World Travels

June 9, 2013

ICOT 2013 in Limassol, Cyprus

The Cypriots claim all the best parts of Greek culture, like their raki, gyros, and Mediterranean beaches, but still have a unique Cypriot identity, with a splash of random foreign influences. They drive on the left side of the rode and use British power plugs, and the highest number of tourists come annually from Russia. My couchsurf host was a perfectly sculpted Cypriot, who ate only salad at night, and had a white shitzu terrier. She wore a pink bow on her head and always greeted your arrival by running up the stairs to eye level and offering her paw out to shake hello. I spent little time there, but instead saw the inside walls of a classroom for most of my time in Cyprus (which were very pretty walls, I must add).

me and Theo at TEPAK

ICOT is the annual International Conference on Tourism that I decided to attend last minute since I missed all things Greek. Cyprus isn’t quite Greece, but an independent tri-state country (the British, Turkish and Greek have unofficially split up the country) that I could also add to my country list. And, who am I kidding to not say I mostly wanted sun and 30`C. I also got to present my paper on ecotourism, which had a surprisingly large turnout, which was either thanks to my supervisor Dr. Nelson Graburn, or due to the fact that I was listed as a speaker from the University of Iceland in Israel. There was some confusion when the country code “IS” was expanded to Israel by the conference organizers, and people must have been curious to hear from a student at the unheard Icelandic university of Israel.

The conference included about 100 papers being presented over 2 days, minus a few no-shows, including the guy who won best paper (that award ceremony was a bit awkward). It was full of interesting characters, including the hunchback of Notre dame and a vivacious Brazilian woman who made an imovie presentation about the bikinis and beautiful people of Brazil for her talk. There was also a resident dog at the Cyprus University of Technology, who befriended everyone as if he had already known them for years.

Ironically enough, the largest problems we had were technical, with mics, computers and the internet not cooperating as they should, especially considering the fact that we were hosted by a technological institute. Other issues were the same things that come up at every international conference; the native English speakers spoke too fast, the non-native speakers of English couldn’t understand the accents of other non-native speakers, the South African’s always kind of sounded like they were speaking Afrikaans, and the North Americans couldn’t understand anyone except for other North Americans. This resulted in a lot of English to English translations and a few total misunderstandings lost in translation.

The clash of international cultures was more apparent, with different levels of classroom manners pushing the tolerance of each and every speaker. There were those who found it acceptable to talk amongst eachother, walk in and out of the middle of presentations, and the Cypriot photographers who were always switching lights and shutting doors in order to get the best photo of the nerve-wracked speaker. The Greek speakers were always the loudest, since they couldn’t whisper or exercise their inside voices. They even managed to walk louder than everyone else, their footsteps in the hallway heard from every classroom. But, their warm, friendliness never allowed you to lose your patience with them… so you just had to carry on and talk over them.

There were also those speakers whose last names you knew from referencing in your own work, and putting a face to those papers was always a pleasant surprise. The free time between lectures included lunch and coffee breaks, where all the presenters mingled among themselves. The superficial conversations always went the same, “Where are you from? What do you study?” Once you got past that, you were sized up as worthy of more conversation or not, and each and every academic had this natural inclination to compete with eachother in confidence and knowledge of what they do. The presentations were all strictly limited to 15 minutes, so it was always a race against time to show and prove as much as you could during your talk.

The conference had its funny quirks, but in the end, an international conference like this is always the perfect chance for academics to meet and mingle with people from all over the world, inspiring eachother to think about tourism in other ways and other places. But, despite our different backgrounds and various histories, it was wonderful to see how much we all had in common in the end, sharing our interests in tourism while being tourists ourselves in Cyprus.

June 3, 2013

Cruising with the Crystal Symphony

The Crystal Symphony is only one of 2 cruise ships that Crystal Cruises owns, and at 6 stars, its supposed to be the most luxurious cruising experience available today. Everyone that sails for 7 or more days on one cruise automatically becomes part of the ‘Crystal Society,’ but there are milestone levels (5, 25, 100, etc) which entitle you to certain privileges and free cruises. Even though the company has only been sailing since 1988, there are guests who have sailed on over 200 voyages. On our voyage, there was a 98 year old woman who had been on some 98 cruises, and another woman who had been on 189 cruises. There was a couple who had boarded the ship the cruise before, and were going to stay on for 5 trips in a row. There was another woman who had moved into one of the penthouse suites, and was going to be a permanent resident of the ship for an entire year.

the Crystal Symphony in port

Naturally, the level of class and wealth was more than a stones throw away from what I normally pass for, so I had to answer a few funny questions and explain what I was doing there and why I didn’t look Icelandic. Most conversations started with who’s who and from where, but some were quite secretive. My favourite answer from a German gentleman was “I’m super famous but you’ve never heard of me.” Others belittled themselves, “Oh it doesnt matter, I was just invited to come here so I did but I really shouldn’t be” and others tried their best to look and act as important as possible, though noone ever really figured out their story.

The cruise is all inclusive, and employs around 450 staff and has a guest capacity of some 950, so the employee to passenger ratio is nearly 1-2. On our particular cruise, a 12 day trans-Atlantic from New York to Reykjavik, the ship was only half full, so we enjoyed a 1-1 staff to guest ration, easily making the voyage one of the most hospitable, comfortable ways you could imagine a cruise ship to be.

leaving downtown Manhattan, past the financial district

There were only 4 Icelanders on board, two tourism professionals, a guest chef, and a geologist who was our volcano specialist and destination lecturer. We were constantly stopped and asked a thousand questions about Iceland, the most common being about the Blue Lagoon, and everything else as random as ‘can I buy protein shakes in Reykjavik?’ People wanted lists of what to do and what to see, and recommendations where to eat and party. The guest chef, ‘Icelandic Food Expert’ Thrainn from Kolabrautin, was asked for photos as if he was a famous celebrity, but he became quite favourable with the staff when he kept giving out samples of Icelandic food and drink and insisted on helping in the kitchen even though he was only supposed to show up and teach others how to prepare his food.

leaving the narrow harbour of St. John’s, New Foundland

After the final crossing, from New Foundland to Iceland, even the cozy comforts and all inclusive luxury wasn’t enough to keep me from getting cabin feverish. The ship got smaller and smaller and by the end of it, you couldn’t turn a corner without running into somebody you knew, but somehow, I left with new friends I would have never though I’d make, who probably think more of me as a pseudo-daughter than a friend, but nevertheless, I’ll be sure to visit them soon…

May 20, 2013

Final stop in Greece: Corfu

my tour guides

I had gotten delayed by at least one day in almost every place I visited in Greece, so by the time I made it to Corfu where my flight home was from, I only had 3 days to wet my appetite for everything Corfiot. My flight then got cancelled and I had to fly a day home early, so I was basically down to 1 and a half days. Luckily, my couchsurf hosts’ mother owned a 5 star hotel in Dasia, a beautiful mountain top suburb, and his best friends family owned the best restaurant in Corfu town, the Italian ‘La Famiglia.’ Between them and their friends, I basically saw all the islands best highlights in 36 hours, including a private beachside hostel where the owner home grew her own olives and vineyards and homemade her own cheese and raki.

home made cheese and raki

All the food in Greece had been a pleasant surprise: with a similar climate to Italy, they had exquisite olives, grapes, wines and limoncello. It’s a fact that Greece sells all its best extra virgin olive oil to Italy where its blended with Italian EVOO and sold as Italian. The fresh feta cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, olive oil and balsamic vinegar shaken together for a traditional Greek salad never tasted the same from home to home, but always tasted incredibly fresh and delicious. Greek mousaka and gyros were also made with a personal touch by everyone, but equally amazing every time.

Greek frappe

There were many things in Greece that I either didn´t expect or became so regular that I couldnt imagine Greece without them. The first and best of all, was Greek hospitality; every Greek host or friend I made, I also met their closest friends and extended families. If I was ever alone and Greekless, a Greek guy would pick me up off the street or invite me into his shop for coffee. Even when I walked into coffee shops to order a cup of Greek coffee, the smiley waiter or owner would come out with coffee and a bottle of water and tell me ‘don’t worry about it, drink.’  On the way to Corfu, I stopped in Patras, and sat in a cafe alone to sip on a frappé (the Greek version of Instant coffee on ice with sugar). The guy beside, Xristos, me waited until I left to chase me down the street and ask me where I was from and what I was doing here alone, and then invited me out with him and his friends to the top of Patras for a vantage point out onto the sea. There I realized another Greek stereotype: philosophy. It means ‘friend of knowledge’ in Greek, and he wasn’t the first or last person in Greece I met who wanted to dig deep into my foreign mind and discuss existential philosophy.  Xristos’ friend started heavy, by asking me ‘do you have religion?’ and following up with my surprised answer with an even heavier answer, ‘What is God to you?’. Then he asked me if I believed all of the worlds problems couldn’t be solved with love, and if not, how or who can solve world peace. I met many more deep thinkers in Corfu, who drilled my beliefs for meaning and reason. When I told them about my ‘Quarter Life Crisis’ book idea, they told me it was brilliant, but that I had to be prepared to have the answers for the sequel, the ‘Rest of Your Life Crisis.’

Corfu town

Another weird re-occurrence was a fascination with Sweden. My couchsurf host in Santorini wanted to move to Stockholm, my couchsurf host Johnny Bravo in Corfu learned how to speak Swedish, and the Italian restaurant guy had lived in Sweden. All the friends in Corfu I met were also musicians or musically inclined, and of the 10 couchsurf host possibilities in Corfu, 3 more were musicians or singers. It reminded me a bit of Iceland, where every musician is involved with 2 or 3 different solo or band acts, and look to music as a way to get out of their home island.

the sunset view from Sunrock hostel

Every Greek home I stepped into, I was offered Greek coffee, homemade cheese, Hellenic beer or freshly picked olives. The Greek hospitality ideals must have been taken from the Persian past, and their current economic recession didn’t give them any excuse to spare an expense. Everyone complained about the current state of affairs, unemployment and wages at unacceptable rates, but in reality, the Greek people are not suffering nearly as much as their Scandinavian counterparts (ie. Icelanders) since they still have home and family ideologies that reign true. I don’t know if it was chance or luck that I was blinded, but I didn’t see the real consequences of the recession: if you have family, friends, and happiness, I don’t see what more love money can buy anyway, so ‘Ya-mas’ to the Greek philosophy of living.

May 19, 2013

Acropolis to Delphi

Everyone I met in Greece told me to spend as little time as possible in Athens as possible, or just skip it all together, but that seemed like a ridiculous idea. Who goes to Greece and doesn’t visit the Acropolis? There´s a reason its one of the most tourist ridden destinations in the Mediterranean, but also curious why it never makes it on any Seven Wonders of the World lists (not even the Ancient Hellenic list).

the Parthenon, under construction

Athens is a huge city, sprawling with construction, reconstruction, and suburban spread. It looks nothing like the postcard picture of Santorini, the bleached white homes exchanged for stained stone and marble. Still, the center of Athens is a walkable maze of old streets and stone steps, laying under the shadow of the Acropolis. The Acropolis is a citadel, built on the top of a platform mountain, in the city dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena. The Parthenon is the pillared, ruinous temple that makes Athens and ancient Greece so famous. Its big and impressive, but shrouded in construction canes and all the good stuff has been taken out of it and placed in the Archaeological Museum nearby. The view from the Parthenon over Athens is something to remember, but you really have to stretch your imagination to recreate in your mind how this city once looked or functionied in all its glory.

I couchsurfed in Athens with Yannis´ brother, my host from Crete. He took me to a ‘hipster’ bar, the TAF (the Art Foundation), a courtyard in the center of an abandoned building whose ruinous rooms offer exhibiting space for artists. Then we went to a forested courtyard bar called Six Dogs where the most trees in Athens congregated for a luscious green space between high rising, crumbling buildings. We always went out with is best friend, who was also originally from Crete, and after learning about my blog, advised me that Crete should be a whole chapter. Then, he warned me not to drink too much raki before I wrote the chapter, since ever glass of raki makes the brain one year younger… as his own jokes became more and more immature.

My brain was exploding with new Greek terminology: as the reading of their alphabet had become accessible to me, I started to realize how much English vocabulary has been borrowed directly from ancient Greek. Words for astrology, astronomy, physics, mathematics, algebra, philosophy, medicine and many other sciences are derived directly from Greek, and I found myself reading and understanding store front signs for ‘Pharmacy,’ ‘Apotek,’ ‘Optometry’ and ‘Orthopedic’ in strange letters. It’s a wonder why the ‘lingua franca’ was ever French, or now English, since Greek language and alphabet is the oldest recorded language in the history of the western world (younger only to Chinese).

The history in Greece was also flabbergasting, since everything was thousands of years older than any mentionaly anthropological history of Iceland or North America. Their rich Greek Mythology and Ancient Minoan culture provide millions of unanswered questions and curious wonderment, like how did they have flushing toilets in the year 1750BC?

I finally made it to Delphi, recommended by a fellow medievalist from Massachusetts, known as the center of the world in Ancient Greek mythology. Lonely Planet described the hilltop town as a place surely to be discovered and exploited by tourism eventually, since it was magnificently perched in the snowtopped hills of Parnassos mountain over to the Gulf of Corinth, with every house, hotel, restaurant and bar a million-dollar view you never had to pay for.

May 15, 2013

Santorini

Iconic Santorini

I really believed that places like this only existed in postcards, but Santorini really was the picture perfect image of Greece I had always imagined. I had left Crete, which identifies itself as especially Cretan, not only Greek, and arrived at iconic Greece, with all the blue-roofed white houses hanging over the turquoise Mediterranean sea. Not surprisingly, it was super touristic, with people from all over the world flocking to the cliff-side villages for greek salad, ouzo, and a sunset picture from Oía town. Both Oía and the main town Fira are full of tourist shops, hotels, restaurants, cafes and bars, and not much else, but the rest of the island is a quiet pastoral landscape, with vineyards and olive trees growing like bushweeds.

the donkeys, er, mules

The donkeys in Santorini are something special, but most of them are not actually donkeys but mules bigger than Icelandic horses. They´re decorated with an assortment of saddles and straps, colourful blankets and trinkets, and jingle whenever they move from the cowbell strapped under their neck. Their purpose it to carry weary travelers up and down the hundreds of cliff side steps from the ports to the mountain top villages, and watching their farmer hands hoist dainty little women up and down off their donkeys is a hilarious sight.  I decided to walk myself down and up, feeling sorry for the poor things, but made friends with one of the farmers. He needed help taking his 10 mules home at the end of the day so he tied them together, head to tail, and insisted I ride with him. We rode the train of jingling mules up and over the town, through winding alleys and narrow steps, and arrived to the open farm land hiding on the slope below the town. I untacked and fed his mules, some of which were imported from Italy (and his most prized possessions , and he gave me one of the colourful trinkety bridles to put on my horses in Iceland.

the volcano, and Fira in the background (it kinda looks like Iceland with snowtopped cliffs, no?)

I took a tour of the volcano and hotspring, two of the most popular tourist destinations off Santorini´s main island. When the tour guides realized I was from Iceland, they immediately started apologizing for how lame their volcano was compared to Eyjafjallajokull (they could almost pronounce it correctly) and that their hot spring wasnt really hot, but just marginally warmer than the sea water.

I managed to find a couchsurf host in Santorini, Giorgos who worked at a car rental and tourist guide company. After finishing work every day at 7pm, he then carried on his professional expertise by showing me around the island. We caught the famous sunset in Oía, also drove to the lighthouse at the southernmost tip of the island, and explored other, half abandoned, white house villages. His parents were visiting him so the first night I arrived home to ‘meet mama and papa,´ an occurrence I´ve grown accustomed to from all my Greek friends so far. His mom fed us home made greek food and we dined out at the only Mexican restaurant on the island. We dabbled in a Friday´s night festivities but the grand, luxus clubs were mostly half empty, since summer and tourism season doesn´t really begin til June.

cliff side villages

Everyone kept telling me ´summer´is so great in Greece, as if 30°C and sunshine isn´t summery enough. It was my summer holiday anyway, and I´m just relieved I had more of greece and Greeks to myself. I left Santorini on the slowboat, since it was a 10 hour sail that stopped at 5 other cycladic islands. I started to realize that all these little islands had the same blue-roofed white houses, and as paradise kept repeating itself, I found myself day dreaming what it would be like if I just got off at the next stop.

May 9, 2013

Cretan Easter

Chania

My travel philosophy of showing up without a plan or map backfired when I flew into the wrong town in Crete. I had expected to land in the capital where my couchsurf host was waiting in Heraklion, but instead I landed in Chania (150km west of Heraklion) on Easter Sunday. I was doubly confused since Easter had been a few weeks before in the rest of Europe, but the Julian calendar makes Greece’s Orthodox easter a little later. So, I was in a strange but beautiful town, with most of the city shut down and many people out of town. I strolled the Venetian harbour, with a handful of other sunkissed tourists, and only figured out the holiday was happening after passing a dozen lamb roasts – after days of fasting from meat, they put an entire lamb on a stick and rotate it over a barell sized bbq, yielding enough meat to feed an army.

lamb roast

I took one of the only buses going to Heraklion that afternoon and sat in the bus station there waiting for my host, who was actually standing 50m away from me. The pitfall of couchsurfing is that you never really recognize people from their pictures, so after standing beside eachother for 10 mins, it was only after I called him and his phone rang that we figured eachother out. Yannis was probably the best host I could have imagined, a local born and raised Cretan who thought it was only normal to give me his bed and take the couch, make his best friend show me around while he worked, and introduce me to his extended family for easter Monday brunch. We drove out to his parents village Zaros where 20 or 25 of his family members stuffed me with lamb and goat meat smothered in lemon and salt, and poured me full of home made wine and raki, the local alcohol which makes even Brennivin look good. We feasted all day long, only to reach dessert and coffee time, and I paid the next day for my food coma.

Yannis´ family feast

The day before there had been a tragic accident in the village, so Yannis explained that the meal had been quite tame and ended early. He also acknowledged how great it was that I had been the comic relief of his family, which I had noticed and laughed anyway at all the jokes I didnt actually understand. But the next day the joke was on me, as a wave of either the stomach flu or unweathered food poisoning paralyzed me for 24 hours. Yannis catered on me hand and foot, skipping lessons to forcefeed me soup for lunch, and thankfully it passed by the following day.

4000 year old Knossos

When Yannis arrived home every evening from physics tutoring, we drove around on his motorcycle to the ports, the beaches, look out points and the famous Knossos archeological site. Knossos is one of the largest Bronze age cities discovered, and perhaps the oldest European city ever found. It is the site of a Minoan civilization palace, supposed location of the infamous Labyrinth and half-man-half-bull minotaur, that has been inhabited since Neolithic times (7000BC).

With Yannis’ help, I learned to read Greek on my first day, which proved really helpful for understanding all sorts of signage. However, being able to read Greek didnt help me understand what I was saying, and it just seemed to confuse Greek people that I spoke only some words in Greek but didnt understand a word they said. He taught me to count to ten and all the important phrases I needed to know, including the “christos anesti” greeting I had to give to each and every one of his family members for easter. We roadtripped south to the hippy town of Matala, and along all the country roads was the appetizing smell of olives in the air. Little church shrines lined the road, where a life lost in a car accident would get a miniature church built for them instead of just a temporary cross or bouqet of flowers. We ran into a herd of mounted stallions on the way to Zaros, who were meant to escort the relocation of a sacred item from one church to another. I went with his bestfriend to the north coast of Crete to visit his summer house and aunties vacation apartments, and visited another friend of his working at a movie theatre for popcorn and raki shots behind the counter.

beautiful Zaros lake

It was only 5 days I spent in Crete, with one bed ridden day, but I felt like I had been there weeks with an old friend. I atleast knew I could have stayed weeks more, but Santorini started calling and I finally, regretfully, had to leave Yannis’ clutches of hospitality.

March 31, 2013

#100: The United Arab Emirates

sunrise from the palm

It didn´t really feel like a desert or the Middle East when I arrived in Dubai. The city was huge, full of highrises and smog, water and palm trees, and Australians and Indians who were all called ‘Boss’. I was staying with my friend Brooke, who lives in a 52 storey high building of Emirates Air hostesses. From her apartment on the 46th floor, you could see the shiny glass buildings fade into a dusty desert, and from her boyfriends apartment on the Palm Jumeirah we looked down onto a Caribbean blue beach, so I never really figured out what the rest of the U.A.E is actually like. But, it was technically my 100th country, and it´s like no place I´ve ever been before, although I have a feeling Dubai isn´t exemplary of the rest of little Arabia.

me and Brooke under the Burj Kalifah

My main interests in Dubai were sun and heat, but you can´t really avoid the shopping culture since malls the size of Reykjavik are full of most of the tourist attractions. We went to one mall that had an ice skating rink and an aquarium in it. And this wasn´t just a tank with some fish, but an entire underwater world with sharks and sting rays in it that you could pay to go scuba diving in. When we left the mall, we walked outside to a mix of Venice, Las Vegas and Shanghai; bridges and canals stemmed from a lake with dancing water fountains under the shadow of Burj Kalifah, the tallest building in the world. The other big mall had a winter wonderland built inside of it, complete with a snowpark, snowslides, toboggan runs, 5 ski slopes and a ski lift, all kept at a cool -1° while temperatures reached 30°C outside.

We baked in the sun every day, and our evening shenanigans always involved a lot of Savannas and Australians. We went to Barasti beach bar, Dubais iconic nightlife destination for hundreds and hundreds of people every day. I had the most expensive meal of my trip at Meat Co., eating steak and Quinoa salad beside the lit up fountains dancing to Whitney Houston’s “I will always love you” and some Arabic songs that made me want to belly dance. We smoked hookah at a New York steak house that felt more like an all-inclusive Mexican resort restaurant, and had a 7 hour brunch date with 20 of Brooke’s friends who managed to eat more than 50 different entrees and appetizers over the course of the day.

paradise in the city

Other highlights were paddle boarding around the palm´s beaches, driving to Atlantis at the end of the palm, seeing the Palm from a highrise observatory, and finally believing the Burj Al Arabe is a real building. I really wanted to see a helicopter land on it, but no such luck. I also missed the Dubai World Cup $10 million stake race by half a day, so I have two reason to go back.

March 5, 2013

Birthdays and stars in the City of Angels and Joshua Tree

I started reaping the benefits of a family member working for Icelandair with me and my cousins Boston trip, but then I dragged her to LA to reap all the benefits of my former California livin´, dreams and friends included.

cruisin down Venice beach

We were picked up at LAX airport by a friend from San Diego, who spent the day with us sightseeing Venice Beach, Santa Monica Pier, and Hollywood´s many sunny boulevards. We met uncountable crazies at Venice beach, zooming past us on skateboards yelling ”Under the sea!”, and even the trademark Harry Perry came by playing electrical guitar on his rollerblades. We got our own bicycle cruisers to join in on the boardwalk fun, almost got Sara tattooed,  and were asked forgiveness by the street folk who were either constantly cat calling or asking for weed money.

We went in and out of tourist shops to buy postcards and souvenirs, but otherwise we blended in perfectly fine. I´m not sure if that´s a good or bad thing, but we were also a bit crazy. Sara´s favourite store was the CVS pharmacy (which she could have spent an hour in just ´browsing´), and I insisted on beer and mexican food as our only staples for the entire 5 days we were in California. We drank oversized coffees and In n Out burger as a couple exceptions to the rule, and tried not to look like kids in a candy store everytime we went shopping for clothes – the prices and selections of things were overwhelming to us Reykjavik dwelling girls.

Luke at the Fonda Theatre box office

We were staying with my friend Luke, who works for the concert promoting company Golden Voice. We went to a concert with him on Hollywood Boulevard, where he worked the Fonda Theatre´s box office. There´s an amazing roof top terrace at the Fonda, where we watched Amon Tobin perform, and learned that the bartenders there really like vodka cranberry. We got stuck in ridiculous traffic getting out there, and could only laugh insensitively at Luke´s road rage (favourite quote: ”For the love. of. GOD. GOOO!”). There was another friend of Lukes throwing a birthday party on Feb 28th that we atttended, and didnt realize it was a black-tie/Cocktail dress event, so we ended up looking pretty silly in my new Lululemon yoga jacket and Luke´s faded leather jacket.

Sky House view

Luke and I have a mutual friend named Bracewell from northern California, who I went to school with at UBC, but me and Luke had never met until he came to Reykjavik for Iceland Airwaves ´12 and crashed on my couch in exchange for an all-access pass to the festival. Under those kinds of circumstances, youre bound to become best friends, and we also have our birthdays 4 days apart, so the main mission of this vacation was to meet Luke and the house he rented in Joshua Tree for a weekend out in the desert, celebrating our getting older.

the Joshua Tree

The house was called ´Skyhouse´, perched on top of a hill looking over the town of Joshua Tree and with the national park to the east. The star gazing at night was inexplicable, with numerous firepits and a hottub outside to enjoy it from. The house is meant to sleep 6 people comfortably, we invited about 20, and somehow 26 people showed up. Three of my Berkeley friends (and some of my most favouritest people in life) drove 8 hours+ to join us, Bracewell came, and my startruck cousin was there, which was more of a birthday gift than I could ask for. Sara was star struck because the rest of Luke´s band members showed up, Y Luv (who make great music, by the way… check out their facebook page), and one could safely say their young, bandly influences started rubbing off on her pretty quick…

Pioneer town saloon

We had a day long photo shoot in the desert, compliments of Mike Reiter (whose birthday is also the last week of Feb), after hiking 5 miles around Joshua Tree trails. We visited Pioneer Town, a small village outside of Joshua Tree that was built as the set of a Hollywood western movie and stayed on as a regular street in Pioneer town. I found some big western horses to cuddle there, as per usual, and even rode one that I couldn´t get one without standing on a hay bale for leverage.

We finally drove back to LA, in half the time that it took to leave LA (the traffic is unbelievable in that city), and had one last birthday shebang on Abbot Kinney street in Venice. My friend Jake, who I met in Reykjavik working on visual effects for a Baltazar Kormakur film, had just gotten back to LA after 4 months in Iceland. He took us out to the Taste Kitchen, followed by the best butterscotch dessert in the world at Gjelinas. His music movie producer friend Peter Harding joined us, and gave us a sneak preview to a John Martin film he´s making. He makes all sorts of promotional material for artists and music, and his 9 minute short on Swedish House Mafia´s angelic voice made me totally John Martin star struck.

Hope, half clydesdale

After a few days in the city of Angels, and glimpsing into the lives of Hollywoods gear grinders, we both left LA sunkissed, star struck and shop crazed, with repeated promises to come back soon and relentless attempts to invite our hosts back to Iceland again.

February 28, 2013

February is Birthday Month

Today is my 26th birthday, and I know I’m getting older because I actually lost count of years and tried to convince my mother the other day that I was still 24. I started semi-celebrating my birthday 10 days ago with a brownie and cake baking night with my gay best friend and Bavarian roommate. We invited 8 people and 2 showed up, so needless to say we ate alot of cake and brownies. My first birthday gift came 5 days early, an electrical piano I bought from me to me. Its the most expensive thing I own, and also the most beautiful, so I just needed a good excuse to buy it for myself.

The next birthday celebration was a day tour to Njala Country, a saga trail in southern Iceland tracing the life and times of Gunnar and Njall. We visited the hypothetical site of Njall’s burning, an excavated farm house found with traces of fire and whey milk that supposedly was used to try and put out the fire. After getting soggy shoes on a wet, windy day in the countryside, I had a series of birthday cocktails at the new student bar Studentakjallarinn with another February birthday friend.

Three days before my birthday, me and my cousin arrived to my best friend Ursula’s house in Boston to celebrate another night in Harvard Square. Random friends from Germany, New York, Berkeley, and Boston joined, as well as some strangers, and I ended up with only one person I knew at a frat house with people smoking cigars in a fireside room the size of a gymnasium. Two days before my birthday, we cuddled up inside Ursula’s living room watching all the red carpet pre-Oscars action and finally the Academy awards. After 10 hours of watching tv and $50 worth of take out chinese, it had become all white outside with snow.

On my birthday eve, I met up with a friend from Boston at the Boston Brew Works restaurant, accross from Fenway Park. We ate poutine and wings with blueberry beer, and then watched Imagine Dragons at the House of Blues. I thought we were going to see blues, but after Atlas Genius opened, I realized we were not at a blues concert.

imagine dragons at HoB Boston

The day of my birthday started with a work session in the Harvard Business school, where me and Sara pretended to be studious alongside a bunch of real business graduates. I was asked to collect my own birthday gift package from Ursula from Fedex, and did so a bit rushed, getting a little lost, but finally did so, only to realize it was a St. Patricks day leprechaun hat meant for Ursula. But Sara got me roses, which made up for missing fedex packages, and Ursula’s mom gave me a 3D map of Iceland, which was an unexpected cherry on the top.

We had sushi and wine for lunch, and then the most amazing dinner at Legal Sea food. It had been organized through a friend of a friend of a friend, and included cocktails, champagne, wine, all the seafood and shellfish you could dream of, surf and turf mains, and finally a happy birthday song to present the icecream dessert.

Sara and Ursula at Legal Sea Food

By the time my birthday was over, I barely had any time to take it all in before boarding a 7 am plane to LA. Now the birthday fun will continue with 3 other friends I have in California also celebrating their February birthdays…