Category: Iceland

ETA, well he just went to the doctor here and has an order for blood tests in two weeks once his body has settled down from the trip. Our doctor is certain it is all just a result of dehydration, so that is good to hear.

There is something wrong with my dad, what we don’t know for sure yet his blood sugar levels have been very high – round the 14 mmol/L in London, will get tested again in two weeks.

Yesterday evening I received this email from Mum.

Dear Helen,

Please try to make an appointment with Howard Ryan for Pabbi on Friday morning – just get into my diary and see it doesn’t clash with my dentist appointment.

Pabbi is ok now but he spent 8 hours in hospital yesterday – we got on the plane by the skin of our teeth. He has had trouble with high blood sugar and dehydration. I am very glad yesterday is over. He has slept a fair bit of the flight from London. He managed to crack a rib in all this.

See you sometime Thurs,

Love Mum

As I have a uni class on Thursday mornings, they were going to get a taxi from the airport home, however after reading this email I decided it would be best for me to pick them up. I actually ran into a girl from school who was picking up Steve Towson who was on the same flight my parents were on.

After a while waiting my parents came through the gate, Mum pushing the trolley and Pabbi walking slowly behind her. Straight away I asked what the hell had happened, Mum simply broke down in tears and gave me a hug and said that she would tell me everything when we got home.

Pabbi arrived in London on Monday evening and checked into the youth hostel they were staying at, Mum was out seeing Mary Poppins with her sisters and niece. This hostel still had single sex dorms, so mum did not see Pabbi when she got home from the musical. In the morning one of the ladies in her dorm, asked her if she was Ruth Palsson, there was a message at reception for her, when she got there she was told she had to go see her husband as he was unwell. Mum says this was an understatement, he had cuts and dried blood over his chest and head.

It seems that somewhere round 3 that morning, he had gone to the toilet and collapsed, managing to make a mess of himself in the process. He was unable to stand up and been the man he is, he didn’t try calling for help and somehow managed to get back to his dorm, where instead of waking one of the men up in his dorm for help. He got into bed and waited till one of them woke up to ask for help. This meant that he didn’t receive treatment for about 3hrs later when Mum found out round 8am.

Shortly after that, an Ambulance took him to the same hospital where Cherie Blair had her latest baby, where he underwent numerous tests and was placed in the observation ward. His blood sugar level at this time was 14mmol/L – very high. After those results came back they did an arterial blood test to check something with his severe dehydration (partially his own fault due to his ways of needing to be at places as soon as possible and not asking people for help)

They put him on a drip to receive 1L of liquids over 4hrs to help his body out, at the end of this he had another blood test to see if his condition had improved – it had slightly (his blood sugar level was down to 8mmol/L). During this time Mum had rang the airline to see when other possible flights were, the next available flight wouldn’t be till Friday night which would mean another 3 days in London) knowing this the doctor allowed him to get on the flight home.

Of course Pabbi is Pabbi so during this time he was stressing something chronic about making the flight etc etc.

Now he is tucked up in bed, waiting till the appointment with our family doc in 3hrs.

Well we now back in Singapore waiting for the final leg of the journey to start in a couple of hours time, yet again chilling at the free internet.

I love getting stamps in my passport so I went through imigration here, got the stamp, walked outside and then back in and through immigration again 🙂 out of it I got two stamps in my passport, an experience of the really humid air in Singapore and that is about it 🙂

Got some final duty free shopping to do and then up to the rooftop gardens to get a Singapore Sling.

London was a mess, no one knew what was happenning, it took us 3hrs to get from Victoria Station to Heathrow, at each station we were told different things by different people, get told to go to this station and then that station would know nothing – it was a total mess!

I was on Tottenham Court Road when the explosions went off, I was inside a shop talking to an Australian working there, and then the sirens started, police car after police car raced down the road. After completing my transaction, I walked back to goodge street station only to be told at the door that this station had no incoming trains and we were to walk down the road to Tottenham Court Station, we were told that an inciddent had occurred at Oval and Warren St station, this later became a passenger incident.

After going on some very very packed tubes I managed to arrive at Victoria where I was meeting Matthew (he left Iceland a day after me). At Victoria the ATM’s and EFTPOS machines were down – I have not found out why. Cops where everywhere as were people with luggage trying to get to the airport.

When Matthew arrived, we decided not to do what we had planned for the afternoon since only two tube lines were operating completly, others partially or fully closed and just go straight to the airport.

After gosh knows how many different directions and changing tubes/trains/buses, we finally got to Heathrow. We were incredibley lucky that the check-in line for Singapore airlines was non-existent, went through with ease and went to have dinner in the pub.

Almost home and I have suprises to share when I get there :):)

Tommorow at 7:30am, I leave this home to go back to the home where I have a boyfriend, job and university but I leave behind the home where I have my family, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, neices and nephews. The people that I love so much and give so much to me.

It is something that I miss so much when I go back to Australia, hanging out in Herdis’s kitchen chatting about life, watching Matthew and Noni talk about guns, hunting and all things wild, late night chatting with Anika, singing with Hafþor, mucking round with Palli, flying and fine cooking with Toti and Anna, having a chance to be totally silly with the kids, just chatting with Karl and just hanging with family.

My last supper was cooked by Hafþor, Tuna Provencale aka Fake Chook because when my mum first cooked it Hafþor asked if it was chicken, Pabbi penned the name and it as stuck ever since.

Last night, we went to dinner at the Casa Herdis Pala og Noni, where we feasted on a wild array of foods ranging from reindeer and birds that Noni had shot himself, Plokkfiskur (my request) to icecream with homemade hot chocolate sauce mmmm. When I was in Iceland last time Herdis had cooked Plokkfiskur (very traditional fish meal made from fish, white sauce and potatoes), so when she asked for requests as to what to cook this time I had to ask for it 🙂 so, so yummy:)

Today Matthew and I did some final tourist shopping, getting some more Appelsín, myself buying a case(35) of Prince Polos (heaven in a wrapper), Matthew buying a drinking horn and myself picking up a little something for Sean and a handbag for me that has the Icelandic flag sequined on it 🙂

I had hopped to find an outfit to wear to an upcoming wedding in October but my searches today were fruitless so I will have to find something in London.

Whilst in London I am staying with Mike who is a friend of Karls (cisco brought both of them over from Australia to San Jose when they finished uni), in addition to finding an outfit or two I am also going to visit the reading room in the British Museum where Karl Marx researched and wrote his books, see some more Van Gough and my first Monet in the National Gallery.

As well as a hop over to Lords when the first Ashes test is played on Thursday.

See you somewhere 🙂

This afternoon Karl, Matthew and I went to the birthday party of our littlest nephew Daniel, who turned 2 🙂
Great turn out, lots of kids and five big kids (us three plus our step-newphew Stefan plus our eldest brother Palli) as well as the various older family relatives of Sigga and Hafþor.
As well as eating lots of cake, berries and other goodies, we spent some great time outside in the gorgeous sunlight, rolling and horseing round in the lush green grass, throwing the frisbee, chasing after Daniel as he attempted his escape missions again and again.
Lots of fun 🙂
Here is the birthday boy with Karl 🙂

Karyn and I found out tonight that I am related to her husband, dating back ten generations to the mid 1600’s – very cool 🙂

I went flying with Toti and Matthew last night, which was amazing!!! Seeing Iceland from the air was just so so incredible, seeing the lava flows, the glaciated mountains which now have flat tops, the current glaciers, the drainage ditches etc, etc, etc it was amazing 🙂 So grateful for Toti taking us up in the plane.

Hanging out with some of my brothers and sisters tonight, playing Fisheries (Icelandic board game similar to Squatter for the Aussies, where you have control a fishing fleet and have to survive the obstacles thrown at you – similar to monoploy but not really), talking and heaps of laughing as always.

Tommorow Karl, Matthew and I are thinking of going up a mountain near here, checking out some viking ruins, getting some shopping done and then hitting the night life tommorow night.

I have put up two new photos over on the plog. I also plan on making some new header images as well in the forthcoming days.

Nothing really exciting to say other than, that I am having a great time, Icelandic Beer is quite nice as is everything else 🙂