Summer Vacation

Our adorable flower-picking-fairies right before taking off for Ólafsvík on Saturday 2 July 2011. This picture does not capture the ever-present chaos and craziness raging before embarking on any such trip.

Finnur in the dining room in Ólafsvík with Adda and Halli.

The house in Ólafsvík isn't very big (the cellar isn't heated) so to get a little bit of peace and quiet, we put up a tent right outside the front door where the kids could play. It worked really well, and also fulfilled Anna's wish of 'camping' without really camping. 🙂

Four kids in a tent.

We happened to arrive on the annual town-festival-weekend. The town gets divided up into colored areas, and each area decorates their houses and streets with their color. On the Saturday night, the inhabitants gathered in their respective colors to sing and be merry in a park a little down the road from us. Here is the 'green' neighborhood parade coming down the road to join the party. Good times! 🙂 (Btw, this is taken at 9 pm. It doesn't get 'dark' these days...)

We belonged to the Green Neighborhood, but arrived late, so a green rhubarb hat had to do.

Mmmm, rhubarb! 🙂 The kids gawking at the oncoming parade.

The big party. Here are the blues performing their 'act'. It was all a competition you see, for the 'best' neighborhood. 🙂 The pinks won this year!

It was a little wetter the day after (Sunday) so we took it easy. All we really did that day was lounge, go to the local swimming pool, and then buy everybody an ice-cream. Afterwards the kids roamed around the house, the tent and the yard. I can't stress how absolutely imperative it is to bring playmates for kids on vacations!! 🙂

On Monday we packed up and cleaned the house... and mowed the lawn just before leaving. It was a little on the furry side, so it took a bit of effort. 🙂

On the way back, we drove around the tip of the Snæfellsnes peninsula and enjoyed the pretty scenery, and crazy bird population.

Nerd image: This is a huge long-wave radio-antenna at Gufuskálar, 412 meters tall, which broadcasts RUV at 189 kHz. Yes, that's a 1586 m wavelength, which is almost a whole mile! (And yes, that means this is a quarter-wavelength antenna, aka monopole antenna).

We stopped at Hólahólar on the south-side. It was like driving into a crater, then walking up on to the brim of the crater, and back down again. Impressive stuff. Here I got visibly hamstrung by my self-imposed challenge to only use my 50 mm lens during the vacation, since vistas are hard to capture with portrait lenses. Oh well...

This is what 50 mm lenses are good for... being up close and personal! 🙂

Our next stop was Hellnar, which has very cool rock formations, and a cafe that sells excellent hot chocolate. Mmmmm... 🙂

Anna and Bjarki strutting their stuff near the cave opening.

Just for kicks, we also briefly stopped at Arnarstapi (i.e. three adults jumped out of cars, took pictures, and got back in), and got a glimpse up onto the Snæfellsnes-glacier.

This was the view in the other direction.

We ate dinner in Borgarnes, and afterwards Finnur and Bjarki enjoyed a bit of sea-viewing.

This is where we had dinner (Landnámssetrið), and it was pretty good! Those with sharp eyes might notice that Halli is carrying Anna here. The poor girl managed to trip and fall while running, scraping both her knees badly and also somehow removing some skin from an upper part of her nose. After calming her down, we drove straight to the summer house in nearby Hvalfjörður.

The girls busy coloring in Hvalfjörður on Tuesday morning.

Anna the Serious, with her scraped nose.

Mr. Bjarki. I think his eyes are changing color to match Anna's and Finnur's...

The main luxury of this particular summer house is the on-deck-hot-tub, which is faaaantastic for entertaining children for long periods of time. 🙂

After lunch we headed for nearby town of Akranes, which has changed a lot since my last visit. As it happened, the weather was GORGEOUS and the beach (Langisandur, Long Sand) was perfect.

Happy Anna with sand on her hands. 🙂

There is a continually-running warm shower by the edge of the beach, so the kids had warm water to play in.

Showering. I'm not entirely sure why we didn't bring swim clothes along for the kids, but the regular clothes also worked fine.

We discovered that there is a shortage of nice cafe's in Akranes (business opportunity, anyone?). We did try one, but the teenager that was manning it gave us such a glare when we entered that we figured he'd probably poison us all just for bothering him with a large sandwich order. Instead we went to the Byggðasafn (Museum of Habitation) - where we'd just missed some 'Irish Days' - and got overpriced grilled sandwiches instead.

After our snack, I volunteered to mind the kids at the museum while the other adults went to get groceries etc. Without knowing what I'd signed myself up for, I took the kids to the 'boat-exhibition', where five old boats have been lined up and joined with walkways (see the gray deck on the right). What I hadn't realized was that some of the boats were in rather poor condition, with holes in the decks, open portholes, etc. I also hadn't realized that the walkways didn't quite go snugly up to and around the boats, so there were gaping fall-to-your-death-holes all the way down onto the rocks all over the place. To put it mildly, this wasn't the safest playground for a kid like Bjarki who thinks he's just as big as the other kids, and wants to do what they do, but is plagued by a crappy sense of balance, and isn't all that sure-footed. As a result, I spent my time shadowing Bjarki, while the other three kids ran all over the place, basically in play-heaven, making up games on the go. I also (re)discovered that kids like to climb to the top of boats and dance wildly (duh!). After about an hour of this my nerves where shot, but thankfully the kids were all alive when the cavalry came, so all was well that ended well!

Bjarki victorious on the deck of one boat.

Why do the front-ends of boats have to be so slim? One slip of a hand or a foot and bamm, off you go! 🙂

Halli was the master chef of the trip, although Finnur also did a bit of BBQing. Here is Halli making Wednesday's yummy lunch.

Adda and Finnur enjoying the view from the deck.

Wednesday was a quiet day. The kids spent most of the day being outdoors in the glorious weather, and the adults napped, kept watch, played, and chatted. Here is Wednesday's dinner being consumed, also made by Halli.

Halli and Finnur playing rummy after the kids had gone to sleep.

Late-night laptopping, mostly to transfer data before our impending departure.

Meanwhile, this was a tiny portion of the cool view from the deck. The weather became very still, and a cloud descended onto the fjord. Very pretty and serene. Also, this image is taken at 01:53. After 2am, it started getting lighter again.

Another gorgeous day, but time for us to depart. Boohoo!

The kids did really well the whole time, although there were of course a few disagreements. We look forward to more travels!

Here is Anna among trees in a typical 'youngish' Icelandic 'forest'. The country as a whole is tree-less, but where there are summer-houses, there are trees, because they are fenced in and protected from...

... the sheep! Yes, the sheep love young saplings and will happily devour them! Tsk, tsk!