December 10, 2007, 5:16 pm : Franc with sound

Filed Under: Pets
Discussion: C[0]mments

Ok, it’s the sound of the TV and some of me (horrible voice, I know), but this is the first video I’ve taken of her with sound attached.

December 5, 2007, 3:44 am : Iceland

Filed Under: 94 Things
Discussion: C[0]mments

Finally able to post now.

My parents sent me, with my sister to Iceland for my birthday. It was in hope of seeing the northern lights(#1 of my 80 things) but we were sadly out of luck there as the weather was wrong for it. But we still had a great time exploring the country.

It was a self drive holiday, which was scary seeing as we were in a 4×4 (normally a bad thing in cities, but needed in Iceland), it was left hand drive and we had to drive on the right hand side of the road. In essence we had two people driving all the time, so the passenger would spot anything the driver couldn’t, it worked well, we delivered ourselves and the car back in one peice at the end.

While the hotel wasn’t exactly the worlds best, it was warm and dry which is good enough. Iceland is a very expencive country, so as we are both fairly broke most of the time, we survived eating pot noodle and sandwiches (made from breakfast food we snuck out in a napkin) and only buying one meal a day.
On our first day there we explored the capital city, Rekjavik, where we were staying. We got a good feel for the place and walked to the old cemetary. It was a lot of fun, but with all the travel the days before (we stayed in London the night before the flight) combinded with the walking and cold, we got back to the hotel and just fell asleep for an afternoon nap.

The whole of the next day was spent driving the Golden Circle route. This took us through Þingvillir national park, where we watched the sunrise at about 11am, then on the Geysir. This route was tricky, we had to go the long way around as there was an impassible road where so much snow had fallen only Jeeps would get past (our 4×4 was a Skoda). This added about an hour to the journery, I was driving and the worst was right at the end. The road right before Geysir was completely covered in ice for about 5km. I had to dive very slowly and still skidded a few times.
Of course we did get there, we went to the café/shop first, both desperately needing the toilet! I also found a lovely hat which was all (fake) furry and warm, but like I said it was expencive there, so i had to buy it and nothing else.
Outside we walked around the Geysirs, getting to the bigger on just in time for it to go up. Geysirs stink of sulphur, that horrible rotten egg smell, and we were down wind. Quickly moving up the hill, there was a fair crowd gathered, and some amazing views, it was now just gone 4pm and the sun was headed back down.
We ended up driving back home in darkness, which is a scary experience when you’re not used to the roads or car.
We didn’t go too far for the rest of the holiday. We went to the weekend flea market, but were disappointed, having expected something like the street markets in French villages that we went to as children, it turned out to be second hand clothes (unwashed), a few food stalls and brik-a-brak. We thought about going to the Blue Lagoon, but decided it would be too expencive for us, so went to a local outdoor pool. it was -3°C at times, and snowing, so we were glad of the geothermal heating.

On our last night we went out for a big dinner, I had wanted to try Puffin, but it was very expencive whereever we found it, so we found an Italian resturant and stayed there, in fact the whole time we were in Iceland we never managed to try Icelandic food.

The last day, when we were going to fly home, we went to the Pearl to try to see some views of the city, but poor weather prevented us. We ended up spending most of the day in the airport, but again, at least it was warm.

There’s a whole page with some of the photos I took here, and it’ll be linked to in the navagation too.

December 4, 2007, 9:03 am : I’m back!

Filed Under: Random Life
Discussion: C[0]mments

I’ve been a little put off coming here recently because i didn’t want to deal with all the spam I had waiting for me. However when I get home today I will sort something to lower the spam levels (I had 313 waiting for me this time!) and will update on all recent goings on.
For now though, I will leave a hint for later below;