Dagbók Hrefnu og Finns

Autumn Arrives With Furniture Swap-Around

2023-09-01Finnur's family, Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[Photos taken 01 – 11 Sept 2023, posted online 04 June 2024. Weather warnings all over Iceland this week, with snow in the north, strong winds etc. “June”, you say?]

Autumn arrived with a bang, as high winds pushed sheets of rain under our balcony, soaking the hiding sofa-pillows. I caved and moved the pillows inside, stacking the units left outside for winter.

Finnur’s foot was still quite bad, so the garbage-shed project was put on hold for a bit.

Instead I rearranged furniture. Most notably I dismantled my unloved front-room Covid-home-office, and moved the kid-sized Ikea-desk and chair up to Emma’s room, which resulted in a nasty pile of stuff in the hallway, and a wall in dire need of spackling and paint.

Anna made morale-boosting bagels, there was high-tea and dinner with friends, we had family over at the summer house, and I hung out at the gym.

Friday 01 September 2023

The first autumn storm had me moving the outside pillows inside, and stacking the rest for winter…

Last Three E-Biking Rides & Regular Life Reboot

2023-08-19Friends, Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[Photos taken 19 – 31 August 2023, posted online 02 June 2024. Iceland has elected a new president! (The Wikipedia article is in flux, but it will hopefully settle down soon). It’s a mostly ceremonial position, the only real power is vetoing legislation, which almost never happens. Thankfully nobody is alleging election fraud and the baton will pass peacefully.]

The guided e-biking group began riding again for the fall. I would manage to go on three rides before an ache in my left shoulder disqualified me for the rest of the season.

Bjarki got his practice driving license, and frequently asked us to go out on drives with him. I tried to remain calm. We all returned to school and work, and I managed to also keep going to the gym.

Small home improvement projects got implemented, and the summer house also got some love and attention. I even managed to read a book outside in the backyard, gasp!

Saturday 19 August 2023

The e-biking group gathered at the 2006 Úthlíð-church, about an 80 minute drive from the capital area.

Scout-Camp, New School, & 80th Birthday

2023-08-14Birthday, Finnur's family, Us Standard

[Photos taken 14 – 18 August 2023, posted online 01 June 2024. It keeps raining, but the weather remains mild. Shall we all be collectively shocked that it’s June already? Oh, and today Iceland elects a new president.]

School loomed as we returned from Finland, and it was also time to return to work. Bjarki’s new school started up that week, but Emma still had a week and a half to go, so she went to an all-day scout-camp with some friends. I can’t remember when Anna’s school restarted…

I took action to start Emma’s room’s reorganization, began visiting the gym again, but the work-week concluded with Finnur’s dad’s 80th Birthday and Party.

Monday 14 August 2023

Emma walking with friends to the scout-home down in the valley, to start their week of day-camp.

Trip to Finland: Day 6-7 (Shopping/Going Home)

2023-08-12Finland, Us Standard

[Photos taken 12 – 13 August 2023, posted online 31 May 2024. Eruption is still ongoing, but has quieted down a lot from the explosive start, it’s bubbling, as opposed to squirting.]

With Finnur mostly stuck in bed with his very bruised foot (warning, photo below), we decided this would be the day of shopping.

All the offspring needed clothes for winter, so I took them shopping. We began by eating breakfast at our favorite cafe, before sorting the younger two out with some clothes. Then I sent them back to the apartment with their haul, while Anna and myself kept going, having a lot more stamina for the horror that is clothes shopping.

Saturday 12 May 2023

Anna by the funky things outsides of the Amos Rex art museum. Not pictured is the massive construction area to the right. We didn’t actually try to enter the museum.

Trip to Finland: Day 5 (Suomenlinna Sea Fortress/Oodi Library/Rock Church)

2023-08-11Finland, Us Standard

[Photos taken 11 August 2023, posted online 29 May 2024. We have a brand new eruption as of today! Meanwhile, my back is still sore, but it has forced me to actually take some down time, and just read a book. Not a bad idea, come to think of it..!]

A visit to the old Suomenlinna Sea Fortress appeared near the top of about every to-do-in-Helsinki list, so that was our next activity. The fortress is located on an island a 15 minute sail from the “eastern” harbor, and was where visitors were received in the olden days, or cannon-shot-at if they attempted to sneak past it.

Afterwards we visited the very cool Oodi Helsinki Central Library, before spending a moment of quiet in the Rock Church.

Finnur’s foot was so badly bruised from his ankle-twist the day before that he unfortunately had to spend the day lounging at the apartment, but we made sure to leave some supplies with him!

Friday 11 August 2023

Interesting recycling of cannons. This is part of a “fence” around the Suomenlinna Church.

Trip to Finland: Day 4 (Heureka Science Museum/Vantaa Hospital!)

2023-08-10Finland, Us Standard

[Photos taken 10 August 2023, posted online 28 May 2024. I’ve managed to not drive automatically to work in the mornings so far. However, my treacherous perimenopausal-body keeps waking me up at 6 am, no matter when I go to sleep, so that’s sub-optimal. I also managed to re-strain my lower back yesterday on my third deadlift rep of 130 kg, so I’m forced to take it easy. Maybe one day I’ll learn to listen to that body of mine …?]

We usually try to visit a science museum on our travels, as they usually have something interesting to do for the whole family. Luckily, the Heureka science museum turned out to be only a 20 minute train-ride north from downtown, plus a bit of walking.

It was a fun museum, but our trip ended in disaster when Finnur twisted his ankle so badly that he ended up being transported by an ambulance to the local hospital (even further north!) for x-raying.

Luckily, no bones were broken, but it meant he was out of commission for the remainder of the trip, which was a huge bummer. Also, this meant that two years in a row a family member would be returning from vacation in a wheelchair?!?!

Thursday 10 August 2023

Playing on a lovely playground as we walked from the train station to the science museum. The Finns are good at designing things!

Trip to Finland/Estonia: Day 3 (Tallinn!)

2023-08-09Finland, Us Standard

[Photos taken 09 August 2023, posted online 26 May 2024. I am officially unemployed! Survived the last two weeks at work by blasting the winning song of Eurovision 2024 (Nemo’s The Code) at every opportunity, just to keep up my energy levels, and joie-de-vivre! Expect more frequent blogging in the near future, as I try to catch up with myself… ]

When I mentioned to people that we were going to Helsinki, I was advised to plan a day-trip to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, as it is only a two-hour ferry-ride away.

Apparently it is quite common for Finns (the natives of Finland, not people named Finnur!) to take the ferry over, party hard and buy cheap alcohol, and then sail back late at night.

After much perusing online, I decided we’d start the day by visiting the highly popular (really?!) Lennusadam maritime museum, before passing the time walking around the old town.

Wednesday 09 August 2023

Up high on a wall overlooking Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.

Trip to Finland: Day 2 (Korkee Adventure-park)

2023-08-08Finland, Us Standard

[Photos taken 08 August 2023, posted online 20 May 2024. Just a quick addition, because I can.]

Our family trips almost write themselves these days… Next on the agenda was visiting an “adventure park” with obstacle courses through the trees. After much mulling we ended up going to the Korkee park on the island of Mustikkamaa (“Blueberry-land”).

Tuesday 08 August 2023

All geared up for traversing the obstacle courses between the trees.

Trip to Finland: Arrival & Day 1 (Linnanmäki Tivoli)

2023-08-06Finland, Us Standard

[Photos taken 06 – 07 August 2023, posted online 20 May 2024. This Whit Monday is the last of the religious public holidays in Iceland in a while…]

We’ve been slowly, but surely, working our way through the Scandinavian/Nordic capitals. We’d already visited Sweden’s Stockholm, and Denmark’s Copenhagen, and now it was time for Finland‘s Helsinki.

We’d rented an AirBnb apartment, because fitting five people into hotels is very hard. The apartment was pretty central, and it turned out to be an on-repeat-rental, as the closets were closed with screwed brackets, and the care and cleaning were being handled by some company, even though we stayed in contact with the owners as needed. It suited us very nicely, and we very much enjoyed our stay!

We decided to start the trip with a bang, and our first full-day activity was the local roller-coaster park, Linnanmäki.

Sunday 06 August 2023

At the Helsinki central train station in Finland. (You can immediately tell this is not from Iceland, because there are zero trains in Iceland!)

Garbage-Bin-Shed Build Begins

2023-08-01Hrefna's family, Us Standard

[Photos taken 01 – 05 August 2023, posted online 19 May 2024. Finnur’s off on a work-trip to the mothership in California, while I am four working-days away from being unemployed, by choice.]

The garbage/rubbish sorting system in the capital area underwent a big change in 2023. Most notably everyone was asked to sort out food-leftovers into a separate bin, as well as sort paper and plastic separately (they used to be in the same bin).

In practice this meant that instead of having two large bins, we ended up with three large ones (for homes with little waste, they could ask for two split bins, but we’re not there), and nowhere to put the third bin.

Thus was born the “build a garbage-bin-shed” project, which would last into the first frost and snow, but it was a lot of fun!