July 2, 2015

Photo Highlight: Krossnes and Ingólfsfjörður

the fog setting in over Djúpavík

Me and my friend Steve took an impromptu roadtrip to the eastern westfjords, where a gravel road winds north along Húnaflói, through tiny villages and abandoned farms.

Steve and Krossneslaug

We saw more sheep than people, one dog, no horses, and a lot of natural hotsprings. We bathed at Gvendarlaug, Drangsnes, Gjögur and finally Krossneslaug. We met our friends cousins at the Kört museum, and ate coffee and cakes at the only 2 cafes in the region. We passed the deserted herring factory in Djupavik, and ended our trip at another deserted factory in Ingólfsfjörður.

another deserted fishing factory at the end of the road

July 1, 2015

Ishestar: Kjölur

Kjolur is old and often traveled route across Iceland. Its a highland pass between two glaciers that makes it possibly to go from the south to the north in a couple hundred kilometres. It´s always fun to take the first Kjolur ride of the season, because sometimes the road hasn´t opened yet since its a dirt road only open during the summer. In the winter it gets buried under metres of snow, and the only way across is by snowmobile. We had our first tour start June 21 this year, and there was still metres of snow.

so much snow

There were just a few sections that were impassable, but it wasn´t such a problem to take 20 riders and our herd of 100 horses accross or around the snow. The real problem was our chef who had to follow in the jeep with our trailer full of luggage and food. By the second day into the trip, the tractors working 24/7 had managed to clear some snow. But by the fourth day when we really had to keep going, we passed the tractors, still shoveling away, and somehow so did the keep.

It was a 6 day ride across Kjolur with 19 happy Europeans and not a drop of rain, and we all came home with sun-kissed noses and suitcases full of warm clothes we didnt have to use since it hit 20°c almost every day. Hopefully that luck carries on in the next weeks, and some of that snow might finally be gone in time for trip number two.

June 14, 2015

Photo Highlight: Boat Safari in the Westman Islands

Cruising around the cliffs and islands of Vestmannæyjar

June 13, 2015

Ishestar: Golden Circle

first riding tour of the year around the Golden Circle came a little earlier than summer

Well, they say Iceland only has two seasons: winter and summer. The first day of summer was officially way back in April, but its the second week of June and we´re still shivering from the rain and cold. Good thing we all love horses so much 🙂

June 6, 2015

A wedding in MSP and an engagement in YVR

I don’t know why, but it’s always more fun to book one way or multi-city flights than just a simple return ticket. Instead of making a trip to Minneapolis for a wedding and then another trip to Vancouver for an engagement party, it was better (and cheaper) to fly: Keflavik – MSP, MSP-Seattle (drive to Vancouver) YVR – Edmonton (5 hour lay over), and Edmonton back to Keflavik.

the newlyweds

My favourite Canadian Clio lives in Minneapolis where she just finished her Phd in something smart and intelligent like clinical child psychology. She celebrated the best way I can think of – she got married to her beau at the same time! It was a small wedding in city hall, only 7 or 8 in attendance, and then 150 friends got together on the weekend for a reception party. My plus one was Ursula who I had just surprised 2 weeks before in DC for her birthday, and now she flew out to MSP to join in on the festivities. We couchsurfed with a swiss guy in his 1920’s house, and took one touristy day to go to a major league baseball game – the Minneapolis Twins against the Toronto Blue Jays. It was my first live game and Im still not sure how it works, but I think I cheered mostly for the Canadians.

first row at the ball game

Then I was off to Seattle, where my photographer and arctic loving friend Mike lives. We went out to my favourite restaurant, the Spaghetti factory, and spent the night catching up. The next morning it was a short 2.5 hour drive to mom’s house in Chilliwack. There we feasted on home made curries and roti and bathed in the hottub and sunshine for a couple days. My older sister Kristjana held an engagement party for her and Michael, the fiance I hadn’t met until then. All our family met all of his and we ate some more homecooked food – I don’t realize how much I miss it til I have it again.

my sisters engagement cake

The way home was Vancouver to Keflavik through Edmonton, a city I’ve never been to and only know a couple people. One of them is Caleb, a guy I lived with in student dorms in Montreal 6 years ago for french immersion. I introduced him to a girl back then who he dated ever since and now lives with, and we all met for an afternoon of brunching and beers on some patios. It was a warm and sunny day, with those fluffy white Simpsons clouds speckled through the sky, and I couldn’t belive how flat and wide the plains were. I guess it really is true that you could see your dog running away for days if he tried.

the flat praries under some Simpsons clouds

May 24, 2015

Photo Highlight: First Horse tour of the season

Summer arrived late in Iceland this year, but we went into Þórsmörk nature reserve anyway, snow and all. But the late snow melt meant some riverbeds were empty and the mighty Krossá river was low enough to only wet a few toes.

The first riding tour of the 2015 season with Ishestar was in Thorsmork

May 19, 2015

Spontaneous weekend in Washington, D.C.

our wow moment

Since April 9, I’ve worked almost every day in April and the first part of May trying to pay off the last of my pacific trip… and alot of Svalbard. Even though I had just broke even, I decided to surprise my best friend Ursula in Washington D.C. for her 30th birthday. Her sister Liv had planned a surprise birthday party at her parents, and there were about 15 or 20 close friends and family coming from around the states. I hadn’t seen her in over a year, and I’m totally in love with everything about her, so I bought a cheap ticket with Wow air to Baltimore. The riots had mostly ended and Wow air had just started flying there, so the fare was totally worth it for 3 days.

one of our many brunches

The night before I flew out, I stayed up late packing with my roommate Anja. We checked the weather forecast and it said 30`c… within another hour, and a few glasses of bubbly, Anja had also booked herself a last minute weekend trip to D.C. Her flight was even cheaper than mine, and we met 12 hours later at the airport with one big purse as a carry on.

the birthday girl

The first night we hung out with a mutual friend of mine and Ursula’s who had also been on Semester at Sea with us back in fall 2006. Jessica had friends in DC that took us out and I met up with a Navy seal I first hung out with in Palau a few months ago. The big party day was Saturday, and every day basically had the same formula: all day brunching, with bottomless mamosas or bloody maries, and all night wining and dining, with some added margaritas or dancing. We ate mostly mexican food and shopped for cheap summer clothes, and one night we slept in a firehall (long story). Every day was warmer than 30`c, and it turns out we didn’t pack light enough. We could have walked around in short shorts and a tshirt everywhere, but we had brought pants and sweaters we only needed on the flight home.

April 20, 2015

In and Out of London

London’s the kind of city you can easily get to, and often get to if you’re a traveler. Its a major hub for flying around Europe or the world with its 5 international airports, but its funny how you forget to ever just go to London. Its a super touristy city, and I’ve done the London Eye and Big Ben and Buckingham stuff, but I never go to London to visit London – Im merely passing through with some time to fill between flights. Ive had proper 5 day layovers, but then I get stuck in the visiting friend mode, seeing Tom in Oxford or Kevin in the city or my cousins in the suburbs. And I’ve picked up a nice collection of London-dwelling friends over the years, some old class mates that now study there, Icelandic friends who work there, or random internationals who I’ve met on the road who also put their time in for grey days in London.

at the google office

Ive been through London 5 or 6 times so far this year, most of them with overnight stopovers, and its always a struggle to decide what to do or where to go. The tube is huge, takes forever, and still costs alot with an oyster card, and London city never took my heart like Paris or New York have. But I really enjoyed my last 2 visits in March and April, since I managed to do and see some things I never had before.

Bjorn the scotsman

I couchsurfed with my Kiwi friend Bjorn who I met in the Cook islands this Christmas, and he took me into the London google offices where he works. All meals, snacks, coffee, and even beer is free for him and his guests, and he gets to chose from a handful of Ikea inspired living rooms to work or relax in. I could read books and google my heart out a dozen floors above downtown London, with a view of the Gherkin outside the balcony. Then Bjorn introduced me to some Scottish countryside traditions – Ceilidh dancing. He had the kilt and all the trimmings, but I just wore a wig to be festive. I don’t think I’ve ever danced with so many people or in spun in so many circles in any other type of dance, but it was a sweaty, good ol’ time.

London’s Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum was exhibiting National Geographic’s wildlife photographer of the year, and me and two friends played a game where we had to guess which country each photo was taken. I can’t remember if I wont, but I definitely guessed all the Iceland ones right. Strangely enough there were lots of photos taken in the UK, and I’ve never really thought of London as a gateway to wildlife destinations, but I may have to change my mind. I hear they have one hell of a mounted fox hunt on boxing day in Essex, so I might need to find some shiny boots and chocolate port and plan my next visit to London.

April 10, 2015

When stuck in Oslo, go to Malta

I love being close to the sea

So after 6 months of island paradise in the Pacifc, i got my 5 days of winter in Svalbard. Im much more of a summer person, so 5 days of snowy, frigid winter was plenty enough for me. I flew back through Oslo and had to overnight for my next flight, and a snowstorm hit the next morning. Mike got out to Stockholm on his 7 am flight, but by 11 all air traffic had been stopped. The airport was still open, and airlines were still checking people in, so with no departing flights, the Oslo international airport slowly filled to the brim. You couldnt walk, eat, piss or sit without waiting in a line or getting through what felt like a pack of sardines. Eventually the flights just started to get cancelled, and then i waited in a 12 hour line to rebook myself out of Oslo.

vineyards and fortresses

That didn’t go so well, and I was grumpy and tired, but I got the last hotel room in all of Oslo I think, so that was an upper. The next day I got on the first plane to London (Norwegian air added an extra flight), got stuck there for a night, and then flew to Malta. I had arrived back in the sun, and also summer, and I could shed my snowboots for some flipflops.

Azure window in Gozo

Malta is a fascinating, tiny island filled with a mix of Mediterranean and Arabic influences. Sometimes I felt as if I was in Rome, othertimes Morocco, and the people living there were even more mixed up. There are more people living on this tiny 300 sq. km island than in Iceland, and the most memorable people I met there were unexpectedly a Russian travel agent and an Irish couple. All of the restaurants served cheap and delicious sea food caught by their colourful, traditional Maltese boats. There was wine, wine, so much wine, and the coast was never more than a few kilometres away. A ferry ride over to Gozo island completed my visit there, but I’ll have to return to visit Comino island to finish visitng all of Valetta.

April 6, 2015

Sunny Svalbard

dogsleds lined up for lunch break

Its strange to visit a place at the end of March and being told its the coldest time of year. But in Svalbard, where 4 months of absolute darkness have just ended, the sunshine doesn’t make it any warmer. Me and my photographer friend Mike have made it an annual tradition to travel to the arctic, and after a couple years in mainland Norway, Svalbard was the one place further north we could steal easily travel to, play with huskies, and roll around in the snow. We were there for 5 days and every day grew longer by half an hour. From the 1st of March to the 31st of March, the number of daylight hours increases by 8 hours!

Me and Mike in our arctic get ups

We stayed at the Coal Miner’s cabin, where our room was in a different building than the breakfast room, and just walking across 50m wide, totally iced parking lot chilled you to your bones. It was more than minus 20`C with the windchill, and walking the 1km into town and back was always a fight against the wind not blowing us over, trying not to slip on the ice, and making sure we could still feel all our fingers and toes. The condensation of our breath would freeze on our scarves and any extra humidity from our faces would form icicles on our eyelashes and nose hairs.

the ship in the ice

A German student had been living in my room in Iceland all winter, and then spontaneously moved to Svalbard to study arctic foxes, so it was nice to say I new someone in town. Otherwise it was a small, friendly little population, mixed with Norwegians, Russians, scientists, and tourists. We had just missed a total solar eclipse, but that made it easier to get accommodation and excursions.

husky puppies

We went snowmobiling to the Ship in the Ice, a dutch sail boat that gets frozen in the ice over winter and serves as a hotel and restaurant. After lunch there we got upclose to some glaciers, reindeer, and seals popping through their holes in the sea ice. Another day we went dogsledding with Green Dog to an ice cave, and if was a pleasant surprise to feel so warm inside the cave which was only minus 4`C.

the warm and cozy ice cave

The first sights we saw after landing in Svalbard and driving to town was a camp ground (with people tenting there!), and a lone reindeer grazing beside some fluffy Icelandic horses. The airport in Longyearbyen is special because even though you’ve flown in from mainland Norway, and you’re still technically in Norway, you’ve left the European Economic Area and the Schengen community. So you’ll need your passport to go there, and alot of norwegian kronur – it might be the only place in Norway more expensive than Oslo! But alcohol isnt taxed so that can save your budget.