If you want to see a very vivacious girl's take on living in Iceland, I suggest you visit her blog, here.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Last post of March
I had to keep it at an even 7 per month.
If you want to see a very vivacious girl's take on living in Iceland, I suggest you visit her blog, here.
And to also check out this video: http://vimeo.com/12236680
If you want to see a very vivacious girl's take on living in Iceland, I suggest you visit her blog, here.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
THE UNIVERSAL SIGH
http://www.theuniversalsigh.com/
http://www.theuniversalsigh.com/locations/
http://www.theuniversalsigh.com/locations/11/reykjavik
http://www.theuniversalsigh.com/locations/
http://www.theuniversalsigh.com/locations/11/reykjavik
Monday, March 28, 2011
Fanfest Weekend
It's been a while since I've last updated this mainly because I don't want to bore everyone with my day-to-day life over here. I haven't gone on any trips outside of Reykjavik in a while but I've still been having loads of fun hanging out with people, playing football and not going to class (lol). This weekend was special in its own way though. Some of you reading this may have heard of the online PC game, EVE Online. Apparently this game organizes its own Fan Festival at Laugardalshöll, the sporting arena complex in Iceland every year. You need to buy a Fanfest pass to get to go to all the game developer Q&A sessions and whatever else that was available, but on Friday night there was a Chessboxing match that was available to everyone for free.
This was exactly what you would guess it would be. A round of chess, a round of boxing. I loved it. It was hilarious, really. Here is a video of the World Chess Boxing Championship to give you an idea of how it works.
This was exactly what you would guess it would be. A round of chess, a round of boxing. I loved it. It was hilarious, really. Here is a video of the World Chess Boxing Championship to give you an idea of how it works.
Saturday night, the FanFest continued with a concert featuring FM Belfast and Booka Shade. I highly enjoyed both bands. It was good to see that Iceland has at least one very upper scale venue with plenty of lights, speakers, and room for hundreds of people.
It's finally starting to look like spring over here. The snow has almost all melted and temperature are finally in the 40's. The grass is trying so hard to make the change from yellow to green, but it's not quite there yet. Hopefully soon. I'll try to throw some pictures your way soon.
WE WE WE SO EXCITED.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
The calm before the storm...
- mcdonalds
- sonic
- chick-fil-a
- taco bell
- jack-in-the-box
WEATHER UPDATE: its still snowing over here. hopefully it will get in the 40's this week, yes!
bought tickets to see Caribou in Iceland on May 22nd.
Musical festival with coming up on Saturday with Booka Shade and FM Belfast, should be a good one.
Have discovered that the amount of artists I would want to see that play in Amsterdam and Berlin is unreal.
This a picture of the logo of Iceland's most popular grocery store, Bónus. Why does the pig look so demented? My guess is it is a representation of Icelanders when they only get 4 hours of sun in December and then stare at sun lamps to make themselves happy.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The weather here...
is so terrible today that we can't play football. 25-35 MPH winds kicking up snow and limiting visible distance to 5 meters at times. I am ready for some nice weather around here. The view from my window:
Friday, March 11, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
MARCH
Rollin' up on two months and Iceland continues to fail to disappoint.
March 1st was National Beer Day in Iceland because that was the day the prohibition was lifted in 1989.
March 4-6 was the ESN Reykjavik annual trip trip to Akureyri, in North Iceland. We left at 10 a.m. on Friday and rode a bus about 5 hours to our destination. We stopped at a couple gas stations for breaks and also stopped at a Kaldi Beer Factory. It was actually very interesting being in an actual brewery and seeing the huge machines that brew and ferment the beer. Oh yeah, they also had free beer on tap and then for the rest of the bus ride the Spaniards that were on the trip (there were like 10 of them) all started to drunkenly sing La Bamba over the bus microphone. I kind of felt bad for our bus driver but I couldn't stop laughing.
We finally arrived at our Guesthouse in Akureyri at around 7 and were treated to a hamburger buffet at 8 at a very nice restaurant called Greifinn. Needless to say it was delicious. The next morning at 10 we left for the ski mountain. It was a comparatively small resort to ones in the U.S. and other countries from what I was told, but it is Iceland and Iceland doesn't find the need to expand anything at all, really. Iceland also doesn't have enough skis for 50 University students after already renting out a lot to other people. Many of the ESN kids had to snowboard just because that was all that was left. That was fine with me since I felt there was less chance of me hurting my sort of bad knee by trying to snowboard. However, I pathetically lasted no more than an hour before I recklessly tried to go down the rope-tow hill, got going to fast (obviously), spun around, faced the top of the hill, fell backwards, landed on both my wrists and didn't want to move them for about 5 minutes because I thought I broke them. I definitely should have seen that coming. They are still terribly bruised but I will live. Nevertheless I still had fun watching everyone to try make it down the hill without falling and we also stopped at the outdoor heated community pool on the way back and dinner that day was delicious again. The pool had two running water slides, lap pools, community swimming pool, hot tubs, all functioning outdoors in about 40 degree weather. Going to any outdoor heated pool in Iceland is always a good time. Pizza buffet was the meal of choice for day number two and you know you are in for a treat when they top pizza slices with bacon like its customary.
And go figure, this being Iceland with it's ridiculous weather and all, skiing had to close an hour early because of blizzard like conditions and on Sunday when day number two of skiing was supposed to be, the entire resort was closed due to absolutely terrible weather. Even on the bus ride back we passed at least two cars stranded on the side of the road, covered in snow. The weather in this country is on a hair-trigger. The pictures of the drive to Akureyri look so beautiful, and then in 48 hours it goes from totally peaceful to wind that can blow cars off the road and snow creating visibility issues like fog. We couldn't see more than 10 feet of the road for a while in our return trip.
But we finally made it back and it was no doubt a fun trip. Trudged through snow to the post office today and finally picked up my package from my parents with hiking boots, swimsuit, etc. So yea, that's about it for now. Woo
March 1st was National Beer Day in Iceland because that was the day the prohibition was lifted in 1989.
March 4-6 was the ESN Reykjavik annual trip trip to Akureyri, in North Iceland. We left at 10 a.m. on Friday and rode a bus about 5 hours to our destination. We stopped at a couple gas stations for breaks and also stopped at a Kaldi Beer Factory. It was actually very interesting being in an actual brewery and seeing the huge machines that brew and ferment the beer. Oh yeah, they also had free beer on tap and then for the rest of the bus ride the Spaniards that were on the trip (there were like 10 of them) all started to drunkenly sing La Bamba over the bus microphone. I kind of felt bad for our bus driver but I couldn't stop laughing.
We finally arrived at our Guesthouse in Akureyri at around 7 and were treated to a hamburger buffet at 8 at a very nice restaurant called Greifinn. Needless to say it was delicious. The next morning at 10 we left for the ski mountain. It was a comparatively small resort to ones in the U.S. and other countries from what I was told, but it is Iceland and Iceland doesn't find the need to expand anything at all, really. Iceland also doesn't have enough skis for 50 University students after already renting out a lot to other people. Many of the ESN kids had to snowboard just because that was all that was left. That was fine with me since I felt there was less chance of me hurting my sort of bad knee by trying to snowboard. However, I pathetically lasted no more than an hour before I recklessly tried to go down the rope-tow hill, got going to fast (obviously), spun around, faced the top of the hill, fell backwards, landed on both my wrists and didn't want to move them for about 5 minutes because I thought I broke them. I definitely should have seen that coming. They are still terribly bruised but I will live. Nevertheless I still had fun watching everyone to try make it down the hill without falling and we also stopped at the outdoor heated community pool on the way back and dinner that day was delicious again. The pool had two running water slides, lap pools, community swimming pool, hot tubs, all functioning outdoors in about 40 degree weather. Going to any outdoor heated pool in Iceland is always a good time. Pizza buffet was the meal of choice for day number two and you know you are in for a treat when they top pizza slices with bacon like its customary.
And go figure, this being Iceland with it's ridiculous weather and all, skiing had to close an hour early because of blizzard like conditions and on Sunday when day number two of skiing was supposed to be, the entire resort was closed due to absolutely terrible weather. Even on the bus ride back we passed at least two cars stranded on the side of the road, covered in snow. The weather in this country is on a hair-trigger. The pictures of the drive to Akureyri look so beautiful, and then in 48 hours it goes from totally peaceful to wind that can blow cars off the road and snow creating visibility issues like fog. We couldn't see more than 10 feet of the road for a while in our return trip.
But we finally made it back and it was no doubt a fun trip. Trudged through snow to the post office today and finally picked up my package from my parents with hiking boots, swimsuit, etc. So yea, that's about it for now. Woo
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