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| Bouldering |
Sunday, January 30, 2011
When BVO pays the tab: Blin(i) with Roe, Reindeer and Flan
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| Viking Dinner & farewell to Patrik (Finland will miss you) |
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Haircut
NEW GAME! Every day I will give you a post title and a picture. Nothing more, nothing less. Please feel free to infer details or even make up your own stories about my adventures of the day. Ask if you want details!
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Shortened, condensed, and now with half the calories!
Dear Diary,
I am terrible at updating you, but here's another condensed version of Finland.
Day 1- WE MADE IT! Patrik (the bomb.com) picked us up at the airport and drove us to get our keys and show us apartments while informing us of the intricate laws of Finland (Anything's legal if you have a permit. And you can get permits for anything) Sleep.
Day 2 - Explore/unpack/figure out Finnish transportation (still working on that one) Matias, another viking, showed us around and took us to a club for a celebration of one of his friends business successes.
Day 3 - Sleep. Still adjusting time schedules, 4 am bed and noon or one wake up is pretty normal. Get used to translating 15 o'clock in my head. Find out that grocery stores close circa 7 or 8. Pretty lame.
Day 4 - Meet exchange tutor group. They are awesome. Italy, slovenia, germany, croatia, slovakia, switzerland, and spain are just a few of the places they hail from.
Day 5-7 Fun. Acclimate to Helsinki. Appreciate (/hate) the feet of snow on the ground; Wisconsin has nothing on Helsinki for snowfall. Oh yeah, went to Estonia in here too, it was very grey/dreary a little bit but a beautiful city, especially the old town. Much more happened here but it's 3am.
Day 8-11 Matias's house about 2 hours out of Helsinki. Deer hunting (trying to walk in 3 foot snow drifts), riding ATVs and kite skiing (Awwww hellz yeah!) were the main activities of the weekend. First experience with a Finnish sauna. Hot but you feel great afterwards!
Tomorrow - More downtown helsinki adventures. Going to register ourselves as official aliens so we can get our ID number so we can get our bank accounts/money. Haircuts, my first class (survival finnish) and saunaing are all on the to-do list with making chocolate chip cookies and joining the tae kwon do (sp) club also if I have time. In the meanwhile, here are some pictures.
I am terrible at updating you, but here's another condensed version of Finland.
Day 1- WE MADE IT! Patrik (the bomb.com) picked us up at the airport and drove us to get our keys and show us apartments while informing us of the intricate laws of Finland (Anything's legal if you have a permit. And you can get permits for anything) Sleep.
Day 2 - Explore/unpack/figure out Finnish transportation (still working on that one) Matias, another viking, showed us around and took us to a club for a celebration of one of his friends business successes.
Day 3 - Sleep. Still adjusting time schedules, 4 am bed and noon or one wake up is pretty normal. Get used to translating 15 o'clock in my head. Find out that grocery stores close circa 7 or 8. Pretty lame.
Day 4 - Meet exchange tutor group. They are awesome. Italy, slovenia, germany, croatia, slovakia, switzerland, and spain are just a few of the places they hail from.
Day 5-7 Fun. Acclimate to Helsinki. Appreciate (/hate) the feet of snow on the ground; Wisconsin has nothing on Helsinki for snowfall. Oh yeah, went to Estonia in here too, it was very grey/dreary a little bit but a beautiful city, especially the old town. Much more happened here but it's 3am.
Day 8-11 Matias's house about 2 hours out of Helsinki. Deer hunting (trying to walk in 3 foot snow drifts), riding ATVs and kite skiing (Awwww hellz yeah!) were the main activities of the weekend. First experience with a Finnish sauna. Hot but you feel great afterwards!
Tomorrow - More downtown helsinki adventures. Going to register ourselves as official aliens so we can get our ID number so we can get our bank accounts/money. Haircuts, my first class (survival finnish) and saunaing are all on the to-do list with making chocolate chip cookies and joining the tae kwon do (sp) club also if I have time. In the meanwhile, here are some pictures.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Dust! Anyone? No.
Location: Vik, Iceland
Time: 9:15pm
Weather: Hurricane winds. F5 at least.
Status: Trying not to get blown away
Today began at the crack of dawn (ala 10:30am Iceland Time) when we left our Reykjavik Hostel and boogied over to the budget rental car office with all of our gear, which has somehow magically expanded to about twice the original size. There we rented our exceedingly small but but every faithful VW Polo, the Prickly Pony. We said goodbye to our dearest (and dreariest) Rekjavik and headed north east on Route 36 to explore Geysir (origin of the word geyser) and the beautiful Gullfoss falls. Geysir was, well, a geyser. It erupted every 5 minutes or so in an enormous spout of sulfurey water and was quite and was quite impressive with the sunset behind it and frozen earth all around (pictures coming shortly). After Geysir we drove a quick 30km to Gullfoss Falls, one of the most beautiful places I've seen in my life! After Ge.....
*SHORT INTERMISSION*
...and I'm back. Jet lag is a wily foe. Just when you think you've adjusted to the time shift, your internal clock decides to play another round of time roulette. Today we arrived in Nordur Vik Hostel (In the town of Vik) and played some more of our favorite game, scrabbl....
*SHORT INTERMISSION*
Man, I'm the worst at this whole blog thing! Well here's the condensed version of our last days before Finland:
After several hours of driving through the dark/dust storms we finally made it to the Nordur Vik hostel in the town of Vik, southernmost city in Iceland. The town was tiny (300 people) but we managed to take at least 30 minutes to find our hostel as it was on the end of an unlit and unpaved road near the end of the town. It was well past dark by the time we got there so we did the ol' scrabble and sleep routine, one of my favorites. The next day we drove to Jokulsarlon where we saw a frozen lake that was made famous by none other than James Bond himself (Die Another Day).
The lagoon was a little bit wetter than the movie showed (damn you global warming!) and parts of the ice were flowing out a tiny river and into the ocean where the waves broke them on a black sand beach in a truly spectacular fashion. After some seal watching and nearly freezing our fingers off we watched a beautiful sunset and and began the ride back to the booming metropolis of Vik. Due to lack of nightlife/any stores being open after 9pm we adventured to the beach in the dark and had a great time getting lost and finding a random 20 ft statue dedicated to a town in England. Fun facts I learned about Vik :
1) It is the location of the Hanso Foundation's Vik Institute (if you followed Lost)
2) The town regularly practices drills where all of its inhabitants have to run to a church on the top of the tallest hill in the area which is the only place predicted to survive if the nearby Mýrdalsjökull glacier melts (the glacier is sitting on top of the nearby Katla volcano (Hasn't erupted since 1918, nbd)
3) Vik grocery stores (and others in Iceland) carry cooler ranch doritos. Only instead of being called "cooler ranch" they are instead "cool american" doritos. Sometimes I just don't understand Iceland.
The next day we said farewell to Vik and headed back to Keflavik where our flight was leaving at the unreasonable hour of 7:45am the next day. On the way we stopped to climb to the heights of Skogafoss Falls as well as admire the infamous "I'm going to spew ash all over Europe" Eyjafjallajökull volcano.
[Mom - Stop Reading]
We found out the next day that there were two small (2.0ish) earthquakes around Eyjafjallajökull the same day we were there but luckily nothing happened and our trusty Polo got us back to Keflavik safe and sound.
[Mom - Continue Reading]
Repacking that night was lots of fun but somehow we managed and even met a nice Libyan man who owned (?) the hostel and has worked in more countries than I could name. As it was the last stopping point for international flyers, there was a lot of free food at the hostel including at least 4 Nutella jars. We feasted like kings. Five am came MUCH to soon and we ventured outside to the most ridiculous windstorm of my life. After almost getting blown off of the road several times, not knowing how to work the gas pump, and being unable to open our doors because of the wind, we arrived at the airport. The plane was shaking as we took off but somehow we made it and were on our way to Finland!
So many more adventures in Finland so far, but we'll save that for another day.
Moi!
-Matt
P.s. Here are some random pictures of our trip, Picassa album to follow sometime (soon?)
Time: 9:15pm
Weather: Hurricane winds. F5 at least.
 | |
| Prickly Pony |
 |
| Geysir |
*SHORT INTERMISSION*
...and I'm back. Jet lag is a wily foe. Just when you think you've adjusted to the time shift, your internal clock decides to play another round of time roulette. Today we arrived in Nordur Vik Hostel (In the town of Vik) and played some more of our favorite game, scrabbl....
*SHORT INTERMISSION*
Man, I'm the worst at this whole blog thing! Well here's the condensed version of our last days before Finland:
After several hours of driving through the dark/dust storms we finally made it to the Nordur Vik hostel in the town of Vik, southernmost city in Iceland. The town was tiny (300 people) but we managed to take at least 30 minutes to find our hostel as it was on the end of an unlit and unpaved road near the end of the town. It was well past dark by the time we got there so we did the ol' scrabble and sleep routine, one of my favorites. The next day we drove to Jokulsarlon where we saw a frozen lake that was made famous by none other than James Bond himself (Die Another Day).
The lagoon was a little bit wetter than the movie showed (damn you global warming!) and parts of the ice were flowing out a tiny river and into the ocean where the waves broke them on a black sand beach in a truly spectacular fashion. After some seal watching and nearly freezing our fingers off we watched a beautiful sunset and and began the ride back to the booming metropolis of Vik. Due to lack of nightlife/any stores being open after 9pm we adventured to the beach in the dark and had a great time getting lost and finding a random 20 ft statue dedicated to a town in England. Fun facts I learned about Vik :
1) It is the location of the Hanso Foundation's Vik Institute (if you followed Lost)
2) The town regularly practices drills where all of its inhabitants have to run to a church on the top of the tallest hill in the area which is the only place predicted to survive if the nearby Mýrdalsjökull glacier melts (the glacier is sitting on top of the nearby Katla volcano (Hasn't erupted since 1918, nbd)
3) Vik grocery stores (and others in Iceland) carry cooler ranch doritos. Only instead of being called "cooler ranch" they are instead "cool american" doritos. Sometimes I just don't understand Iceland.
The next day we said farewell to Vik and headed back to Keflavik where our flight was leaving at the unreasonable hour of 7:45am the next day. On the way we stopped to climb to the heights of Skogafoss Falls as well as admire the infamous "I'm going to spew ash all over Europe" Eyjafjallajökull volcano.
[Mom - Stop Reading]
We found out the next day that there were two small (2.0ish) earthquakes around Eyjafjallajökull the same day we were there but luckily nothing happened and our trusty Polo got us back to Keflavik safe and sound.
[Mom - Continue Reading]
Repacking that night was lots of fun but somehow we managed and even met a nice Libyan man who owned (?) the hostel and has worked in more countries than I could name. As it was the last stopping point for international flyers, there was a lot of free food at the hostel including at least 4 Nutella jars. We feasted like kings. Five am came MUCH to soon and we ventured outside to the most ridiculous windstorm of my life. After almost getting blown off of the road several times, not knowing how to work the gas pump, and being unable to open our doors because of the wind, we arrived at the airport. The plane was shaking as we took off but somehow we made it and were on our way to Finland!
So many more adventures in Finland so far, but we'll save that for another day.
Moi!
-Matt
P.s. Here are some random pictures of our trip, Picassa album to follow sometime (soon?)
 |
| Gullfoss Falls |
 |
| Skogafass Falls |
 |
| Salvation, Vik style |
Monday, January 3, 2011
Santa Clause? How bout 13?
Cause that's how Iceland rolls. Every day for the 13 days before Christmas a new Santa arrives in town and performs some mischievous deed. Christmas celebrates the arrival of all of the Santa (santi?) clauses and they then leave one by one for the thirteen days after Christmas. Of course every Santa must be celebrated in proper fashion so Christmas/New Years turns into a solid 26+ days of partying, which seems to be a common theme when there are only 3 or 4 hours of daylight each day. Speaking of day it's almost 11am and the sky has changed from pitch black to a dark shade of gray so I suppose it's time to go check out the 'ol disco ice skating rink. Hasta pronto!
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Oh hey there Reykjavik
We made it! Some technical delays gave us a reroute through Boston and upgrade to business class (Swanky executive lounges and reclining leather seats? Yes please!) After arriving around 7am, realizing that Reykjavik is actually over 30 miles away from the Keflavik airport, and some adventures in a bus depot and wrong hostel, we finally got to the Reykjavik City Hostel around 10:30 Iceland time. With a 6 hour time difference napping was just about the only thing on our minds. Waking up around 4 we explored the hostel and made friends with some interesting characters including a german/chilean named Lucas who loved American pop culture so much he had read Madonna's autobiography (Madonna has an autobiography... what?)
New years in Iceland was everything we expected an more. Fireworks began circa 11am and didn't stop until at least 1am with the main event at midnight. Everyone and their brother had fireworks (which are sold by the state here to support their emergency medical services that take care of people when they blow their fingers off with all of the fireworks they own) Most of the town was chilling around "bonfires", which in Iceland apparently means nothing smaller than a house or shorter than 25 ft high. We walked to a church up on a hill and watched Reykjavik explode in colored lights with some fellow adventurers we met from New Zealand and Chicago (small world)! The entire city went out to clubs (which open here around 1am) after the show and the festivities didn't stop until the wee hours of the morning. Today was a day for exploring Reykjavik and planning the rest of our adventures for the week which at this point includes renting horses tomorrow, exploring some geothermal pools, visiting Geysir (the original geyser), seeing Gulfoss Falls and taking a car out for a jaunt around the beautiful countryside of Iceland. Pictures of New Years and and adventures to follow but for now we have a Rose Bowl to win! On Wisconsin!
New years in Iceland was everything we expected an more. Fireworks began circa 11am and didn't stop until at least 1am with the main event at midnight. Everyone and their brother had fireworks (which are sold by the state here to support their emergency medical services that take care of people when they blow their fingers off with all of the fireworks they own) Most of the town was chilling around "bonfires", which in Iceland apparently means nothing smaller than a house or shorter than 25 ft high. We walked to a church up on a hill and watched Reykjavik explode in colored lights with some fellow adventurers we met from New Zealand and Chicago (small world)! The entire city went out to clubs (which open here around 1am) after the show and the festivities didn't stop until the wee hours of the morning. Today was a day for exploring Reykjavik and planning the rest of our adventures for the week which at this point includes renting horses tomorrow, exploring some geothermal pools, visiting Geysir (the original geyser), seeing Gulfoss Falls and taking a car out for a jaunt around the beautiful countryside of Iceland. Pictures of New Years and and adventures to follow but for now we have a Rose Bowl to win! On Wisconsin!
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