Hrafnagil Day 1: Relaxation
[Events of 20 July 2015 are being chronicled on 29 August 2015. Hope is eternal.]
After a stiff touristing program around Ólafsvík, we decided to take it as easy as we possibly could during our first day up north. So we did. I can’t even remember what we did for most of the day, but I’m sure it wasn’t much of anything.
We did manage to drive across the road to take a dip in the local swimming pool, and then drove a little ways late in the afternoon to visit our friends Solla and Gunni, while our hosts attended a birthday party.
Oh, and Finnur climbed up a hill with Bjarki and took photos. (16 images total, 1 video)
It doesn’t get a lot more relaxing than this! Emma getting her servants to put her shoes on after swimming.
Travel Day: From Ólafsvík to Hrafnagil (by Akureyri)
[The five hour drive happened on Sunday 19 July 2015, but is finally being written up on 28/29 August 2015. I’m very very stubborn.]
We’d made arrangements to stay with our friends Kata and Jói who live in Hrafnagil by Akureyri for a few nights before heading back home.
Little did we realize that Ólafsvík is so far out on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, that driving from there to Akureyri actually takes longer than driving straight from our home to Akureyri! It doesn’t help that the road from the Stykkishólmur turn-off by and large all the way to Staðarskáli is unpaved. Seriously people! Who represents you?!?!
Also not in our plans was the fact that the weather up north had sucked for pretty much the entire summer, and the weather forecast for our week there was dreadful. But, friends are friends, and the weather doesn’t matter nearly as much as the company one keeps, so we sucked it up and got in the car! (19 images total)
Finnur’s snapchat.
Ólafsvík Day 3: Horseback Riding, Hellnar Lunch, Cave Descent, and Rif Coffee!
[This was Saturday 18 July 2015. It’s being blogged on 24 25 26 27 August 2015. Head-desk!]
For the second day in a row, we all set out pretty early (around 9 am) because we’d booked a tour on horseback some 20-30 minutes away, at Stóri-Kambur on the southern side of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula.
I (Hrefna) had decided to find out what all the horse riding fuss was about, so I set out to try riding for the first time in about thirty years, and had a grand time. Also riding were the three big kids, but everyone else skedaddled somewhere else for a and hour and a half. (75 images total!!!)
Here be horses!
Ólafsvík Day 2: Sea-Fishing, Pool-Dipping, Lawn-Mowing, and Bad Parenting (with a view)
[The events chronicled here happened on the fine Friday of 17 July 2015. It is however being internetted on 14 August 2015, well, barely, because it’s almost midnight. Oh, it’s pretty dark outside. Weird.]
Guðrún and Snorri’s son, Baldur, wanted to go sea-fishing very much, and being an internet kid, he googled and discovered a boat service in nearby Grundarfjörður that would allow him to do just that. So reservations were made for the big kids and their dads, while the moms would shepherd the little kids to the local swimming pool. (47 images total!)
Emma by the floating harbor where Láki sails from.
Ólafsvík Day 1: Arriving and Playground
[Photos from 16 July 2015. Written up on 14 August 2015. To be continued…]
We hadn’t visited Finnur’s parents’ house in Ólafsvík for what felt like forever, so we decided it was time for a revisit this summer.
Guðrún and Snorri had expressed interest in joining us, and when push came to shove, they did! And a good thing too, because otherwise we wouldn’t have done half the things we ended up doing! 🙂
The first day was pretty quiet though. We didn’t leave the capital until well after lunch, so we arrived late in the afternoon. Mostly we spent the first day getting settled, getting groceries, cooking dinner/taking the kids to the daycare playground. (17 images total)
Members of the computer-addicted generation, being forced to sit outside and catch, gasp, a few sun-rays! 😉
Italy Day 3: Splashing in the Mediterranean Sea
[This HAPPENED on 04 August 2014, but was written 29 SEPTEMBER 2014. Yeah.]
Our destination on this lovely Monday was the small Mediterranean beach-town of Varazze. The plan was to at least stick our toes into the water, but preferably spend the day at the beach. The drive there took a little over an hour on the awesome highway-system. Bizarrely, the road was littered with tunnels of varying lengths. I vaguely recall someone counting over thirty of them on the way back! (39 images total)
Bjarki enjoying life in front of the TV in the early morning. I think his favorite show was Peppa Pig.
To France!
[Written 14 AUGUST 2014. In French.]
In April, we booked direct tickets to Lyon for two weeks. Because we’re crazy like that.
Initially we figured we’d stay close to our friends who were also going to be in the area, but in the end we opted for staying in Lyon, renting a house through airbnb.com, an hour away from them. Instead, we planned to meet our friends in Italy, again renting a place through airbnb for all of us. (9 images total)
Cute kids at the Keflavik airport. We ordered pizza and let them eat it in front of the tv. That was a big hit!
Copenhagen Again
On my second day in Copenhagen I woke up at 8am (grrr… only 6 hours of sleep) and went to meet the good people of NORDUnet as well as the other representatives from the five Nordic countries to help plan this year’s conference. After the meeting ended that day, I headed back to my hotel for 20 minutes of horizontal time, before heading back out again to meet the planning committee at a fancy restaurant where we had a great dinner. On my way to the dinner I happened to walk through a portion of Kastellet, which was very pretty. Here are all the pictures, a selection of which is below.
At the Central Train Station at 09:30. I really liked the achways, but had a hard time getting a good picture of them.
An Early-Bird Christmas Vacation
Once I found out that I’d be all done with final exams on December 5th, I went right ahead and bought tickets for us to spend 10 days in the UK before Christmas with dad et al. It’s always nice to change scenery, and get a little extra daylight over the darkest bit of the year in Iceland. So to England we flew, and spent the days mostly just hanging out at my dad’s, oh and I did a bit of shopping too. 🙂
Friday 9 December 2011
The stewardesses of Icelandair have this lovely custom of coming out into the main waiting area and sing happy Yule-tide songs before heading to the planes (which all depart around the same time). They're really quite good!! 🙂