Dagbók Hrefnu og Finns

Munich Bike Tour / To Iceland

2024-08-12Germany, Us Standard

[Photos taken 12 – 13 August 2024, posted online 14 November 2024. Weather-whiplash incoming, going from 10C/50F to freezing starting tomorrow.]

Our last full day in Munich was predicted to be yet another excessively warm day (31 C / 88 F) in a city that isn’t really built for it, air conditioning wise.

I was therefore a little apprehensive about having booked a guided bike tour, but with a backpack full of water, a flat city, and the built in air-movement of biking, it went better than expected. In the evening we returned downtown to eat dinner in the town-hall cellar.

The day after that, we finished packing our bags, took the trains to the airport, waited in line for almost an hour to check in our bags (staff shortage still?), and then happily walked to the car park in Iceland in t-shirts in the glorious chilly breeze!

Monday 12 August 2024

At Marienplatz again, to meet our guide at 10:45 in the morning.

BMW Museum & World / Sea Life Aquarium

2024-08-11Germany, Us Standard

[Photos taken 11 August 2024, posted online 13 November 2024. It’s now fully dark in the mornings, but it’s been warm… we could do without the rain and wind though!]

On Sunday’s, most everything in Germany is closed. This day was predicted to be very warm, so I tried finding something that was a) open, and b) probably air conditioned. I ended up dragging everybody to the BMW Museum which fulfilled a) but failed spectacularly at b). It was so warm in there that one child wilted soon after entry, and another became nauseous half-way through.

After all but running through the BMW display rooms, we walked across the way to the newer BMW Welt / World which was nicer in air-temperature but didn’t have a lot of things for us to do.

Then we crossed another street into the Olympia park, where we finally found a respite from the heat inside a mostly subterranean aquarium.

Dinner was at the same place we’d eaten on our arrival day the Sunday prior. Why mess with perfection?

Sunday 11 August 2024

In front of some of the BMW buildings/museum, trying not to melt.

Blomberg Toboggan & Tree Climbing / Downtown Shopping

2024-08-09Germany, Us Standard

[Photos taken 09 – 10 August 2024, posted online 05 November 2024. It’s almost 10 C/50 F outside, rainy and windy. Also, US elections today.]

With the weather finally cooperating, we drove south for about 1.5 hours to the foothills of the Alps. There we found an ‘play-area’ at Blomberg, with two different toboggan rides, and a tree-climbing area. All of them were connected by a ski-lift!

This was one of the clear highlights of the trip, and comes highly recommended! At the end of the day we returned our rental car, and it was a relief to no longer have to read parking signage.

The following day was a designated ‘calm day’, which everybody but Anna and myself took to mean ‘watch screens all day’, while the two of us went downtown to attempt shopping again. My highlight was finding a shoe-store that sorted their offering by sizes, and they had a huuuuge section with shoes in EUR 43 and 44, and Anna’s was finding a store where she ended up buying multiple tops.

Friday 09 August 2024

This looks a little green-screen-y, but that was the view from the top of the hill where the ski-lift takes you (elevation 1236 m). The ground to the north was entirely flat, while to the south there were endless mountains.

Europa-Park / Shopping / Deutsches Museum

2024-08-06Germany, Us Standard

[Photos taken 06-08 August 2024, posted online 04 November 2024. It’s rainy and warm outside. In November.]

We got up early to arrive at Europa-Park when it opened at 9 in the morning. Our hotel was a 10-15 minute drive away, and when we arrived the traffic was thick but moving. I’d like to applaud the smart team that thought of installing multiple horizontal people-movers on the way from the parking lot to the entrance.

We split up along gender lines, us girls aiming to have lower-adrenaline thrills, while the boys wanted to visit the bigger roller coasters. Team Girls had a pretty good day, finding a small and near-empty roller-coaster that Emma had her eye on quickly and taking three trips in quick succession, while Team Boys got very unlucky and ended up stuck in the same line for 2 hours, which put a damper on the rest of their day.

By late afternoon our feet were very tired, and we got in the car to drive back to home base in Munich. The autobahn speed is so high that even though the car-battery could theoretically last the whole way, in practice it was not happening. Since you have to drain it sufficiently to get the high charging speeds, I waited until we were at the half-way point (2 hours away from Europa-Park) to locate an autobahn exit that looked promising (gas stations and fast food).

We made it back around 10 in the evening, and then Finnur and I spent close to an hour circling the neighborhood, trying to decipher parking signage, discovering after talking to locals that the first spot we’d found was for residential permits only, and then finally finding an apparently legal spot for non-residents, and paying using an app.

The following day was a designated “calm-day” so I got the brilliant idea to take the kids on a quick shopping trip to a nearby mall, as two of us needed closed toed shoes for tree-climbing, and we also needed to recharge the car for its next adventure. Let’s just say that energies were not up to the task!

The day after that was rainy, so we swapped out a trip to the hills for a trip to the Deutsches Museum.

Tuesday 06 August 2024

Anna and Emma by Europa-Park signage as we were about to leave after a long day.

Towards Europa-Park via Augsburg / Göppingen

2024-08-05Finnur's family, Germany, Us Standard

[Photos taken 05 August 2024, posted online 02 November 2024. Time is flying by, mornings are dark already.]

Before our departure for Germany, I ended up chatting to an acquaintance at the gym. When she heard we were headed for Munich, she strongly recommended making the trip to visit Europa-Park. After some mulling, we decided to give it a go, in spite of it being very high-season.

Finnur and I therefore went to pick up a rental car on our first whole day in Germany. As our apartment was located in a “low emissions zone” we opted for an all-electric rental car, which turned out to be both good and not-great.

It handled well on the autobahns but I ran into a lot of trouble downloading the required apps for the various charging stations, because the “app was not available in my country” (as in “Iceland”, where my phone lives). It caused a some delays, but it all worked out.

As it’s a about a 4-hour-drive between Munich and Europa-Park, we decided to drive there, stay overnight at a nearby hotel, then arrive when the park opened at 9 in the morning, and drive back in the late afternoon. En route there we checked in with Finnur’s niece, and found that they live basically on the way to the park, and we were kindly invited to dinner!

Monday 05 August 2024

Road trip time! We got going at a slightly later time than we probably should have…

Driver’s License / Folfing / To Germany

2024-08-01Germany, Us Standard

[Photos taken 01 – 04 August 2024, posted online 28 October 2024. Rainy days still, with intermittent frosty days here and there.]

The day of Bjarki’s behind-the-wheel driving exam arrived, and he passed! He downloaded his official electronic driver’s license, and went for a drive with his big sister. How they grow!

We went frisbee golfing (folfing) after Anna finished her summer employment, I finally attacked the weeds in the backyard, before we all headed to Munich, Germany for our “formal” summer vacation.

Our first afternoon there was spent searching for an open grocery store, going out for dinner, and walking around the English Garden to where the surfers hang out (Eisbachwelle on the river Isar).

Thursday 01 August 2024

Bjarki taking his big sister out for his first drive as a (provisionally) licensed driver! (She was too young to get to accompany him on his learner’s permit.) In the next two or three years, he needs to not do anything strike-worthy for a whole year and then he’ll get a permanent license.

Faxi Campsite / Flúðir Folf / Finnur’s 50th

2024-07-25Birthday, Confirmation, Friends, Hrefna's family, Iceland, Uncategorized, Us Standard

[Photos taken 25 – 31 July 2024, posted online 14 October 2024. It’s chilly but beautiful out there.]

One day, Emma noted that she’d never slept in a tent, and we decided that was something we should probably fix. A few days later, we lucked out in getting invited to join some friends at a campsite by the waterfall Faxi.

We arrived just as the most recent rain-storm was passing, stayed for a couple of nights, and managed to pack up the tent just before the next rain-storm arrived. We tried Frisbee golfing (folfing) for the first time, and it was a resounding success for all.

We returned home in the rain, caught out breaths for a few moments before attending a multi-Christening/Confirmation, and then it was Finnur’s 50th birthday!

Thursday 25 July 2024

Checking out the waterfall Faxi (“horse’s mane”).

Grábrók & Glanni @ Norðurá / Wacky Weather

2024-07-21Friends, Hiking, Us Standard

[Photos taken 21 – 24 July 2024, posted online 11 October 2024. A busload of Italians has invaded the coffee house again!]

I was in a hiking mood, so I contacted a couple of lady-friends who I knew were staying close to our summer house, and they kindly let me join them for a day out and about. We fed them dinner in return!

Then the weather turned windy and rainy, so we mostly just hunkered indoors for a few days, but did make it out to fancy dinner with friends.

Sunday 21 July 2024

Yours truly, looking oh-so-casual in front of the waterfall Glanni.

Pruning Dead Branches / Driver Progress / New TV

2024-07-15Us Standard

[Photos taken 15 – 20 July 2024, posted online 10 October 2024. This morning we woke up to snow on the ground for the first time this season.]

Nice weather followed the abysmal weather, as it usually does. I decided it was high time to go prune all the dead branches from the hedge by our house, of which there were many. This task ended up taking multiple days, especially as the weather refused to settle, and kept swinging between extremes.

Bjarki’s e-sport camp summer job came to a close, as he only has a set number of weeks he could work via the town’s “work school” program. He therefore had all the time in the world to keep working on getting his driver’s license, which he did, finishing driving school #3, and his written exam.

I kept gymming, and slowly started attending actual gym-classes after my bad back-sprain at the end of May. Aside from all the occupational therapy inherent in cutting dead branches, I also did a stint of ironing for mom. I found it to be mind-numbingly boring, but the results were good, so I figured that was more important. Last but not least, I purchased a new TV for the living room, as our old one had gotten the thumbs down from Anna’s friends, and Finnur held an impromptu tire-changing lesson.

Monday 15 July 2024

Yet another project that had been on my to-do list for ages: trimming all the very dead branches from this old hedge of ours.

Ten Lovely Ladies @ Hveradalir & Gullfoss

2024-07-14Friends, Hiking, Iceland Standard

[Photos taken 14 July 2024, posted online 09 October 2024. It’s pretty out there.]

Our stay at Gíslaskáli (Gísli’s cabin) came to an end as the storm had finally passed. We decided to drive up to Hveradalir (“Fumarole-valleys” or “Geothermal-valleys”), where we’d attempted to hike to the day before.

On the way there we passed by the pretty Gýgjarfoss waterfalls (two rivers merging into one), passed the Highland Base area, and lots of pretty vistas, before finally oooh-ing and awww-ing over the Hveradalir area. It really is quite beautiful.

We then drove back to civilization, again getting thoroughly shaken on the long unpaved road back to paved asphalt. We stopped at the visitor’s center by Gullfoss (“Golden waterfall”) where a husband awaited us, to whisk his wife and another traveler off to a new adventure. We then drove back to the capital area, all quite happy with how things turned out.