Iceland Overview

I never really described how we toured Iceland yesterday, so here is sort of a general overview of where we went and how we got there.  We booked this trip through Nordic Visitor, a travel agency that specializes in Scandinavian tours.  Like I said yesterday, I am so glad we booked our trip through a travel agency.  Not only did we save a TON of money on accommodations (we found out how much some of the hotels we stayed at would have cost if we hadn't booked a package through Nordic Visitor), they were very helpful in rebooking things when the volcano erupted and reversed our itinerary.  The package also came with a borrowed cell phone which we used a few times to check in with our travel agent and check accommodations, etc.  It was also great to get picked up at the airport rather than having to figure out how to make it to our hotel on our own in a brand new country when we were operating on no sleep!

The hotel they booked us into in Reykjavik, the capital city, was right next door to the Nordic Visitor office and also right on the main shopping street in the city, so easy walking distance from any of the touristy things we wanted to check out there.

After our first night, we were picked up by our car rental agent at the hotel to get our rental car, which we used for the next 9 days to drive around the entire island.  There were no tours pre-booked for us or anything, all we had to do was get to our hotel the next night and we could vacation at our own speed.  Some days we vacationed as hard as we could and some days we packed it in at 5 pm and relaxed in our hotel playing Mahjong and Solitaire on our hand-held devices :)

Breakfast was included in all of our accommodations as well because of booking with Nordic Visitor (which we found out probably saved us about 30 bucks Canadian a day considering what the hotels charged).  From also having been to Norway briefly in the past, I was expecting and looking forward to the breakfast typical in lots of Europe and especially Scandinavia - cold cuts, cheese, crusty bread, hard boiled eggs, vegetables, and fruit.  Brahm took a picture of one of our typical breakfasts at a hotel that also served AMAZING pastries, oh man, I miss those pastries.

When I first had to eat breakfasts like these in Norway I thought it was a little weird, but when you think about it, what better way to start your day than with a sandwich??  I'll have a sandwich for breakfast any day over a bowl of cereal.

Our trip was 10 days, 9 nights, and we pretty much stayed on the Ring Road #1 highway that circles Iceland.  Here's a map showing where we went and where we stayed (numbers correspond to what night we stayed there).

 (The crossed out section means we didn't go up there, but followed the black line instead.)

It was just amazing how small the island really is, yet how different the landscape was from day to day.  The east coast and the west coast were completely different.  And the fact that it's a country of only 330,000 people, yet so rich in culture, maintaining its own currency and language and many many Icelandic store chains continued to fascinate us throughout the trip.  This entire country has a population of less than 100,000 more than the city of Saskatoon, yet it thrives as a culture.

I found out today that a work friend from a few years back was inspired to book an Iceland trip after hearing we had booked our trip.  I would absolutely recommend an Iceland vacation to anyone.  Our trip got a little pricey but there are definitely ways it could have been done to fit a really tight budget (bringing a cooler and eating grocery store food all the time would have been one easy way).  Not sure how we are going to top this vacation!

Iceland Preview

Brahm and I just got back from a 10-day road trip... IN ICELAND!  It was the most amazing place I have ever visited and we saw so many incredible places and things, I don't even know how to begin to organize blogging about it.  Brahm will be doing one post for every day we were there, so I highly recommend following those posts at his blog.  Instead of basically rewriting what he posts over here I will probably do a few posts focusing on specific things, like certain attractions etc.  There will definitely be one all about BABY LAMBS which were everywhere and I definitely did not ease up on squealing every time I saw one running in a field beside the highway.  Baby lambs, I looooove baby lambs.

So anyway, for now, here is a small preview with a few highlights of the trip (but doesn't even scratch the surface of the amazing things we saw).

A geysir, at the site of THE Geysir (all geysirs were named after it!).  This isn't THE Geysir because it only erupts about once a day or less, so to see it erupt would be extreme luck.  But it would be amazing because apparently it erupts up to 70 m in the air!

One of many beautiful cliffs along the ocean!

Brahm with some very friendly Icelandic horses!  Horses, like baby lambs, were everywhere.  We barely saw any cows.  They eat horse there and we tried it at one hotel buffet, but it was kind of tough and probably not something we'd try again.

Oh yeah, we got engaged :)
 

This formation, in a super cool area full of amazing lava formations called Dimmuborgir, is called The Church because it looks like a gothic cathedral entrance!

Godafoss, one of many amazing waterfalls!  We saw soooo many waterfalls, expect an entire post dedicated to them.

Dverghamrar - incredible hexagonal basalt formations!  So much of this stuff was almost hard to believe it was naturally occurring!
 

One of MANY pictures from probably my favourite place of the whole trip - the Jokulsarlon glacial lagoon.  Large icebergs break off the glacier and just float around in this lagoon, slowly melting and washing out to sea.  Just so gorgeous and the coolest place I have ever been in my life.

Our trip started off a bit stressful as we woke up after our first night in Iceland to find out that the Grimsvotn volcano had erupted and our "circle the island" driving tour had us heading straight towards that area and the airport had been shut down!  Our awesome travel agent (by the way, I would highly recommend using a local travel agency if booking a similar trip) rebooked all of our accommodations and turned the trip "backwards" (we looped clockwise instead of counter clockwise) but we were still a bit worried that we wouldn't be able to make it all the way around the island and get home at the end of the trip!  Luckily the airport was only closed for a day and the ash dissipated and was bound to the ground by rain by the time we got into the affected area that everything worked out perfectly!  We really couldn't have asked for more perfect timing, and how cool was it to be there during an actual volcanic eruption?  I collected a Ziploc of ash as a souvenir :)

Anyway, that's all for now but expect many more Iceland posts in the weeks/months to come!  And remember to check out Brahm's blog for the day-by-day chronological highlights.

WISDOM TEETH UPDATE!!!

YOU GUYS I am the NUMBER ONE picture on Google Images for "wisdom teeth change face shape."  It is probably all thanks to you, my faithful 3 readers, for typing it into Google like I told you to last time.

I am basically internet famous!!!!

wisdom teeth change face shape

HAHA so I have always been interested in the kinds of things that my blog Stats page tells me, like what my most "popular" (i.e. more than 5 views) posts are and all that stuff.  Something especially interesting has been that my Wisdom Teeth Part II post has been gaining in popularity and always had referral links from Google Images. Once I tried to find it myself through Google Images typing in the keywords the referral said, but I couldn't find it.

But today I tried again.  Type "wisdom teeth change face shape" into Google Images and see what comes up.  If you are lazy, I will tell you that my dehydration picture is fast becoming the most popular image result on the internet for "wisdom teeth change face shape" which is slightly ironic since it actually does not portray anything to do with wisdom teeth other than another method of fattening one's head.  However a few images down you will find me again with my real wisdom tooth puffiness.

So while this blog has not yet taken on the massive popularity I'd hoped for (although I'm sure it will someday), I guess you could say I'm somewhat of an internet celebrity in my own right.  I'm the Wisdom Teeth Change Face Shape girl!  I'll probably become famous soon so be proud that you saw me here first.

And people of the internet actually looking for a wisdom teeth change face shape picture:  that one is not from wisdom teeth.  It's from dehydration.

The Garlic Guru

 I got these texts while at work this weekend:

Mom:  I got lunch at the garlic Grr Eww farmers market yesterday yummy veggie pizza ally liked they have a website have you had anything there
Mom:  Also had their spina acho balls they were good and some lentil and quin wah salad to take home to see if i can make it similar all good

After which, I texted both of my sisters to ask what spina acho balls were.  Neither had any idea.

Gift Suggestion Part 2

Seen in Shoppers Drug Mart on 8th Street:

This Mother's Day, surprise your mom with what she wants most:  men's shaving cream!

Gift Suggestion

Mom:  You could buy me a herbera daisy like last year for mom day or it duznt matter

Adventures in Gardening (and Composting)

So last you heard of my gardening skillz, I had just planted some heirloom tomato seeds fresh off the internet and was crossing my fingers that I would a) germinate them and b) not kill them after the fact. 

SO.  The results of the experiment so far are as follows...

After one week:

Cute!  I was so happy that they existed.  An artsy closeup:

After about 2 weeks:

Another artsy closeup:

Up until today I had planted 4 seeds in each little pot under the assumption that probably a few would not germinate... however they pretty much all did except for two (and one of those two looks like it might come up yet).  So today, I separated all the plants into their own little pot (with the intention to transplant these into bigger pots outside eventually, probably in early June when all danger of frost is long gone).

However after transplanting all of the little guys this afternoon, I noticed that they had all wilted pretty badly! 

I took them back in the house and set them in a sunny spot and gave them lots of water (because plants like sun and water, right?) and each half a spike of plant food and hoped that they would come back to life!

Poor little guys!  Luckily a few hours later they are almost all wilt-free.

I currently have 22 individual tomato plants, 21 of which I grew from seeds (I bought one from the greenhouse yesterday just in case I somehow killed these during transplant etc.) and are doing great!  I'm excited about this because it was super easy to do and I will have more delicious tomatoes than I know what to do with this summer.  I'm lucky I have a house with a lot of sun though, otherwise this wouldn't have even been worth trying.

ALSO!  In other fun news, today I went to the Farmers' Market and bought a vermicomposter from some kids that were raising money for their class to go to an academic competition and were part of a program trying to get vermicomposters into every classroom in Saskatoon.  I have wanted to start vermicomposting since a couple departments at work started doing it so I was excited to be able to pick up a kit today!

Vermicomposting, if you don't want to click the link, is composting using worms to speed up the process.  So basically I have a Rubbermaid bin full of worms and dirt in my garage, where I can put my compostable materials.  The worms will eat the compost and poop it out, resulting in really fertile soil for growing things.  We actually had one of these at home when I was a kid for a year or so (until we accidentally left it outside in the rain and it filled with water and the worms all drowned, oops) and it is a super easy way to compost without having a huge heap somewhere and without the smell.  Hooray!

Sorry, and here is a great commercial

I haven't posted in forever!  I am sorry and I hope people still read this.  I have been ridiculously busy lately but this week I am not too busy so I'll put some hopefully interesting things up on the internets for you to read.

COMING SOON:  my very successful attempt at producing tomato seedlings!

For now, I bring you my favourite commercial of all time.  It is funny and true.  In my opinion it should have won every advertising award out there.

Bee Bee

Mom:  What would bee bee be im a email