Akureyri Ski Trip

2021-02-18Akureyri, Friends, Traveling, Us Standard

[Photos taken 18 – 22 February 2021, posted online 19 June 2021. These are super social days according to the hair salon ladies and news from the liquor store, they’re both super busy!! First it was the remnants of the confirmations, this weekend marks the end of the graduations, and then we’re moving on to weddings.]

One of the sewing club ladies had the organizational foresight in October 2020 to suggest the club go skiing in the north during the February winter school break. The club was up for it, and lodging was booked with the assumption that Covid-19 would be under control, and before we knew it it was time to go! This was essentially a repeat of the ski-trip we took with the club in 2014, we stayed a the same place, Lamb-Inn.

Covid-19 restrictions meant that the number of available passes was limited, and the ski area split the day into two slots. The demand for passes broke the booking system, but we got what we needed in the end. All in all, a good time was had by all, although it was super weird to be among so many people at the same time! (50-ish images total)

Thursday 18 February 2021

On our way north, approaching the picturesque town of Borgarnes.
We quite enjoyed the big car, it meant the kids could spread out, and there was space for Bjarki to fulfill his dream of playing the guitar in the car!
Landscape whizzing by.
At Staðarskáli for a hot-dog/toilet pit-stop.
We had dinner with our northen friends Kata and Jói, so we didn’t arrive at the guesthouse until 9 pm.

Friday 19 February 2021

Covid restrictions meant the ski-area was under population control. They could only sell x amounts of lift-passes per any given time, and there were two slots, morning and afternoon, with an hour in between for sanitizing the lift-equipment. We had tickets for the morning slot, so we were up by 8 am to get breakfast.
I’d had the forethought to sign Emma and Bjarki up for ski school, so they could get their bearings, and Finnur and Anna could ski freely for a while. I myself wasn’t feeling excited for downhill skiing, but had a plan to rent cross-country skis later that day.
That’s Emma on the magic carpet, the second one about to enter the plastic dome. Much to my surprise, the teachers were mostly foreigners, but as skiing is a lot about copying the person in front of you, it didn’t matter too much.
I was super happy I’d taken Emma and the others skiing the year before, and gotten Emma to where she could go down by herself. It totally made this trip a lot easier.
Bjarki was with the more advanced kids, but also benefitted from the refresher. He’s a somewhat nervous skier. (We also thank Kata and Jói for the loaner coat, as Bjarki’s own coat got left behind at home in the packing pandemonium!)
Covid-measures meant that there was no sharing of chairs in the chair-lift for people that weren’t skiing together. This meant the line for the chair-lift got very long quite quickly, even though a lot fewer tickets than normal were active.
Anna and Finnur after their first trip down, joining the end of the line. Masks were mandatory.
Less than an hour later Emma had been upgraded to the same disc-lift Bjarki was at.
I went on a bit of a walkabout, that’s the town of Akureyri down below.
I found a road that led to the cross-country ski area.
A route map on a wall. There was nobody at the cross-country cabin (but the doors to the rental were open and it sort of looked like I could just go on in, pick out gear, and send money to the account written on the wall?) so I walked back to the others. The ski school ended at 12 noon, so we had a quick lunch, and then Finnur took the kids skiing, as his pass was good until 2 pm. (The kids had annual passes, which are quite cheap for kids, so they could have gone on longer. The system was all kinds of bizarre.)
Screenshot from a snapchat video from Finnur, of the kids skiing down from the chair-lift. He managed to take them up the chair-lift twice. On the first pass, Bjarki wasn’t quite ready, and ended up all alone on the chair behind them. Finnur was so worried that Bjarki wouldn’t make it off the chair, he forgot all about Emma who was sitting next to Finnur, and she was the one that didn’t get off the chair! Thankfully, her legs tripped the safety system as she was swinging around the bend, stopping the lift, meaning Bjarki could get off his chair at a leisurely pace, while Finnur, being very tall, could grab Emma off the chair she was still sitting on! Happily, they then managed to catch the lift once more, and that time everything went very smoothly.
Tired but happy at 2 pm as the morning slot ended. In the meantime, I’d gone to a ski rental in town and gotten a hold of some cross-country skis.
Official sibling photo!
Back at the guesthouse, it was as 20 minute drive away from the ski area, on the other side of the fjord.
They didn’t really have a food service aside from breakfast and dinner, but I managed to chat the chef into making grilled sandwiches and hot chocolate for us.
At 5 pm, it was my turn to put sticks on my feet. We drove to nearby Kjarnaskógur forest, where we knew there were cross-country tracks.
A map is a good place to start.
It was lovely!! Well, aside from the fact that I got the advice “try to fall sideways, and not on your butt” about two butt-falls too late, and the snow was quite rough, so any fancy maneuvering was out of the question. By the end, I’d figured out enough of my limitations that I just walked down the steepest slopes. Next year might be a good year to go to a proper cross-country skiing school.
Screenshot of a video of yours truly staying upright while going down a slope, but just barely. I’m quite happy I managed to color co-ordinate my hat to my skiis.
Dinner time! Well, sort of. We’d planned for an 8 pm dinner, as the afternoon-skiing only ended at 7 pm. As luck would have it, a ton of other people showed up for dinner (ate on the floor above) so the kitchen was hammered, and our dinner didn’t start coming out until about 9 pm.
After dinner, the guitars came out and there was singing!
Yup, Bjarki got his first playing-for-a-crowd lesson courtesy of Óli. Thank goodness for the internet and a never ending supply of chord progressions!
The rest of the kids (minus Emma who is by far the youngest one and went to bed early) played games.

Saturday 20 February 2021

Finnur took off with the kids again on the Saturday morning, as Emma and Bjarki again had a date with the ski-school. My tailbone was super sore from the cross-country-skiing butt-falls the day before, so I opted to take it easy, and just hung out at the guesthouse. The building on the right is the guestroom wing (it used to be a barn) while the building on the left houses sheep.
Ahhh, peace and quiet.
I went on a bit of a walkabout, found a cat.
The skiers from the morning session had returned. Hot-tubs are amazing.
Looking south-ish.
I found this happy group as I was summoning the kids for dinner.
The offspring. The whole sewing club was accounted for minus one family, who unfortunately couldn’t make it.
As we were having dinner, the northern lights went bananas. I didn’t have steady enough hands (or gear, or patience) to get good photos, but this kiddo and Finnur stayed out for a bit taking photos.
Keep in mind that northern lights look very cool in long-exposure photography, they are generally not this bright when seen by human eyes.
Boom!
Still gorgeous.

Sunday 21 February 2021

It was women’s day, and the men offered up some bubbly and strawberries with breakfast in our honor.
Departure chatting.
One of our two bedrooms. Each bedroom has an en suite bathroom with a shower.
By the house moments before getting into the car.
Arriving at Kata and Jói’s for brunch.
Scrumptious! We’re lucky to have such excellent friends!
Setting out again, with one pit-stop to return the cross-country skis.
Akureyri is a pretty town.
Gotta love the snowy mountain passes, or freak out.
Finnur drove until Blönduós, where I took over driving duties. We made it back home in one piece, and prepped for life as usual to resume.

Monday 22 February 2021

My skin doctor decided there would be no delaying taking my ever-worsening psoriasis more seriously, and had me try this lovely immuno-system-suppressing medication, more often used by cancer patients. It’s given for psoriasis in much lower doses than cancer patients get it, but we never made good friends, and I was taken off of it after two months.