It really isn´t that bad, we still get some sunlight (for the time being) but it is more that it disorients you for your routine schedule throughout the day, like eating times, sleeping times, and how long to do homework and study for. Tuesday I felt like I was running out of time to do things, didn´t think I would make it to the grocery store, but then realised it was only 3pm. Strange how sensitive our senses are to daylight and not just with sight.

The weather has been schizophrenic lately. Was cloudy, but warming up (about 2°C) most of the ice on the streets has been melting, then yesterday was nice and sunny and bright. Today was cold, wet and windy, and snowed for a bit, but in the evening (around 4pm) there was some sun, and blue sky peeping behind purple-blue clouds, then over-cast with light rain. Who knows what it will be like tomorrow.

We had a chocolate fest this evening to cheer everyone up from the some what gloomy weather. I bought some chocolate fondue for girls´ night, which was suppose to be on Saturday but most people felt tired and lazy and not up for it (and girls from up stairs ended up having their own on the 4th floor with chocolate mint browns, caramel corn and Sex and the City episodes). Anyway, I still had this fondue so, said, why not use it. We cut up some apples, bananas and strawberries and had some yummy chocolatey goodness. Then Tom made some deep-fried donuts (ended up being more like beaver tails, though I have never had a beaver tail, except for these things Tom cooked), covered in sugar and cinnamon.. really tastey.

I still need to go out and get some pictures of the northern lights. I have seen them a few times, but it has always been cold, wasn´t really prepared for walking to a place away from street lights so I could get a good picture. But one of these days I will. I have to. So you can look forward to that.

Out for now.

Happy Halloween

2005-10-30T21:05:00.000Z

Saturday night we had our Halloween party. Was a lot of fun. A lot of people made or brought some really good food. I made my pumpkin pie and it turned out pretty good and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I was really proud of myself for making it all from scratch, making the purée right from a pumpkin (which was hard to find, only saw a few and very small ones at this one little flower shop). I ended up baking pumpkin brownies today, using the left ove puree, and they are really delicious as well. Fpr the party, other people made brownies, cookies, apple crisp, among bags of chips as well as icelandic harðfisk (dried fish). Most people in Gamli Garður as well as friends dressed up, some really creative costumes too! Pictures of the night will be on my picture site. The party ended up being a pretty big success, and many people´s first halloween, since halloween is really only celebrated in North America (but I think it is starting to migrate to other countries slowly).

Was weird to celebrate halloween though because it doesn´t feel like October to me. Feels like December and that it should be Christmas. We even had a blizzard (a full out blizzard with a lot of snow and high winds) on Friday which lasted the entire day and into the night. I love blizzards though so I really enjoyed it. I even went for a walk downtown and was almost blown away and blinded by snow. I think as long as you don´t have to drive anywhere for long distances, blizzards can be fun. Friday was so rediculous that I would laugh and it made me feel really happy because it felt like being back in Canada (though perhaps in January or February, not October). A few of my Icelandic friends didn´t like it though, and found it depressing. That night though I went to the swimming pool with a bunch of friends and it was intense to be outside in the pool and hottubs (most place in Reykjavik are outdoor) while the snow is crashing down and windy whirling around. We even had a snow fight in the tubs and some of the guys ran and rolled in the snow. Was so much fun. Though now I think I have a cold but I think it was starting before the pool fun (most likely from the long nights at Airwaves last weekend and my immune system finally gave in).

My mom and dad keep asking about my schooling, but really it feels like I am doing nothing, so I feel there is no point in writing about it. I was talking to Leif about how it feels like we are not really learning anything. I think we are learning more from the experience of being in a new country, meeting people from all over the world and being on our own and having to be independent that what we learn in class. The work load here is quite relaxed. I go to classes, do the readings for class, I´ll have a little bit of homework for Icelandic language but not much so I spend most of my time hanging out with friends. My Icelandic Folktales class is really interesting, and the teacher is really funny, but he is kind of unorganized in how he delivers the information so it is very rambled and all over the place. Then my Ethnography for Oceania is neat, but it is in Icelandic so it feels like I get a very shallow knowledge of the material because I have to depend completely on the textbooks (which are in english) since I don´t understand much in lectures (some random phrases in the power point presentation sometimes). All my marks for that class are depended upon one large essay and then two small essays for an exam at the very end of the semester. Then with my Icelandic, it is hard to tell how well I am learning the language. I am learning much on pronunciation, learning new sounds, learning how different languages work and also how they are similar to other languages. Studying anthropology, it is neat to see how different cultures adapt to what they are given, and how they change (but also how they remain the same) from the places they migrate from. I have also learned a lot more about North American culture and even Canadian culture (and how different we actually are from Americans). I have also made amazing friendships, and will continue meeting more new people, each one teaching me something more and different. So I guess I really am learning a lot here.

Iceland Airwaves Festival

2005-10-27T00:36:00.000Z

Well Airwaves is over. Went Wednesday to Saturday with a few extra shows on Sunday. Was a long and tiring few days but a lot of fun. I saw some pretty cool bands, but I was also kind of disappointed with a lot of the bands as well. Most of them were just very generic bands, not really sticking out, though some would try and be unique like the Apparat Organ Quartet which were 4 organists and a drummer, though they were electric organs so just sounded like electronic, industrial type music. But they had a typical rock band, punk band, indie band, etc. Also there was not much energy from the band nor the audience (which either may have had an effect on the other). The bands didn´t interact with the audience much and the crowd would bob to the music but not give much response though they would always cheer (perhaps out of politeness) when a song was done, no matter who the band was. Maybe it is because of Icelandic indifference or maybe I was tired and music-festival-out, going out for 4 to 8 hours a night to listen to music and I was de-sensitized to the music(which is most probable).

Now that I have made it sound like a horrible time, I really did have fun the whole weekend. I spent most nights hanging with Anna Vala, Ásta and Leif and sometimes with Tom, Chrissy, Kate, Nathan and others. The first two nights were kind of dissappointing, I only saw about 3 bands each night because we tried to go from one venue to another but there were long queues to wait and would have taken about an hour to get inside, but by friday I had figured out a plan of venues to go to where I was able to go to 2 or 3 with out having to wait in line and seeing a lot more bands (though both Friday and Saturday I was out from 8pm until 4am one right and 3am the second night. I think I got my money´s worth). I barely made it Friday night though, I was so exhausted and many times thought of going home but made it through the night and the last band, Jagúar, a funk band played for an hour and a half which was a lot of fun. I also saw Jónsi again, with his possible boyfriend and other bandmate Kjartan at the one venue I went to (pictures on my pic site, though kind of dark). I felt like such a stalker taking a picture of them, considering they are just like anyone else, but I did it anyway.

You can check out the website for info on the bands and such at www.icelandairwaves.com

The bands I would recommend, or the ones I liked at least are ( all icelandic):
Skátar Ókind Úlpa
Jagúar Jakobínarína Lights on the Highway
Hjálmar Ampop Helgi Valur

Then bands other people really enjoyed that I didn´t see:
José Gonzales(sweden) The (International) Noise Conspiracy(sweden)
Junior Senior(denmark) The Zutons(UK)
Architecture in Helsinki(australia) Juliette and the Licks(US)
Benni Hemm Hemm(iceland) Hermigervill(iceland)

There are a lot more who were probably really good but these ones stood out. If you are able to you should download some songs. Some of the bands have mp3s you can listen to on the site but I haven´t looked around much to find where you can download their music. It was frustrating and really difficult because there were so many bands playing and not enough time and too many people to see all the bands you wanted to see, but the experience at least opened me up to new music (especially icelandic, considering I tried to go to mostly to icelandic bands).

This weekend we are having a big Halloween party in our rez. Everyone is suppose to dress up, bring a snack, and their own drinks and we are allowed two guests each. I think I will dress up as a vampire, because it will be really easy to do and all I need is some white make-up to make me look pale. And I will attempt to make my pumpkin pie for the party, hopefully it will turn out, not even sure what I bought is a pumpkin, think it is some type of gourd. Well we will see how it comes out. I´ll try and write about how it goes later but for now should get some rest.

Oh by the way, temperature has dropped to under 0°C now, was -3 yesterday and I think colder today, but still bright and sunny during the day though sun rises at about 8:30-9am and sets around 5:30-6pm.

My celebrity encounter

2005-10-20T18:21:00.000Z

So right now there is the big Iceland Airwaves Festival going on. I saw 4 bands last night, and hopefully many more tonight and the next 2 nights as well. Last night I heard Cynic Guru, they were ok though were a typical pop rock band; Mr Silla, she had a really pretty voice and Portishead style music; then Jára which was more folky rock music, kind of dixie chick´s sort of feel, and the lead singer had a pretty voice but by the end it was getting kind of dry, reminded me of a female version of Interpol.

Then we decided to head to another venue, Grand Rökk to hear Benni Hemm Hemm but the line up was really long, ended up waiting in line for 40 mins and were still not inside. I was with Leif and Anna Vala from Iceland and she was teaching us some icelandic. After waiting maybe 30 mins the bar´s manager came out and offered people chairs to sit on, and this Icelandic guy behind me gave me one of the chairs and I said "Takk" (thank you). I kind of thought he looked like Jónsi, the lead singer of Sigur Rós, but he looked like a typical icelandic person so I didn´t think anything of it. I sat down on the chair and Leif and Anna Vala sat on top of me to keep warm (was so nice during the day but the temperature dropped so much at night). Our friend Ásta came out of Grand Rökk and so we were not going to make it in time to see the band we wanted to we decided to leave and try another place. We walked towards the place we had been earlier in the night but there was a huge line up so we just went to a café. Ásta then said "hey, did you notice Jónsi standing behind us?". So it was him! But Leif freaked out asking her why she didn´t tell him, because he really wanted to talk to him and brag to his friends back home that he met the singer of Sigur Rós. But I guess Icelandic people are so used to seeing Sigur Rós and Björk that it doesn´t phase them that other people think they are a big deal. But I was amazed that Jónsi was actually waiting in line like everyone else and didn´t use his celebrity status to get in.

Then today tickets went on sale for the Sigur Rós concert here November 27th, so right after my first class I rushed to a computer and bought a ticket. I can´t be in Iceland without seeing them live! So EXCITED!! :) It was funny though because I received an email from Lucky Fares for Icelandair and you could buy a return ticket to Iceland from the U.S and get a free Sigur Rós ticket thrown in as well.

Well now another night of music and fun. Who knows who I will meet tonight.

Sjáumst

Happy Thanksgiving and Oktoberfest

2005-10-10T10:56:00.000Z

I hope everyone had a good weekend. I had a great weekend. Thursday and Friday was Oktoberfest here, there was a blue and white tent set up on campus, so I went both nights. The first night there were probably about a 100 people or so, just sitting drinking beer and eating brautwurst, staup, and bretzel. Really good, though Tom and Nathan from my floor were complaining that they didn´t have any saurkraut. A brass band played for a few minutes and then a choir sang, mostly Bavarian music. There were a few heaters along the one side of the tent but it was still pretty cold inside. Some people tried to keep warm by drinking the Jagermeitzer.

The second night, which was the main night, was intense. I didn´t go until later, but there was a line up just to get inside the tent. Many people though found a secret way in (though not really that secret) on the other side, which had an opening and people were walking in and out of it. There must have been most of the school´s population there (which is around 8000 students). The place was packed with people, people were even on the tables. At least this time the place was pretty warm. I missed the German Ambassador though, he was suppose to tap the keg earlier in the day. I think they only started having oktoberfest a few years ago, but they get a lot of german exchange students so it makes sense.

Sunday was such a beautiful day. Bright blue skies, fairly warm, a really nice fall day. The leaves are already falling, and there is some colour, orange and yellow on the trees and bright red on some bushes, so I have not missed autumn. Tom and I went to one of the pools in the afternoon and went swimming. I want to try and go swimming more often. Swimming is a big pasttime here, and even their outdoor pools and hotpots are open all year round. I went with a few people last week when it much have been around 5°C or less with wind and was an adventure running from the building to the pool, then to the hotpots, and then back. Though after being in the hottest hotpot at about 42-44°C it didn´t feel so cold on the way out.

The other Canadians on my floor and I improvised a Thanksgiving dinner for the night. Iceland doesn´t celebrate Thanksgiving, and I don´t even think they have turkeys, we haven´t seen any. So instead we had two chickens, potatoes, beans, carrots and gravy, and for dessert we had apple crumble. Very delicious. A few Americans kept asking what we were doing and when we told them we were having Thanksgiving, they would make some comment about how Thanksgiving can´t happen until after Halloween. They´d also make a comment on 'Do Canadians always eat chickens for thanksgiving?'. Harold, one of the Americans, thinks they should be able to get turkeys on the American base here so they might take a trip there (near Keflavik) to get one for their Thanksgiving. But overall it was a good evening.

At Home in the World

2005-10-06T10:06:00.000Z

I am reading this book for my Ethnography of Oceania class called "At Home in the World". It is actually a really good book, it has really hit me home, and I have been able to relate to it a lot. Though I think I am suppose analyse the ethnography of Austrialian Aborigines, and ignore the philosophy of what is a home. But I suppose it goes hand in hand. Seems every where in the world a culture oppresses another culture until practically annihilation or amalgamation. Europeans on Native Americans (side note: found out yesterday from a friend that Indians actually means 'people of God' which Christopher Columbus called them, and India was not called India at that time), Chinese on Tibetans, White Australians on Australian Aboriginals, men on women. Humans just love to oppress.

But sorry that wasn´t really the point. The book touched on how home is not where the house is, home is where you feel at ease, having a sense of being at home. I am starting to have such a sense here. There seem to be different phases you go through (basing on myself) when you move to another place. You at first have a sense of the excitement of being in a new and different place. Everything seems amazing and wonderful and you notice the differences between the place you are and the place you are from. Second, the novelty begins to wear off. You begin to notice the similarities between the new place and your home country. The exhilaration of being in this new place begins to die out, but not completely. Because at the third stage you accept the similarities and you accept the differences and really begin to 'live' there. You have made a home in this new place and go on with your life.

I really felt it yesterday when I went for a walk around campus. I walked with Tom to the science building, which I had a weird deja vu when I walked into the place because last winter I had a dream of Iceland and dreamt this science building. In the dream I was going to all courses in Icelandic but inbetween the classes I would meet with one of my profs and he would explain everything that he said in class to me in English, to help me learn the language. I walked through the building which had high windows on the one side and a stair way going up the wall on the opposite. It was blizzarding out side the snow blew across the large window. It is strange that I dreamt this building when I never saw it before.

But on our walk, we went behind this building and there was a little wetland there, with ponds and a boardwalk. This area is used for the biology students here. There were long grasses and other plants growing there, and this reminded me of my walking adventures along the Credit River in Mississauga and along the Otonabee in Peterborough. It connected me with places where I felt at home from my home country. And when you´d look up out of this little piece of wilderness you can see you are surrounded by Reykjavik.

2005-09-29T18:46:00.000Z

After almost 2 months of living in Iceland, the novelty is beginning to wear off. I feel guilty that I take for granted where I am, but it would be impossible to always be completely enthralled in a foreign place, it would be exhausting. I am becoming comfortable here, feeling almost at home here, but at the same time I´m starting to miss more things from back home. I was looking a pictures on Google yesterday of autumn in Canada and I really miss the bright colours of the trees and all the leaves on the ground, walking through a foot of leaves along Oriole Parkway. The smell of autumn, of bonfires, and pumpkins (and all the comes with them). They do have pumpkins here. I have seen them in one store, but they are pretty small. Would be nice to get a few for Halloween, make pumpkin pie (need to find a recipe), and roasting pumpkin seeds! I kind of miss the late nite Timmy runs, and conversations. It´s hard to just go to a cafe and chill because one coffee is about $6. But we hang out in our kitchen all the time, drinking tea or hot chocolate and chatting and it´s really nice.

I really love all the people in my residence, but sometimes it is strange to go back and forth from North America to Iceland/Europe everyday. When I was in the language course I was getting used to thinking and talking in a certain way, which was useful because you would think in more simpler ways that you could translate into another language more easily. But being with all English speaking people you get back into the groove of thinking Canadian or English and then it is hard to go back. I went to a store today and when the lady asked me if I needed help in Icelandic I automatically replied in English. I felt so foreign. I like when they mistake me for being Icelandic, though most of the time I don´t understand what they say, it´s a start and it is good to be constantly hearing the language. When I get my new laptop I plan on renting icelandic movies, or better movies I know well and watch them in icelandic and practise hearing it more.

Some times I think I am never going to learn this language. I feel really stupid some times, perhaps not so much with Icelandic, because it is very new to me and it is a hard language, but more with French and maybe a little bit Spanish, I feel I shoud know it better and more than I do. I also feel crippled when I try and speak in another language, like something is holding me back to being able to speak it. I cannot think how to formulate sentences or cannot think of the word at the time, but later it will come to me. I also even stupid with my own language, I have never been articulate, and it can be quite frustrating, especially if you have to explain to someone who does not know your language well.

Hann á afmæli í gær

2005-09-25T13:38:00.000Z

Yesterday was Tom´s birthday. He turned 20. So far we´ve had parties for everyone´s birthdays, making a big dinner for everyone on our floor and some gifts as well. We made pizzas last night and fries as well with ketchup and mayonaise. Was really good. And for dessert we made milkshakes!!! So delicious. We had vanilla, banana, strawberry, chocolate and even Bailey´s milkshakes. I melted a dark chocolate bar down for the chocolate shakes, but the chocolate kept melting the icecream so we had to add more. In the end they were so rich and so decadent :P

A bunch of us pitched in and paid for a Chili plant as a gift for Tom. Kate and Nathan bought him more hot dogs and all the fixings of a typical Icelandic Hotdog (which is ketchup, relish, dried onions, and two other sauces which I´m not sure what they are, one is kind of like honey mustard and the other is almost a tartar sauce but not really haha). Tom will be "doggin' it" for a while now. The term doggin' it has become common speech now on our floor (thanks to Tom), and the different ways of making them. Right now they are trying to think of how to make a dessert dog. A thing that is very different is all the condoments are very sweet here. Even mustard, which was weird, unless you buy dijon mustard.

Chrissy has the next birthday, on Wednesday so we have to figure out what to do for her. She was always the one who organised the past birthdays so we have to do something big for her. Should be fun.

Winter in September

2005-09-24T13:17:00.000Z

The days are getting shorter and colder now. There has been snow on the mountains around Reykjavik for a week or two now. It looks very beautiful and I need to take a picture of it. There were flurries yesterday. I was walking to the language lab to catch up on the self-directed icelandic course and there were tiny snow flakes coming down. And it was bright and sunny, gorgeous day, though I think it went down to 2°C. Weird to have winter coming so quickly, though apparently this is unusual. Some icelandic people were telling me that even August was a lot colder than it usually is. Leif and I were talking about how we (the Canadians) can take the cold, but we haven´t really been dressed for the weather yet. Psychologically we´re used to pushing off wearing our winter jackets until maybe November, and we don´t want to accept the fact that we have to in September (I actually wore it in August). Even back home I would avoid wearing my winter jacket until it was just unbearable.

Well, it isn´t quite winter yet because there are still leaves on the trees (more so bushes, most trees planted here were coniferous). I´ve been impressed though because some of the bushes have very brightly coloured leaves. But it´s definitely not the same as seeing large forests back home with bright red, orange and yellow. We are trying to find where we can buy a pumpkin for Halloween. They don´t celebrate Halloween here, but the guy who painted our kitchen told us that sometimes there are people who will sell them, so maybe we´ll be in luck. I think around Christmas they have something like Halloween where people dress up and go around to people´s houses and get treats or gifts. Christmas is suppose to be a huge thing here, so I´m looking forward to seeing that. It will be weird though because most of the friends I have met are only staying for one semester so they will be gone in December. It will be quite sad but hopefully I can stay in touch with them afterwards.

Sheep rrrrround up

2005-09-19T19:06:00.000Z

This past Saturday I went on a bus trip through the school. The bus left at 8am and we headed to the sheep round up. This is a fairly big event and many icelandic and foreigners come out to it. In June, after the baby sheep are born, the sheep are let loose in the fields and hills of Iceland, so apparently icelandic lamb is top quality very juicy and lean. Then in September, all the farmers will go around gathering up all the sheep on horseback and bring them all to a big coral where they are then sorted out for each farmer. There were hundreds of sheep, scared and confused, being directed around and farmers, finding the sheep with their tags on their ears, grabbing them by the horns and leadings them or picking up the sheep and throwing them over the stone walls into their section of the wheel shaped paddock. There were probably more people than sheep and it seemed that the people were being herded around as well.

After that we headed to Geysir to have lunch and see the geysirs (I don´t even remember how to spell that in english, or is it the same?). There were a bunch of hotsprings there too, the one the water was bright blue. The one geysir went off every 5 minutes or so, it was pretty cool to see. There were a few others but they hardly ever go off. The really big one, called Geysir, which is named after the a guy, who I guess found them? rarely goes off but when it does it can reach 20 meters up. I took a walk up the big hill/plateau, the dirt was bright red, it reminded me of Prine Edward Island. When I got to the top I could a valley on the other side with a few farms and a river and more mountains. It was quite beautiful and very peaceful. I then had to rush back down to the bus.

We then went to Gullfoss, a big beautiful waterfall. Several years ago, the governemtn wanted to dam the falls for energy, but a woman who lived by camped out there and protested, preventing them from going through with the plans and everyone now is grateful for it. The sight was incredible. Words can´t really describe it, but the mist came up, the sun shining through and rainbows formed. Right afterwards the bus took us to another waterfalls called Faxin or Faxið (meaning horse mane) but it was hard to compare to Gullfoss.

We stopped by Skálholt, a church which stands where an older one used to, and in the 1800´s a volcano near by erupted and the lava flowed to only 2 km away from the church, destroying many houses and lives. There is a lot of archaeological excavation going on there trying to understand the way of life back then. The new church looked quite pretty and had a very modern looking painting of Jesus at the altar, which was painted by an icelandic woman.

One of the last stops was of a volcano crater, where a pool of water was collected at the bottom. It was strange because the sight seemed very familiar. I remember when I was in grade 7 or 8, a friend Sarah, who had been to Iceland showed me a picture of a pool of blue water surrounded by rocky cliffs, but I think there was the sea in the background. The picture looked very similar to the crater I saw, but I am sure there are many other sights that look similar in Iceland.

Our last stops were through a small town, Eyrarbakki, I had already been through the town on my first bus trip to the south of Iceland at the beginning of August. One of the oldest houses was in the town, and it was black (they used to paint the houses with tar for protection). On the way home we stopped at the black beach, which I was at before, so I just stayed on the bus. Last time I was there, so much sand collected in my shoes and pants.

The Shire is actually in Iceland

2005-09-15T21:53:00.000Z

For my Icelandic Folktales and Beliefs course we had a field trip to Árbærjasafn. It is an outdoor museum with old buildings (old being only from the mid 1800´s). There was a church, which had actually been moved the from the north of the country and then a few houses, a barn and a sheep hut. Most of the buildings were made of sod and stones, which I was told the method was passed down from the Celtic women and slaves that had been kidnapped by the vikings in order to use less wood. I will post the pictures on my other site soon (my stupid laptop still doesn´t like my camera even after installin the software again). All the buildings are also very short and small, which could be due to the cold and natural selection prefered smaller bodies that could keep the cold in better or perhaps malnutrition, their diet consisting of mostly meat.

Walking into the place you kind of feel like you´re stepping into Middle Earth and you might understand when you see the pictures. My friend Leif had commented a while ago how a lot of Icelandic guys look like hobbits (though their height has increased). Some may say that Tolkien was inspired by Iceland for his books (or perhaps more for the movies). The place was really neat though.

I got my cold back again. It is really annoying. It comes and it goes, I´ll feel fine and then it pops up again. I think I have to take it easy for a week, rest a lot and hopefully it will go away.

This Saturday I am going on a trip through the school for the sheep run. All the sheep are allowed to roam around in the fields freely and in the fall all the farmers round up all the sheep into a pen, and they are shorted and distributed to the rightful owners. I don´t really know what we will be doing but I´ll find out on Saturday. I think we are also visiting Geysir and Gelfoss on the way.

Then on Sunday, Leif and Tom are planning on having a Drag Show for the residence. I don´t quite remember how it came about, but something about Leif checking out Tom´s butt and how both had dressed up in drag dancing to It´s Raining Men in school. So THAT will be an interesting site.

till next time...

babies in the streets

2005-09-07T18:34:00.000Z

One major thing you notice when you come to Iceland is there are a lot of babies here and a lot of pregnant women. More than what you normally see in any major city. They seem to have a completely different view of child rearing here and I find it quite neat. I find that back home when you get pregnant your life practically stops for a few months or years while you go through the stages of pregnancy and then have the baby. Most girls seem to drop out of school to take care the child, most go on maturnity leave when the baby is born and there are the few that never go back to work once they have a child (though I think now most women do work, or they need to work).

Here the women are still quite active even when noticeably pregnant. They go out, have fun, go swimming, go hiking (no partying of course) and are just living. When the babies are born they still go out, you see a lot of mothers with their strollers on the streets or carryin their babies (you even see a lot of carriages left outside stores or houses, sometimes with the babies still in them, while the mother is inside). Another thing is the fathers seem to have a major part in the baby´s life as well. Many times now I have seen just fathers walking down streets with the baby carriages. Family seems like a very important part of their lives here.

I actually have to write two papers on icelandic culture and I am thinking I might do one on the nurturing of children in Iceland, and perhaps a comparative study with Canadian culture. Might be interesting.

Þingvellir og ný batterí

2005-09-05T23:55:00.000Z

Sory I have not posted in a while. I´ve been getting ready for school, keeping busy and being exhausted.

Stebbi and Gunnhildur took Tom and I to Þingvellir on Sunday, a national park where the european and american continental plates collided with each other, causing an earth quake where large rock formations were created here. There are even some pools of water that are so clear you can see the bottom, and people throw coins in there to make wishes (I hear that in 5 years the government will collect all the money and give it to charities). It was quite beautiful, I don´t have any pictures, but I will get them off of Tom.

So the battery of my camera cracked. Right when I got to Þingvellir I dropped my camera when I was taking it out of my bag. I didn´t think is fell that hard, but my battery cracked. So today, my icelandic friend Hannes drove me around all over Reykjavik trying to find me a new one. We went to one store but they didn´t have it so sent me to another store. We went there, waited in queue (everywhere you go here you have to take a number to wait your turn) only to find out they also did not have my battery and sent us to another place. Luckily the last place did have my battery so I want then a happy camper. The ironic thing was, is I had been walking all around earlier today, doin some errands and stopped at a postoffice to buy a new phone card and send off some post cards, and the camera place was practically right beside the post office.

When I was doing my errands earlier in the day I was walking with Leif. We were changing our address for everything to Gamli Garður and trying to extend our visas only to find out we need to get a health check before we can get our visas. But on our journey´s downtown we stumbled on a street that smelt like pancakes or waffles. Smelt so good we decided to track this place down. We circled the block twice and did not find the source of the sweet sweet smell. Leif asks a random icelandic girl on the street if she could smell it and where it was from, and she did smell it but wasn´t sure where it came from and suggested a bakery down the street. Leif then comments on how all most icelandic women are attractive, and I agree but say the men are not as attractive and we continue on our way only not to find any bakery. I told Hannes about this and he said that he knew of the corner we talked about. He used to live in an apartment near there and also smelt the pancakes or waffles but also never found the source. So there is some mystery bakery or a porthole to waffle land somewhere downtown and I want to try and find it.

Speaking of pancakes, I had a conversation with the Swedes from my course about them. They had made pancakes the other week and were talking about how good they were, and it dawned on me that I had no idea what they ate them with because they did not know what maple syrup was. I found out they used jams, jellies and cream. Still would good, but nothing beats maple syrup... maybe a mixture of jam, maple syrup and whipped cream... oh man.. I am so hungry now... haha... Pancakes in Iceland are pretty much just crepes, but I hear they are good and want to try them sometime.

Another bit of Canadian culture.. I found out the word 'giver' is Canadian. All the Canadians know it and use it, but no one else does, EVEN the Americans. That was shocking because I just assumed most of our slang came from the States.

Icelandic music concert

2005-09-02T18:31:00.000Z

Last night a few friends from rez and I went to a concert downtown at Grand Rökk, a pub type place. There were 4 sets. The first was a boy, who I think was like 12 years old, playing guitar and singing icelandic folk type music. He was really good actually and a few songs other people in the bar were singing along too.

The second band was two guys singing and had the music playing off their laptop. They were punk and sounded a little like the pixies (probably a bad way of describing them). Most of the songs they sang were in english.

The next guy, I think was from Japan, and he was using samples on a synthesizer, really weird music, mostly noises, but in the middle he was playing amazing grace on bagpipes, which was cool and then the song turned into completely electronic sounds and another guy joined him playing drums. At the end of the set he did a head stand on the table with his synthesizer and everything and fell over off the stage. It was crazy.

The last band there were two bassists, a drummer and some guy sleeping on the stage off to the side. There was a girl in a cap and black mask, and the other bassist was singing and had his face suran wrapped with his microphone, then he ripped holes for his mouth and eyes and looked like a scarecrow. They sang mostly icelandic but at one point they were singing an electronic version of Cocomo by the beach boys. Really nuts. Then near the end the guy sleeping got up and was singing and him and the other guy singer were suran wrapped to each other. Really weird. They also lit off smoke kind of bombs, and by the stage it was really smoky and hard to breath and the music was insanely loud as well.

After seeing that, Icelandic people must think Björk is normal. There is a thing about Icelandic that everyone wants to be unique, and so all the bands have something very different about them. It is kind of cool but definitely a lot of weird things come out of it. I definitely want to see more shows, and it would be good to see flyers so I know what the bands´ names are. Franz Ferdinand is playing tonight and a lot of friends of mine are going but was kind of too expensive for me (4750kr which is about $90 cdn). I want to save my money up for the Icelandic Airwaves festival in October, which should be neat, because there will be all icelandic bands.

It was the international students´orientation today and tonight is the party. Should be good.

sjáumst.

Gamli Garður

2005-08-31T11:14:00.000Z

I moved into residence yesterday. It wasn´t too hard because I don´t have too much stuff and Christian Z helped me. It felt really weird moving out. I found it harder than moving TO Iceland. I guess it finally struck me that the language course is over and I may not see many people from the class anymore and have to move on. You spend a month with a group of people and you get pretty close and then its done. I feel kind of bad but I didn´t even really want to meet anyone in my rez because I have spent the last month meeting new people and making friends and I have to do it all again. Strange feeling.

I have already met some really nice people here though. We realised that this residence is for all the international students that needed a visa, so basically all North Americans and Asians. One cool thing is there are two french Canadians and one girl from France who is studying in Oaklahoma, so I can try and practise my french. They are all really cool people, the transition is just strange. You finally get comfortable in one place and with a group of people and then you have to start all over. It is kind of nice that I have been here for the past month so I know my way around, got all the hard stuff out of the way (like getting my ID number, register, get a bank account, sign up for my courses) AND I can actually pronounce most street signs now.

Tom from Trent came today. His plane was suppose to come in at about 6:30am and I told him I would meet him at the bus terminal and take him to rez. The plan was he would phone me from the airport when he got in and I´d walk over and meet him but he never phoned, but I figured he couldn´t find a phone, I don´t really remember phones at the airport, so I wondered over around 7:30 and he finally arrived at about 8:45. He had met a girl Jessica from the US on the bus and she was also moving to Gamli Garður so we all walked together in the mud and rain. It is kind of funny though because when I arrive here a month ago it was sunny, would only mist a bit once in a while but hardly ever rained. I think we may have had 3 good days of rain and then random showers on some days. Now it has been raining for the past 3 or 4 days, when the rest of the international students are arriving so their first impression is of a cold and wet Iceland. Hopefully it clears up this weekend because Stebbi and Gunnhildur were planning on taking me (and maybe Tom) to þingvellir to go hiking. I think it is a national park. Should be fun, if the weather is nice. It is clearing up a bit now and it stopped raining so that is good at least.

My attempt with the icelandic language

2005-08-30T13:07:00.000Z

Yesterday I attempted ordering a pizza in Icelandic. It was going ok, for the first second when I just said hello and told him I wanted the pizza special, then he asked me in icelandic where I wanted to pick it up but I didn't understand so had to ask in english. After figuring out the street name, he asked what I wanted on it, so I try again in icelandic, but he says they didn't have the one topping, but I didn't quite understand that so it was back to english. I finally got all the toppings and everything set, he told me it would be about 20mins. So I look on the big map of Reykjavik trying to find out where the hell this pizza place is. It took me a while to find but when I finally did I realised that it was on the opposite end of Reykjavik, which would probably take me almost an hour to walk there! So I ended up phoning back and telling him to cancel my order... After all that Nicola and I decided to try the popular burgar joint down by the harbour. It was really tastey though it was twice as expensive and you got half the portions as back home.

I suppose it was an ok first attempt. My problem is I seem to speak alright, I just don't understand when icelanders talk to me. So hopefully with classes and meeting more icelandic people I can practise just listening to icelandic. I've been quite surprised though that when I do try speaking in icelandic the person generally responds in icelandic. I've been told my a few people that my accent is pretty good, so I guess I deceive people really well.

I think I will move into residence today. I finally got my key yesterday and looked around a bit. It is actually pretty nice and it will be cool to meet more people. It seems that the majority of people living in the residence are north americans (which I guess is ok but it would be nice to meet different types of people and perhaps practise other languages). The R.A or don is french though so perhaps I can practise french with him. He seems more friendly and easier to talk to than Nicolas (the French guy from my course). I hope I'll be able to keep in contact with most people from the course, I met a lot of really cool people there and we had a lot of fun together. It will be more difficult with school starting but hopefully we'll manage.

Tom, the other exchange student from Trent, is coming Wednesday morning and I am going to meet him at the bus terminal to take him to rez. I will have to show him around though I still don't know the names of a lot of places and some streets, I won't be much of a tour guide. I am really glad that I did do the course though because I have been able to get quite comfortable with Reykjavik and have travelled a fair bit in the short time I have been here. I have also made many friends, so school should flow quite nicely (hopefully).

Flea Market

2005-08-28T17:49:00.000Z

I found the equivalent to the St Jacob's Farmer's market here. The one here though is smaller, completely indoors, they only have a small meat section (no produce) and a lot of the stuff looked used and old. It was still neat though and things there are a lot cheaper. It is only open on Saturday and Sunday.

A word of advice for anyone who ends up going to the Blue Lagoon, don't put your hair in the water. It will take you almost a week to wash out all the minerals. My hair has felt like horse hair, very coarse and knotted ever since I went. It's not so bad today but I miss my smooth hair. My hair feels dead. I might try and trim it a bit and maybe that will help.

fyrsti fótboltaleikurinn minn

2005-08-26T16:11:00.000Z

So I had my exam yesterday. It went fine, if the marks mattered I definitely passed. The first part was really easy, just conjugating verbs based on the pronoun and subject, and saying what some objects were. At the end we had to have the write definite articles and put words into nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive and I still don't understand that part so I didn't so as well on that part. It's kind of sad it is over, it has been a great experience but I'm looking forward to the new experience of the university life of Rekjavik.

I've been having problems with my laptop and it won't recognize my digital camera anymore, saying that the USB has malfunctioned so at the moment I can only post new pictures. But Once I have internet I'll be able to put all my pics already on my laptop online. I have put some already, at my site www.kedly.yafro.com. It has a variety of photos but there will be more soon.

I went to my first "professional" soccor game yesterday. I went with Hannes, Christian P, Mads, Bettina, Isabel and Leif. It was actually a lot of fun. Most of the excitment was in the stands where the fans were cheering. I found it strange because most of their cheers were to tunes of songs I have heard before but they are in German (It was Mainz, Germany vs Keflavik, Iceland). I was on the German side because Isabel is actually from Mainz and 3 out of the 4 of us were German. I kind of was cheering for Keflavik but there was more energy on the German side. Keflavik had drums and trumpets and a brown bear mascot, which was pretty cool.

At one point each side would cheer their own team's name, back and forth and then at one point they would switch and be saying the opposite team name. Though the fans from Keflavik couldn't say the Mainz' teams name very well. Near the end of the game, Mainz fans were chanting "Keflavik!" (pronounced Keblavik) because they were leading 2-0. In the end they did win.

It was a neat experience, though I was freezing cold. I need to buy myself a better hat and gloves and a scarf. Tonight is the party to celebrate our last day of class. Should be fun.

Blue Lagoon

2005-08-25T17:51:00.000Z

Went to the Blue Lagoon today. We were really only there an hour, but it was really beautiful and fun. The water is actually more white than blue but from a distance it looks almost blue. It makes your hair really coarse but it is suppose to be good for your skin. They had some white silica mud you could put on your face and let sit for 5-10 mins. It was funny to see everyone with white faces.

2005-08-23T13:31:00.000Z

Nicola and I hadn´t seen our thrid roommate Toby in a while. We thought he vanished and decided to leave all his stuff here. But Sunday afternoon he came back. He had been in Germany for the past 11 days to visit family and his parents came back with him so he was spending the days with them here. He is a really nice guy, just too bad we hardly ever see him. He forgot his apartment key in Germany, so we see him more now because we have to let him into the apartment when he gets back from work around 11pm. Still don´t know what he does but he works like 10-11 hour days.

We also have another ''flatmate'' if we can call her that. For the past week there is this lady (in her late 30´s to mid 40´s) who lives on the 5th floor but uses our fridge, bathroom and washing machine. She is also from Germany, but she´s kind of creepy. It is kind of weird to share a place with random people though, but fortunately we are moving out in a week or two.

This is our last week of the course. We have an exam Thursday, written and oral, but I heard it isn´t too bad, and it is really for yourself, because if you fail you don´t have to take the course again. I think the course went fairly well. We have learned a fair number of verbs, and have been concentrating on grammar for the past few classes. We´ve learned country names, how to tell time, clothing, food, say our birthdays and even horoscope. We still have to learn adjectives, so we´re having a crash course tomorrow on them. Some people have been complaining it wasn´t well organized or it was too hard, but I think it was ok. It´s a start and it´s really up to us what we do with it.

I´ve been looking at more courses to take (I registered for a few but some aren´t available, which you don´t know until you try and add them because the course catelogue is a year old). I´m going to attempt to take an icelandic course and see if I can do the exam and essay in English. So far most of the courses I enquired about aren´t even being offered, which is frustrating but I´m sure something will come up. I think it would be a good chance to practise my icelandic because I don´t really get to hear much of it because my friends and I mostly speak english.

There´s a big buzz about that Björk is in town. A few of the Danish girls in my class even saw her sitting in an organic cafe with someone. And apparently she shops at the small grocery store which is across the street from our course. So people are keeping their eyes open for her. A few friends were actually playing chess on the chess board and Bobby Fischer apparently plays at also. It´s in front of a used book store (though they are about regular price for back home). Haha so a lot of celebrity spots.

We are going to the Blue Lagoon on Thursday. The big tourist trap, as it´s called. Should be exciting though. I think I heard that it was made by accident by the excess water from a power plant or something that built up in the lava rock, though it´s not dangerous it´s actually suppose to be good your skin. And the water actually looks blue from what I´ve seen in pictures, but I´ll be able to say more after I have gone.

I am off to go watch another icelandic film. I have seen Sódóma and 101 Reykjavik, but kind of weird but pretty good. If you are able to you should try downloading them. I hope we watch Angels of the Universe today, because it´s the one I actually heard about before and it is suppose to be really good. It´s about a guy who goes crazy from unrequited love and is put in an insane asylum and meets some people there, one who think´s he is Hitler, one who think he wrote the songs for the Beatles, and someone else.. Tell you more about it later.

Sjáumst

Reykjavik Culture Night

2005-08-21T12:07:00.000Z

Saturday was the Culture Night. There were bands playing, shows and exibits going on all over town. I met up with some people from the course and we walked around. We went to the art museum, which was kind of interesting, it was very contemporary art, and there were a few girls all in their own colour dancing around this one room. In one of the rooms there were tvs all along the one wall and each showed a different view of this old man just doing his normal things in his day. It was kind of strange. It showed him writing at his desk, getting dressed, going to the bathroom, and eating. After the museum we walked towards the library, where Nicola and I bought a library card so then we could take out books, like children's books and try and practise reading icelandic.

We met up with Mads and Paco and headed down Laugevegur (the main street). On one of the balconies, there was a man singing opera, and we came to the Skrifan (the big cd store) and there was a icelandic metal band playing outside. They looked like they were about 10 years old but they were playing this hard music and screaming in the microphone. Inside Skrifan there were belly dancers. We only stayed a short while because we had to meet up with some people near the harbour. There was a big concert at the harbour, and Hjalmar (the icelandic reggae band that I heard last year) played and that was really cool. It started raining though but being in such a large group it wasn't too bad. I headed home after Hjalmar to get some food then came back with Nicola for 11 to see the fireworks. The whole area was so crowded. There must have been all of Reykjavik out on the streets. We finally found our friends right when the fireworks began. They were amazing, it was almost 10 minutes straight of fireworks. They were quite beautiful.

When they were done we had to attempt our way back downtown among the mob to get to Victoria's place, because her roommate was having a party. By then it was pouring rain (luckily my new shoes are semi-water proof, which was nice), and we bumped into Gunnhildur and Stebbi, they were on their way home. We made our way to Victoria's place but when we got there she hadn't arrived yet. Hannes (an icelandic guy I met on the internet) phoned me and we found out he was coming to the same party, he was friend's with Victoria's roommate. So I finally met him and his girlfriend. Nicola ended up getting into a big discussion about American policy and religion with some Icelandic guy, named Biggie. I felt kind of bad because people kept attacking her about Bush and such, and everyone thinks that americans are really stupid. We ended up getting kicked out of the place because some lady downstairs was threatening to call the police, and Victoria wasn't suppose to have brought so many people so we had to leave. We headed back downtown and went to the bar 22, but I didn't stay long and got soaked in the rain on the way home. But overall it was a good day.

a whale of a tale

2005-08-21T11:08:00.000Z

Ah it was annoying, I had a good long post that I typed up a few days ago but then my internet cut out just when I tried posting it and I lost it.. so I'll attempt to write it again.

Thursday was whale watching. We went with Elding Whale watching company and the boat used to be an old rescue ship. The weather was quite nice, bright and sunny, and relatively warm (relatively is a popular word to describe anything icelandic) though it got really cold when we were out to sea. We went by Puffin Island, though there was mostly seagulls there, the puffins are already starting to migrate but there were a few puffins still there. We also saw some bird that I don't know what they are called in english, but Magnus told me that translated from Swedish they are called "Sea Soles". They were white with big wings and big feet though a narrow beak, and they would dive deep into the sea to catch fish.

One of the crew members stood at the top of the boat and spoke on a speaker phone to announce where whales were (12 o'clock, 6 o'clock, between 1 and 2 o'clock) and also told us some information about Iceland, the currents, about whales and the weather. When he yelled out where a whale was people would run back and forth trying to see a whale, though many people would be too slow and the whale would be back under water. We spotted a big humpback whale and out boat started a chase after it. On the way we saw many minke whales and some smaller humpback whales. Some even came fairly close up to the boat. The boat manuevered through the waves, at some points we were right against the currents and the boat rocked back and forth, people sliding and bumping into each other. Victoria, one of the spanish girls, was sitting in one of their plastic lawn chairs and was sliding to and fro on the deck. At the finale of the excursion we finally caught up with the humpback whale and we saw its dorsal fin and tail come out of the water. After almost 3 hours of whale watching we headed back to shore.

When we were back on land I headed back to my apartment and Gunnhildur and Stebbi (the two exchange students I met last term) came to pick me up. They drove me around Reykjavik and the surrounding towns. They bought me some icecream from a popular icecream joint, it was really good, kind of like a Blizzard or McFlurry but you got to pick your own toppings from a wide variety of candy and fruit. It was getting cold so we got back in the car and they drove me to the edge of town and around the smaller towns. We went up this one large escarpement, where you could see the whole landscape and it was quite beautiful with the street lights and the sun setting. They told me that place was really popular for people to come and party on New Year's eve because you were able to see all the fireworks (I am really looking forward to seeing their New Year's). On the way back towards the city they drove me by the president of Iceland's house, it was on its own little penisula in the centre of all the towns. They would say all the town names and things but I don't really remember any of them. It was helpful to see the road signs and here them say it so I could picture it better.

On Friday, Silvia held a party at her place and almost everyone from the course came. Everyone was to bring authentic foods from their home country. It ended up being great night. There was so much food and all very delicious. There were a lot of pasta and salads, there were perogies (from Poland), nachoes and fajitas (from Texas), salmon and heiring, rice dishes (from Spain) and much more. There were also a lot of deserts, cakes and pies and struddles. I brought maple syrup and did the sugar shack thing, where I boiled the syrup and then poured it over crushed ice and then it carmelized. It was actually a big hit, but I was surprised how many people didn't even know what maple syrup was (I was even able to buy actual Canadian maple syrup as well). Many people wanted to try the maple syrup and most of them (except Magnus) really liked it. At about 11 or so we were kicked out of Silvia's place by her landlord, apparently she wasn't allowed to have a party, and we headed downtown to the bar Pravda, which was ok, they had some live music for a little while, then they started playing dance music. We headed to Kaffibarinn to meet up with more of our people and we stayed there for a while. It was really crowded though. I met an Icelandic girl (I think her name was Solar) who said while she was in Denmark for a language course she met a 63 year old Canadian women, who told her she was in a tribe and was shot in the back with an arrow and the scar was like a badge to show everyone she was strong and other tribes would give her housing and food. Solar then went on about how she thought Canada was a great country for thinking for themselves and not being influenced by America. I've talked to several people and most really don't like the States but love Canada, but I sometimes think that people wouldn't like Canada either if they didn't have the States to compare them to. But it is nice to have people like your country.

icelandic pony.. I mean, horse adventure

2005-08-18T13:01:00.000Z

Yesterday I went horseback riding on the outskirts of Reykjavik. I went with a small group from the course, and we were driven out into the country, away from 'civilization'. It was raining a bit so they gave us rainpants and boots and jackets to wear. The horses here are very cute. They´re quite small, I think they are breaching the pony end of the scale, but they are very friendly. Mine was a white mare, though I never learned her name. She was kind of frisky and always wanted to be near the front, and I think she may have been sisters or something with this other white mare, who Magnus was riding because they always seemed to want to be near each other or would race each other. There was a group from the States that had been in Iceland for a week and that was their last day here, and I think they were off to Sweden for a wedding.
My horse was really friendly, though she bit one of the American guys in the foot. She had a itchy nose and kept scratching it with her leg and when I was on the group she used me as a scratch post, nearly pushing me over.
At the beginning of the ride I realised my saddle was really loose so I was trying to stop her os could fix it and then I fell off. It didn´t hurt, it was more funny than anything.
We got to see a lot of beautiful country side from horseback, which was nice. It was hard to take pictures though because of the bumpyness. It was quite lovely and I realised I really miss horseback riding. I haven´t done that in a long time.

Tonight is whale watching, and hopefully we will see something. The weather is quite nice, very sunny and clear sky, so even the boat ride might be nice. I have only really ever seen dolphins and manitees in Florida so it would be neat to see an actual whale.

I bought a cellphone the other day, and it´s nice to finally feel connected. I also bought some new shoes yesterday. They have really neat shoes. The ones I bought make my feet look so small, but I guess I´ll get used to it. A lot of shoes are like slippers, they´re very comfortable and some even look like ballet slippers with laces up the legs. And Adidas and Puma are the most popular, though Nike is somewhat big, but I found out that Adidas is actually German and the guy who started Puma is the brother of the guy who started Adidas (and adidas is for Adi Das... something, whatever his last name was). Some of you probably knew that but I didn´t and thought it was neat.

But I have to head out and get some lunch, then movie, then whale watching then out on the town with the icelandic exchange students!

Bless bless

Vestmannaeyjar

2005-08-15T15:17:00.000Z

This past weekend I went to Vestmannaejyar (Westman Islands) and it was an amazing time. The weather was very nice, sunny and fairly warm Friday and Saturday. We took a ferry to Heimaey (the main island) and then were bussed to the house (though it was like a chalet) on the south edge of town. It was a nice place, and they supplied us with mattresses to sleep on the floor so it was fairly comfortable. After dropping our things off we were bussed back into town then walked to the grocery store and liquor store (and I even asked the bus driver how to get there in Icelandic). There were two barbeques at our place so we all bought some hotdogs (pylsa), hamburgers (hamborgari) and lamb steaks (lærisneið). After eating a few of us took a walk towards the coast. The place is quite beautiful. There are mountains, volcanoes, steep cliffs into the ocean and scattered islands in the distance. We sat at the coast looking at the puffins dive in and out of the water and circle around trying to find the entrance to their caves and watched the sunset. We also saw the wheels and axel of an old tractor or truck in the side of the cliff (I hope the driver survived). When we got back to the chalet more people were back and were drinking and partying outside. Leif, Mads and Magnus rotated playing guitar (spila gítar) and a few people joined in singing. In side people were dancing and blaring loud music on the stereo (that later ended up breaking). Once the music died the party started slowing down and people went to sleep.

I ended up freezing in the night because I didn´t have a sleeping bag or blanket, thinking I would be warm in my sweater and jacket, so I didn´t get much sleep and my cold was getting worse. Nicola had the same problem so Saturday morning we walked all over town trying to find a place that had sleeping bags (svefnpoki). After asking someone in a store ''hvar finnst svefnpoki'' we managed to buy two and some cold medicine. On our way back we bumped into a bunch of our friends heading to the liquor store and then to the volcano. So we dropped our things off and caught up with them. It was a fun hike, though I was exhausted (I didn´t think I was going to make it). We hiked up Eldfell, the world´s newest mountain, and some parts you could feel the warmth. I was really nervous walking along the top of the volcano, because the edges were pretty steep and you were walking on about a foot of flat surface. So what do I do? I slide down the volcano. We decided to take the more direct route back and went down the side of the volcano without a path. I decided it was more fun and felt safer sliding down on my butt than my feet and slid all the way down, only scratching up my hands a bit. After that we walked towards the coast to see if you could find any puffins. We saw a few and some seagulls that were circling close over our heads. I found an opening in the cliff that looked like you could climb all the way down to the beach but wasn´t sure if I´d be able to get back up again. So instead we just layed in the soft grass on the edge watching the sea.
We were getting hungry and tired so headed back home. We had another bbq and then a football match (I actually get annoyed when the europeans call it soccer to me now, because it is football to all of them), of the Nordic countries against the rest of Europe (and me). It was a lot of fun, though I haven´t played soccer in a long time, and was never really good but I did ok. At first we were winning but then the Nordic team gained two more players and won I think by one goal.
After that we partied inside with candles and again guitar playing and attempting to sing along.

On Sunday it rained. It was cold, windy and wet. So we all pretty much stayed inside until we had to walk to the ferry (and we got soaked) and then ferried back to the mainland. It was an amazing time and both Nicola and I said we´d love to live there. It almost reminded me of Prince Edward Island, but with mountains and black sand. It was very quiet and peaceful.

Vamos a playa!

2005-08-10T13:00:00.000Z

There´s a large group of spanish people in the course so I try and practise my spanish but I have forgotten most of it. I understand a bit when they talk but can´t think of what to say.

But swimming is very popular here. They have many pools and hot tubs (I think they´re called hotpots) around. I went last night with a few friends (Mads, Hannes, Christian and Paco -Paco the Lover! (jonny.. ;). We did some laps and then played a bit of water volleyball and the fútbol though it was more like basketball, trying to get the ball in a tube. It was a lot of fun. At first it was 3 on 2 but Paco asked a guy in the pool if he wanted to join us and he said alright, but then their team won. The guy we met was named Eill, or Egll (I don´t know how it´s spelt) but he was from Iceland and was really nice.

It was the Pride Parade in Reykjavik on Saturday so a bunch of us went to that. I´ve never been to a pride parade before so it was kind of neat to experience that but it was pretty short. It was very colourful though and I think most of Reykjavik was in the streets to watch it. Afterwards there was a concert with many bands from Iceland playing. I couldn´t understand what they were singing but they were pretty good (don´t know any of the band names) but they were pretty poppy sounding. I didn´t stay too long before it was getting cold and we were suppose to meet later to go to the bars that night. I ended up going to the Sirkus with some friends, a really small bar, that´s in a house and it took about 30 mins to get into it. Once you got in there though it was packed, but they played some cool Euro dance music. Upstairs in the place they had a lounge area with bus-type seats to sit in, it was less crowded up there so we hung out there for most of the time. It was only 3am (haha) when we got out and tried finding another place to go but everywhere was packed with long line-ups to get it. Everyone here parties until like 7-8am in the morning. I haven´t attempted doing that yet but the night really only lasts from maybe 11 to 3 and even then its not completely dark.

Well this weekend most of the class is going on a trip to the Westmen Islands, in the southern part of Iceland. It´s named the Westmen islands after Irish men who were living in Iceland that stole the women of some village and tried hiding on these islands, but the leader of Iceland at the time found out their whereabouts and killed them and brought their women back to the main land. And Ireland at the time were known as the Westmen, being the western most place that they knew about. There will be some tours of the islands planned, and apparently they can bake bread in the lava fields. There are also a few museums on their folklore and culture and swimming pools as well. Saturday night there will be karaoke, haha so that should be fun as well.
Next week will be the whale watching and horse back riding, which I´m looking forward to as well.

One thing interesting about spending time with people all over who speak other languages and may not speak english very well you start talking differently, well I´ve noticed I do. You talk slower and more precise perhaps, so my blog entries might sound very formal but its how my brain has been functioning lately. I also find I get a bit of an accent from just hearing so many other accents its hard to talk in my normal Canadian accent. I don´t know if anyone else finds that happen when in other countries. It´s kind of amusing though because many of the exchange students chose Iceland to actually learn English, because a lot of people here do speak English. Friends of mine from Germany ended up being housed together with other Germans and they were frustrated because they didn´t come all this way to speak German so they decided they´re only allowed to talk in English. That´s the thing with most of the people here. So I think what I´ll try is to speak only French with my roommate Nicola and perhaps with Leif so I´m working at a language as well. I think soon we´ll be trying to speak in Icelandic though which will be better. My problem though with learning other languages is I´m shy to begin with and horrible with small talk so I don´t even know what I would say to a person in English, let alone trying to think of something to say in another language, so I tend to sit and listen to people mostly. That´s why I think I have a lot of trouble learning language just because of my timidness. I hope I can kill that part of me and be more outgoing but its hard to stop very old and unconscious habits.

Well I think I have said enough for now.

Sjáumst!

Trip inside Iceland

2005-08-06T13:23:00.000Z

We went on a fieldtrip with the course to south Iceland. We went through a few small town, one with many greenhouses and hot springs, and waterfalls. There really are only trees in the towns and cities here so we really only saw moss and shrubs for vegetation. But we saw a lot of mountains, lava fields, and lakes and rivers. We stopped at a beach on the ocean and the sand was black. I took pictures but I´ll try and post them later if I can. It was all very beautiful.

I´m kind of tired right now because I partied with some friends from the course last night. Leif busted out his guitar and he played some tunes and we tried to sing along to most of them. It´s kind of cool how we are such a global community and some songs most people know and can sing a long with, but even still there were many people didn´t know. The big hits were radiohead, coldplay, pink floyd, the beatles and nirvana (though we couldn´t quite remember all the lyrics to some so there was a lot of mumbling). Then we went to a bar downtown and danced the night away,, or almost. I finally left around 2:30am and it was still dusk out. Well that will probably change soon.

The weather has been really nice here, with blue skies and relatively warm. It was really windy the other day and it spits for short periods of time. I found out on the tour yesterday that every month in the year Iceland gets about the same amount of rain, and we get exactly the world´s average in a year. And the temperature is very mild throughout the year so it never gets very cold and never gets too hot. And the tour guide said that the average temperature in iceland is about the same as a fridge, and a fridge is used to keep food fresh, so icelandic people are fresh and last longer lol. Well that´s nice to know I won´t age a bit being here.

sjáumst.

2005-08-03T11:53:00.000Z

This is just a quick hello because I´m at the library and it closes in 10 mins. So I made it! The past two days were hectic, a lot of airports and waiting around. I was exhausted, luckily I was able to get on the 1pm flight instead of the 9pm flight so I got in to Iceland around 4. Got to my apartment but had to find a phone first to call my landlord to let me in. The place is really nice! It´s a cute apartment and I´m living with another girl who´s in my course, Nicole from Texas, and I think two other people but I haven´t met them yet. I started the course today and it was really cool, it only goes from 9am to 12 and we have a break after every 45 mins or so so it goes really fast. I walked across town today to get register into the country but I needed my acceptance letter as well so I have to go back tomorrow. But I bumped into a few people from my course Leif who is from Ottawa and Mads who is from Denmark, and Cristian from Germany. We wandered around Reykjavik for a while, looked in a record store, prices are insane, cds are about $40 each, then we found a liquor store (also expensive), then headed home. We´re meeting to go to a pub tonight at 8pm, which will be fun. Everything is great and Iceland is beautiful. I don´t have internet but I´ll just wait until I move into residence, but the library is across the street from me so I can just use the computers here. I should go though, the library is closing.

Bæ!

2005-08-01T02:04:00.000Z

Well I am off to London tomorrow night and then Iceland tuesday night. It will be an exciting but tiring excursion, and I cannot even imagine what I will experience on the way. I have almost everything organized: passport (check), visa (check), ticket (check), icelandic currency (check), my sanity (in process). Anxiety levels are lowering back down to about a yellow after getting up to an orange and even a red through out the week.

I get into Iceland at about 11pm Tuesday and begin my course bright and early at 9am Wednesday and some point in there need to move into my temporary living space for the month. I haven't heard if I will have internet access at this place so it may be a while before I will be able to write another post but when I do I should be starting to have pictures and posting them up. So until then take care and enjoy the heat.