Iceland

The european adventure continues. Last weekend we trekked up to Iceland! Why Iceland? As you probably know, our goal is to go travel to one country a month while we are living in London. Secondly, we want to try to get to some off the beaten path places that would be particularly hard to get to from Seattle. Iceland made the list. When researching it, we saw tons of links to the fact that it is all powered by geothermal hot springs and that there are some great pools and spas. Sounds perfect for mid-November.

It was a jam-packed weekend and here are the details. We rushed out the door on Thursday night, planning to meet Honor at the airport. She thought we were cutting it too close, which we were, as usual. The plane, of course, was late. We landed in Reykjavik at a little after midnight. Once we got our bags, minus one of Honor's that was delayed, we went out to look for a taxi. After midnight, no taxis, but we saw everyone queuing (that's standing in line for you non-euros) for a bus, we decided to as well. We huddled near the door to the bus freezing our asses off. It was probably about -10 below celcius during the day. (about 15 F) So I'm guessing it was -20 below with a howling wind that reinforced that we were in Iceland. We jammed on to the bus, and made it our hotel room by about 3am. Time for a quick nap before getting on a tour bus at 8:30am.

On friday we took the Golden Circle tour around Iceland. We learned all kinds of interesting facts. First, the entire population of Iceland is 300K and 180K in Rejkyavik. Very small. only 1% of Iceland is covered by trees. All of the buildings are heated and hot water via geothermal sources. The water in the shower smelled a little of sulfur. The cold water has been proven the purest in the world and tasted fantastic out of every tap. And everything was so expensive it made London seem cheap. Enough facts for now...We went to the first ever named geyser (named "geyser") apparently all others are named after this one. I've got a good video (which I will work on uploading) of Erin and Honor watching it explode and then posing for a picture. It's pretty funny. We also saw a beautiful, mostly frozen, waterfall. Again, we were in iceland and everything was covered in about two inches of ice, including each of the pebbles in the parking lot. It was too cold to appreciate for long, but the pictures are great. Time for another fact...Did you know that the oldest continuously standing parliament in the world is from Iceland? It is. We saw the site where it started in 930. We were also able to drive from the European geologic (techtonic?) plate to the North American plate. I thought that was cool. Great tour, other than being cold, there was not a cloud in the sky.

When we got back to the hotel, we decided that we should go check out a local swimming pool before having dinner since we may not get another chance. Since Honor lost the bag with her new swimsuit in it, we had to go on an emergency swimsuit shopping trip. I know it's bad for women to try on swimsuits, but it's worse being a man going with two women to try them on. Fortunately, the stores were closing so function sped up the process.
The pool Laugardalslaug is used by locals and has some interesting protocols. First you must not wear shoes into the locker room. We each got yelled at. You must shower before using the pool. You must clean four key areas (complete with diagram) pits, crotch, feet, head. You must not wear a swimsuit in the shower. You must bring your own towel. Which none of us did. Drip dry-ing in Iceland is not fun. After washing thoroughly you run barefoot, outside, where it is dark and about -10 to a big hot tub. Once in, very relaxing. After talking to a local we discover there are four other pools about 100 yards away, either by swimming through a colder pool, or walking. The sides of the pool have salt on them so you won't slip. But salt hurts. We ran to the pools before completely freezing to the pavement. Each additional "hot pot" hotter than the last. Each fit about 10 people and each was full. Surprising for a Friday night at the local pool. Very relaxing. After a time in the steam we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

On our way to the restaurant the cab driver talked about the Sugarcubes show that night. She was surprised we weren't going there since everyone else was. We told her that we had tickets to the saturday night show. That surprised her as she could swear there was only one show....and we could swear we had tickets for Saturday. Turned the cab around, back to the hotel to check and sure enough the tickets were for Friday. Another cab and off to the show, who needs dinner. They had $10 cans of beer at the show (and they sold them in singles or 10 packs) and $10 glasses of box wine. For those of you who don't know the Sugarcubes, they are Bjorks band. Bjork is the most famous Icelandic export ever. How cool to see her in Rejkyavik. Jealous? It was a great show. We missed the opening act, but at least we didn't miss the entire show.

We heard the nightlife in Rejkyavik started around midnight, and it was only 11:30 and we hadn't eaten yet. We found a cab and went to a place for Tapas. Good spanish food late at night is always a treat, especially in Iceland. From there we went to an Irish bar. So worldly. The highlight of the Irish bar was a local Icelandic couple we sat with. The guy was a funny drunk who acted like Borat the whole time once he found out we were Americans. We were talking about what the locals drink and she said you have to get "ljakdsfj" with "aksdjflkdsa" Needless to say I didn't understand either, so she went to the bar and ordered for us. A round of shots, but fortunately they didn't have the "hakarl"to go with them. The shots were called "Brennivin". They were pretty good though. We were lucky they didn't have shark. I read about it before we left and the local delicacy is shark that putrifies buried in the sand for six months and is then eaten. The girl corrected me when I was telling Erin and Honor what I read. She said, "no, no, no....first everyone pees on the shark, then we bury it for six months..." Whew, close one. At about 3 we wimped out and went home. Enough activity for day 1.

Day Two.
As you can imagine we were tired from Day one. Saturday we were scheduled to go to the Blue Lagoon. A giant hot springs located in the middle of a lava field about 45 minutes in the middle of nowhere. It was fantastic. Same rules as the first pool, but this time we paid for towels! Basically a massive four foot deep hot tub, probably the size of four football fields. Plus some cool silica mud that everyone put on their faces for a mask. Pretty funny site. The funniest site was the life guards who wore full space man suits with moon boots, hooded coat, goggles, gator around their neck and face, massive gloves. Still that cold. And we were just in swimsuits. Again, fantasic experience...everyone should get to do it.

After the blue lagoon and a nap we were determined to go to dinner and stay out late. We went to the same place we were supposed to go on Friday. Tvier Fiskar (two fishes). The service wasn't that great, but the food was good. I went out on a limb (much to the chagrin of Erin) and ate the only endangered species on the menu....whale. It looked and tasted mostly like beef. I don't need to have it again, and I do feel a little guilty for eating it, but I'm glad I tried it.

As we were eating dinner it started snowing. The first hint of weather after two days of beautiful cold sunshine. After dinner we walked to the central nightlife area and went to a nice looking bar for a couple of drinks. We were all tired, and didn't expect it to be a big night. We were in Reykjavik though with nightlife all night, so we decided to go to one more bar to find men to hit on Honor. It didn't take long. We were all having fun, dancing and carousing and before we knew it the lights were on and we were being told to leave...it was 5am. When we got outside there was a foot of snow on the ground. So we went with everyone else to the taxi stand. We were about 300 people deep in the line. As we stood there, the snow continued to fall, everyone in line looked like snow men with about three inches of snow on peoples coats and heads. Few people dressed for a snow storm, or even for cold for that matter. The snowmen look was almost comical (of course I forgot the camera that night). Comical until we had been standing there for 45 minutes and had only seen about 5 taxis go by. We decided to walk with the guy standing next to us, who happened to be in town to perform as a contortionist, Rubberboy, at the midget basketball tournament in town. I kid you not. So while walking the mile or two home in a foot of snow at 6am, we listed to him tell us stories about how he is the world's greatest contortionist. Ordinarily, I might find that annoying, but it was a great way to pass the time on my frigid walk. Hysterical at the time. I did just go check out his site, it's pretty amazing. He was too cold to amaze us on the walk home.

We got back to the hotel at about 6:45am. Time to sleep in until our flight at 4:30....but wait now, there's more. We arranged for massage appointments at 10am. How hard could it be to wake up just to go downstairs and sleep for another hour, maybe not the best use of our time, but I think we had all been looking forward to a massage for weeks...we weren't gonna miss it.

At 1pm we went to check out and find a ride to the airport. The people at the hotel said the buses were delayed so we should catch the next one that comes, which happened to arrive just as we were about to get some food. No rest for the weary, we can eat at the airport anyway. We pile on the bus, it gets fully loaded up and we're off. Before we get out of the parking lot the bus gets stuck in the snow....in the parking lot. My dream of getting snowed in and not being able to go home almost came true. The bus driver actually asked us all to get out of the bus to help push...a bus. When we got to the back of the bus, we found that we first needed to move a car that was six inches away from getting nailed by the bus. Eight of us lifted the car out of the way. Then he said push the bus up the hill. Needless to say that wasn't happening. We were all smart enough to know that was a bad idea. Finally a snow plow drove by and pulled the bus out of the parking lot.

We made it to the airport. Stood in line forever and were offered to get bumped in exchange for a hotel room (at our same hotel which was nice) and free flight back to Iceland to leave the next day. The one time I have a big meeting the next day I get the offer. Damn. Then since they were oversold, we couldn't sit next to each other on the plane. Erin and Honor got business class seats, while I got a middle seat in the back. Totally unfair.

Oh well, we made it home and survived Iceland. Had a great time and it was fun to remember it all again writing this. Sorry it's so long, hope you enjoyed it.

Ted

Halloween

Even though we weren't in Seattle for Halloween, we couldn't let such a great excuse for party get away from us. We hosted our annual Halloween party in London on the 28th. It is interesting here, because Halloween is not a big holiday. There aren't bags of candy on all of the shelves or costumes and decorations in all the windows. Some people balked at the idea of having to wear costumes when we proposed the event, but in the end, everyone came and loved it.

Every year we try to think of something fun and current to dress as. I don't think I'll ever top my bird flu costume from last year though. This year I decided to go as a prominent Kazahkstani journalist, Borat...high five! I talked Erin into going as Olive from Little Miss Sunshine. I think the costumes were great...Erin didn't like that not too many had seen Little Miss Sunshine yet. Other highlights included the complete cast of the Wizard of Oz, a few super heros and a guy with a scary mask. Everyone partied like rock stars until late in the night. Even Jim our COO and his wife left at 4:30am!!

The other challenge of hosting a party is getting provisions. It's challenging enough in Seattle to drive around to the grocery store, the liquor store, the costume store, but here we have to walk to each place. I know, it's good for me.

Check out the pictures...

Ted