Lots going on

I seem to have an awful lot of exciting things going on at the moment.

There seems to be so much happening at the moment. We’re on day 9 of the year and already I feel that this is going to be a good year in which I’m going to achieve lots.

I signed up for the travel writing course with the London School of Journalism on Saturday night and by Sunday I had my first two lessons emailed to me. I really wasn’t expecting it to be that quick! Today I’ve had another email from them with a lot more information. I’ve skimmed through the two lessons to get an idea of what’s expected of me so I can start thinking about them. I’ll wait until the weekend to go through them properly though.

Still on the topic of writing, yesterday I was reading Wanderlust magazine and found a short book review that had been submitted by a reader. This is a regular column where readers can submit a review of a ‘must read book’ that they’ve ‘read on location’. There’s no payment involved, but it seems like a good way to start getting myself into print.

I made a quick study of the style of the already published article and then wrote one in a similar style and emailed it off to the magazine. I also used a few of the tips I’d picked up from my skim-reading of the two writing course lessons I’ve received to make the layout and presentation seem a bit more professional. I’ve already got a reply from ‘Tom’ thanking me and saying he’s looking forward to reading it. Reading what? My review? Or the book itself because he likes my review? Does this mean I’m going to be published? It’s all a bit ambiguous. But if I am published then that’s a good start on my 2012 twelve list.

On a completely different topic, today was my first day back at school and I was already discussing half-term plans with a colleague. We got onto summer holiday plans and she mentioned she has booked to go to Womad with a group of girlfriends. I had no plans to go to Womad over the next few years because it falls in the summer holidays when I’d rather be away somewhere for a month or more. I want to go to Womad, but thought it could wait a while. However, when my colleague mentioned it and then invited me along it seemed like fate. Another example of how keeping a list and focussing on the things I want to achieve helps to make them happen. So I’ve said I’ll go. It should be fun to be with a group of people as well.

I’ve just been online to book a ticket, but it’s all a bit confusing. I need to check with her tomorrow which type of ticket she’s got and for which days, then I can get mine booked. I’ll still have time to go to Scotland afterwards (or Japan if the free tickets thing happens), and I can explore Wiltshire or Somerset for a few days before the festival starts.

I’ve got the floatation tank booked in London for half-term and today they’ve emailed me to confirm two sessions. I’ve mailed back to correct it to one session! I’ve also got a ticket for the Hajj exhibition at the British Museum over half-term. During the rest of my time in London the friend I’m staying with suggested meeting up at lunch time one day to go to Jamie Oliver’s restaurant Fifteen. If we can’t get in there then we may go to the Ritz for afternoon tea instead. I’d like to go to Jamie’s restaurant, but the afternoon tea at the Ritz would mean another challenge ticked off. Choices, choices …

Whilst I was planning my half-term and thinking about the things I can achieve I thought I might as well check out England fixtures at Wembley. I got excited when I realised England are playing Holland on February 29th, until I realised that this is the week after half-term. I thought about trying to get down for the game, but I really don’t think I’d make it on time. I’ve looked at other fixtures and there’s a Belgium game I could go to in June. It’s on a Saturday, so the travelling time wouldn’t be a problem. I’d rather go to the Holland game, as The Netherlands is a country I go to most years and feel a bit of a connection to. Also, the only other game I’ve ever been to at Wembley was an international schoolboys’ game when I was at school myself. This game was England vs Holland, and so it seemed kind of meant to be that the game I see now should be England vs Holland. Except it’s not meant to be. Oh well, can’t have everything.

To apply for tickets for an England game I need a FAN (FA number). I’ve applied for one and now have it ready for when the tickets for the Belgium game go on sale. I’ll have to keep monitoring the FA’s site to make sure I do get a ticket.

I still have quite a few posts about Iceland in the draft stage as well which I’m trying to get finished, but now I’m getting distracted by all these other things. I’m certainly not complaining about having lots of good things going on in my life though!

Gazing at the Northern Lights

YES! I saw the Northern Lights!

The first three nights I was in Reykjavik there was no tour to the Northern Lights. The two bus companies that run the pretty much identical tours decide at around 5pm each evening whether the tour should go ahead or not. They decide this based on cloud cover, weather reports, and reports on the activity of the aurora causing particles. Each evening I checked with the hostel receptionist, but no luck.

On the fourth night (30/12/11), I asked as usual, fully expecting the answer to be no as there was pretty heavy cloud cover. But the answer was yes. I was a bit sceptical, but the receptionist showed me the cloud cover report on the internet and it was clear to see that from 11pm onwards the cloud was really expected to clear over the Reykjanes Peninsula.

I booked the tour with Reykjavik Excursions as their tour started half an hour later than the one with Iceland Excursions and there didn’t seem any point in hanging around for an extra half hour when it would be too early to see the lights anyway. The tour was 4,900 kronur or about £28.

I got all wrapped up in my layers of thermals and fleeces, made a flask of hot chocolate and packed my tripod. The bus picked me up outside the hostel and then went round a few other hotels and the BSI bus station collecting more people.

Once everyone was on board we headed out on the airport road to the Reykjanes Peninsula. Once we were out of the Reykjavik we began to see the moon and then stars. A good sign as it meant the cloud was clearing. We stopped in a couple of dark places, but had no luck with the lights. We then drove to the end of the peninsula, by the sea and near a small village and a lighthouse. There was quite a big area for parking here and other buses were already parked up, with others arriving after us. Everyone got off the bus and gazed at the sky. There was nothing to see. As it was cold I thought I might as well as wait back on the bus until something happened. I didn’t want the lights to finally appear just as I reached the point of no return with hypothermia and frostbite.

I hadn’t been on the bus for long when I noticed everyone pointing and looking at the same section of sky. I got back off the bus and with difficulty could just make out a patch of sky that was slightly lighter in colour. It could easily have been light from the moon, but the driver assured us it was the beginning of an aurora.

As we watched it began to turn green and spread across the sky. Not the whole sky, just a stripe from horizon to horizon. It would widen and darken, and then fade again. Sometimes fading completely in the middle. It was paler than I imagined it to be, yet on the photos people were taking it looked just as deeply coloured as the photos in magazines and tourist brochures. Maybe the cameras just pick up more light or something.

We watched it for about an hour until it pretty much faded completely. It did do a bit of swirling but mainly stayed as a stripe. So it wasn’t as impressive as I was expecting, but was still pretty cool. I’m glad I’ve seen it anyway and feel quite privileged as I know this is something lots of people dream of seeing for themselves.

As for my photos? They didn’t come out at all. My amazing new camera which has been so good at taking photos so far, including in low light, just wouldn’t pick the aurora up on ‘auto’. I switched to manual but couldn’t get anything to work properly as I couldn’t see the buttons in the dark and I’m not familiar enough with this camera to do everything by feel alone.

Once I realised I wasn’t going to get any good photos I lent my tripod to a couple of South Africans who were sat in front of me on the bus. They got some really good photos which they have said they will email to me. I really hope they do. I don’t know when they’ll be going home to do this, so I may have to wait a while. But whenever it is, I just hope they don’t forget me or lose my email address!

The Killer’s Guide to Reykjavik

This novel set in Iceland doubles as a guide to the country.

This is another book that I read around the time I was last in Iceland. Here’s the review I wrote of it at the time.

by Zane Radcliffe


This is the first of Zane Radcliffe’s books I’ve read. I enjoyed it so much I immediately ordered his other two off Amazon.


The main character Callum is a successful Glaswegian internet entrepeneur. He sells his travel website and moves to Reykjavik to live with his Icelandic girlfriend, her daughter and mother. Both Callum and his girlfriend Birna have skeletons in their respective closets which lead to Birna’s daughter being kidnapped and/or killed (I’m trying not to give too much away).


As well as a great story the book really is a ‘guide to Iceland’. Radcliffe interweaves numerous facts and lots of information about Icelandic culture, geography, food, beliefs and so on into his story. If I’d read this book before visiting Iceland the storyline would have stood out much more than the guide part of the book. But having spent a month there last summer I can really appreciate just how much information he has melded seamlessly within the story.



Get more information on the book and the author here.

Lonely Planet vs Rough Guides (Iceland)

A comparative review of the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet guides to Iceland.

June 2010

I bought the latest Rough Guide to use as a guide book for Iceland on this trip. I was only going to Reykjavik which I already know quite well and so didn’t really need a guide book, but I never need much of an excuse to buy books.

I chose the Rough Guide as it was more up-to-date than the Lonely Planet (ok, only by a month which probably makes no difference at all) and I’d used the Lonely Planet last time and fancied a change. Whilst in Reykjavik I looked at other people’s copies of the more recent Lonely Planet.

I usually like Rough Guides, but have to say that I wasn’t too impressed with this one. It seemed to be lacking information. Places I knew were in the Lonely Planet and just wanted to check my book for the address, couldn’t be found in the Rough Guide. This would have been ok if there’d been alternative places in the Rough Guide, but there didn’t seem to be. Also I noticed a few mistakes. For example, the Rough Guide refers to the Downtown Hostel as the City Hostel, and the City Hostel as the Reykjavik Hostel.

2007
May 2010

When I looked at the more recent Lonely Planet it seemed just as good as the older one I had at home. I didn’t need to use the Rough Guide for travelling around the country, but my impression is that it wouldn’t have been as good as the Lonely Planet for this either. So it’s not that the lesser Reykjavik section is balanced out by a much meatier rest of the country section.

But the best guide book for Reykjavik has to be The Real Iceland by Pall Asgeir Asgeirsson. I bought this whilst I was in Iceland last time and it has lots of quirky information in it, such as the addresses for each of the Sigur Ros band members and the address for Bjork’s mum (as well as for Bjork herself, but it warns her son can be bad-tempered if you turn up on the doorstep). It’s only a slim little book (so nice and light to carry around) but is really informative and I’d highly recommend anyone heading to Reykjavik to get hold of a copy.

Interesting people

It’s so easy to meet inspiring and unconventional people when you travel.

I love the way I meet some really interesting people when I travel. My recent stay in Reykjavik was no exception. There were a few people staying in the youth hostel who, like myself, were there for a week or two over the Christmas and New Year period. This meant we could get to know each other quite well.
There was a South African guy who was so friendly he seemed to have got to know everyone in Reyjavik, not just the hostel. He was planning to hitch-hike round the ring road which pretty much follows the coast right the way round Iceland. I used public buses to do this in summer a couple of years ago and so know how desolate this road can be. In the middle of winter with short daylight hours and the most snow in a generation or two, it would be really isolated. Did this put him off? Of course not. With a backpack and an Icelandic woolly hat he set off. I never heard how he got on, but I don’t doubt he will have been fine.
A twenty-something French woman was staying in Reykjavik whilst planning her next move. She’d lived on and off in Iceland over the past few years, always thinking it would be the last time, but always ending up back. Most recently she’d been working on a farm. She spoke Icelandic and had a learnt a lot about the culture. She was considering going to live somewhere remote in Scotland for a while as she hated busy places. Reykjavik was a busy place in her eyes. She was also extremely environmentally conscious and tried not to fly unless it was absoloutely necessary. I moan about the price of flights but it was surprising how much more expensive it is to travel by land and water.
There were also a couple of Canadian guys. One was also really into the environment and worked as a ranger in Canada. He’d heard of an Icelandic MP who was a keen environmentalist and had added her as a facebook friend. This being Iceland, she had a normal page rather than a ‘like’ page and accepted him. They’d chatted back and forth and he’d met her last year when he’d come to Iceland. They met up again this time. What other country would that happen in? He’d also got to go backstage at a Sigur Ros concert last time as he just happened to meet them too.
The other Canadian worked as a gardener during the summer months and spent the winters travelling. He’d already been to a few places this winter and was planning on visiting his father in Central America after Iceland.

These are just a few of the people I met, but they all had really interesting stories to tell. Meeting people like this always inspires me to think about what’s really important in life and not to get bogged down in the nitty gritty of everyday life and work. Easier said than done of course, once I’m back at work and have so many demands on my time. But I’ll keep thinking about the interesting people I meet and hopefully this will motivate me not to get stuck back in a rut.

Laxness Museum

A mission in the snow led to a house I could’ve moved right into.

Going here was a real mission. Halldor Laxness is Iceland’s best known writer, probably because he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, which I suppose says a lot. I’ve only read one of his books so far, but I loved it and do want to read more. As well as liking him as an author, the reviews of this museum were good and as I love having a nosey round other people’s houses … well, it just had to be done.

I’d checked the opening times of the museum online, so I only needed to know how to get there as it’s quite far out of Reykjavik. When I asked for directions in the tourist office, the woman behind the desk said ‘well, first you need to rent a car, then …’ She didn’t continue as she’d seen my look of dismay. Even if I could afford car rental, there would be no way I’d drive in this amount of snow!

So then she said, ‘let me check in case I’m being too pessimistic’. A few minutes later she’d come up with a plan for me. I had to get one bus way out of the city and then get a connecting bus that left only five minutes after the first bus was due to arrive, so it would all be a bit fine-cut, but possible.

On the day, I wanted to be sure of nothing going wrong so called in at the bus station an hour and a half before the first bus was due to leave. I checked my plans with the lady in the ticket office and what a good job I did. Because it is winter and not many people go to the Laxness Museum, the second bus only runs if it is booked at least an hour in advance. She phoned for me and booked both my outward and return journeys. As the buses are only every four hours I was going to have a long time at this museum. I was hoping for a little coffee shop I could sit in and read and write my journal.

The first bus arrived on time and got me to the required stop right on schedule. I shouldn’t really expect any less from Icelandic buses. Even in this weather everything seems to run like clockwork. There was a taxi waiting at the bus stop, with two people sitting in the back. The bus station lady had said something about the bus being a taxi, but I thought she meant some kind of minibus taxi. No, the bus was an actual taxi.

The bus/taxi driver dropped me at the last stop which was a few minutes walk from the actual house. It was bitterly cold and the snow was really deep and difficult to walk through. By the time I got to the house my fingers were numb even though I was wearing fleecy gloves. I wasn’t looking forward to hanging around the bus stop for long on the way back.

The house is large and white and Laxness lived there with his wife and children for most of his life. His wife, who was younger than him, is still alive but lives in a home in Reykjavik. There are wonderful views of hills and fields on all sides. In the garden to the side is a small swimming pool. The steam rising from the geothermally heated water made it look so inviting; an oasis in the snow.

The house was so homely inside, I could really imagine living there and curling up on one of the sofas with a good book. There were so many things that I would like in a house of my own if I could have one big enough. The hallway had a grandfather clock and an old chest; the living room had a grand piano, an egg chair, and large array of cacti and other tropical plants (they looked incongruous but good against the snowy background!); the dining room had a table to seat twelve and a samovar; the bedrooms had plenty of bookshelves; the study was lined with books, had a couple of desks (a tall one that Laxness would stand at to write, and a regular one at which his wife would sit to type up his manuscripts), and piles of papers; and there was a small library, basically what would be the box room in any other house, but in this one it was lined with books. Throughout the house was an art collection of mostly modern works and a collection of artefacts gathered from trips around the world.

I walked round the house listening to the audio guide and then went round twice more just looking and trying to absorb the place. I wasn’t allowed to take photos inside the house, but plenty can be found here on the museum’s website.

Once I could tear myself away, I walked round the garden and then watched a short video in the ticket office. One of the ladies working in the museum was finishing work and offered me a lift back to the bus stop where I could catch one of the regular buses back into Reykjavik. As there was no coffee shop for me to sit in and wait another 2 or so hours until the taxi bus was due, I gratefully accepted and she phoned to cancel the taxi bus for me. If the weather had been different I would have easily passed the time going for a walk and exploring the area, but it would have been foolhardy in conditions like this when I would have no idea what the ground was like that I was walking on because of the thick layer of snow.

Even though it’s a real trek out of town, this is somewhere I will come to again the next time I’m in Iceland.

I wrote this review of Laxness’ best known novel, ‘Independent People’.

Hot air balloon crash

Sadly, a hot air balloon has been involved in an accident in New Zealand.

Just come across this via twitter. I’d never heard of any accidents involving hot air balloons before. I’m sure there’s always going to be a risk involved: standing in a basket, hundreds of meters in the air with a blazing gas canister certainly doesn’t sound particularly safe, and no doubt the owners or company bosses will make me sign all kinds of liability waivers before I ever get so much as a toe in that basket. But even so, I haven’t any qualms about going up in one and everyone I know who has been in a hot air balloon has loved the experience.


So although this hasn’t put me off, it has given me a few concerns. Maybe I should wear a fire-proof suit with matching parachute when I eventually do this task?

I’m home

I’ve just got back from Iceland and I already have a huge to-do list.

I got home from Iceland this morning. It’s been a really long day as I had to get up at 3.30am for my flight. I have so many different things I want to blog about I don’t know where to start. It’s going to take a while for me to get everything out of my head and on to my computer. I met some amazing people, heard some amazing stories and saw the Northern Lights. Amazing.

I’ve been practising with my new camera and been taking loads of photos every day. I still have to take one for today to keep up with 2012 task of taking at least one photo every day. I ordered a video camera before I went away and it has arrived. I haven’t opened it yet, but learning how to use it will go towards my other 2012 task of learning how to use three new pieces of technology or software.

Over the coming week I need to book the floatation tank for half term and enrol on a writing course. I also need to sort out insurance for the two houses I currently own (my goal is five); sort out some repairs in the house I rent out; put together a fitness programme; return my new backpack as it’s already got a seam coming loose; get to Martin Mere to take a photo that will win me a trip to Antarctica; remember to take a photo each day; download (and upload) all my photos; try to get out on at least one walk; and get my blog updated. I don’t really have time to go back to school on Monday!

Independent People

Laxness is Iceland’s Dickens or Tolstoy. This is a wonderful saga-like tale set in Iceland at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

I read this book whilst I was in Iceland the first time and wrote the review shortly afterwards. I thought I’d include it here as I visited Laxness’ house on this trip and it made quite an impression on me. I’ll write about the house later.

By Halldor Laxness

Laxness is Iceland’s Dickens or Tolstoy. This is a wonderful saga-like tale set in Iceland at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
 
Bjartur is a sheep farmer trying to make it as an independent man. Life throws everything possible at him, including demons and his stubborn pride, but he almost makes it. By the end of the story he has lost the little he had and is back to working for others for a living. Reading this story in the year or so after the Icelandic financial crisis I wondered how many Icelanders had actually read this most well-known novel from their most well-known writer. Surely if they had the crisis would have been averted as it seemed to have been caused by the same mistakes that caused the crisis for those trying to be independent in Iceland over 100 years ago.
 
Laxness is so convincing with his descriptions and setting of the scene that I frequently looked up from this book only to be surprised that I wasn’t actually in the middle of nowhere on an Icelandic farm. Bjartur is such a convincing character that I wanted to strangle him at times (metaphorically speaking of course) for his stubborness. But at the same time I could understand his reasoning and his reluctance to give even an inch of his hard fought for independence away.



When Bjartur meets with other male characters the long conversations that ensue veer from poetry, sheep and politics to their ideas of what is happening in the Great War that is engulfing the rest of Europe and how wonderful this war is for them. Suddenly everyone wants to buy their sheep and prices have soared. They wish for the war to never end. These conversations give wonderful insights into the lives of people at this time, the things that were important to them and their interpretations of the world around them.

Iceland

I’m loving watching the sunrise whilst swimming in steam and snow.

I love my snowboots. My feet have so been so warm and dry in all this snow. the only problem with them is when I sink deeper than my knees. Would it have been possible to get thigh-high snowboots?

I love my new camera too. It takes amazing pictures and makes it all so easy. Even in the dark (which it is most of the time here) I don’t need a tripod – it just focuses and then remembers what the image looks like whilst it does the long exposure thing. So I’m not getting any blurry photos. Wowee.

I haven’t seen the Northern Lights yet, as each evening so far the trip out of the city to see them has been cancelled. It only runs when there’s a good chance of seeing them. But I have plenty of time left yet.

What have I done so far? Well, yesterday morning I went outdoor swimming in the pool next to the hostel. I started by sitting in the first hot pot I came to as my bare feet were freezing fast as I walked over the icy ground the 2 metres to the pool. It was so warm. There was even a floating chess set bobbing about on it, so I suppose people really do spend hours in them.

I stayed in this hot pot until it was infiltrated by young children having a snowball fight. The Icelandic version of water polo perhaps? Then I switched to the main swimming pool which was cooler, but still a good temperature. I couldn’t see how big the pool was because it was dark and the rising steam made it really misty. So visibility was down to about zero. I kept swimming round corners and bends and discovering more and more pool. Or maybe I was just swimming in tight circles and thought I was discovering new bits. At one point I swam under a bridge and discovered an elderly people’s exercise class going on in one of the lanes.

Once I’d had enough of swimming I sat in a different hot pot – one with bends, corners and alcoves and watched the sun beginning to rise through the fir trees. It got slightly above the horizon which is about the best to be hoped for at this time of year. It gets light around 11am and is dark again well before 5pm.

Í’ve also been drinking lots of good coffee whilst I’ve been here. I think Icelandic coffee is second only to Dutch coffee. It’s dark and strong and doesn’t come in a bucket. Last time I was here I discovered a new little coffee shop called Cafe Haiti. It’s run by a woman who is one of only two Haitians in Iceland. She imports the coffee from Haiti and roasts it herself. When I got home I wrote a review of it on Trip Advisor. The first day I was here I saw an advert for Cafe Haiti in one of the free tourist papers. It was quoting a customer who said they’d gone to Cafe Haiti because of a review they’d read on Trip Advisor and it really was as good as the review said. I’ve since seen the same ad in several other places. As far as I’m aware I’m the only person who’s written a review on Trip Advisor so I must be the reviewer the advert is referring to. Does this make me famous? Or at least semi-famous? Even though no-one knows who I am. I’m glad my review (if it is mine – I will have to check when I’m not paying for internet) has done her some good. I’ve been back today and she is now in bigger premises.