This was our laziest day to date. I mean we did jack all.
In the morning we must have hit up Smaralind, the local shopping center and cruised round the shops waiting for them to open, withdrawing mula from the ATM and hitting up the Hagkaup to get some lunch supplies so we weren’t always stealing Karl’s food as well as buying a bath towel for me to use in Iceland (I had intended to leave it behind when I left but it was pink) and buying The Holy Grail of chocolate bars – Prince Polo. Helen + Prince Polo = very happy 🙂
In the afternoon we went over to Tóti’s and had a blast of course.
Bringing home the photo fights, Matthew, Silja and Birta going camera crazy.
This is what happens when Birta gets too close to the lens. Hello distorted perspective 🙂
The following photos are some of the photos that Birta took when she was in charge of my camera. As soon as Birta and Silja but mainly Birta learnt how to use my camera it was almost in their hands more than mine. Not that I minded 🙂
After the four of us rough housing around in the girls bedroom we moved out onto the patio where there was much more room 🙂 The first photo is of Birta and me – duh! and the second one is a crack up beacuse Birta wanted me to give her the camera back but I said it was my turn 🙂
The evening ended with the girls giving us a concert with Tóti on the guitar. Some of the songs we recognised as they are songs we have in Australia as well, some Mum remembered from when she was living in Iceland and it was just the perfect ending to a fun afternoon.
That was our day. Just like I said a pretty non-adventurous day. 🙂
The previous night before going to sleep we had pulled all the blinds down in the living area because it would take a while to get used to the idea of 24hr daylight. I had no problem with getting used to the reverse of say 6 or 7 hrs of light when I was there in Winter because then you still had a defined night and a defined day but when you just have various stages of daylight for 24hrs, that is pretty interesting.
Understandably ReykjavÃÂk and Iceland in general has changed since my parents were left in 1980, you know new roads are put up; new buildings are built all the usual things that happens with time.
For Pabbi however this was the cause of utter confusion. You see my father and a map, my father and memory of streets yeah they aren’t a real happy equation. You ask my father to go anywhere in Brisbane even which he hasn’t been to 10000 times before, yeah you are looking at chaos.
So here we are, we have just picked up a rental car and we are following Tóti back to Karl’s place to pick up Matthew. All we have to do is go back the way we came and Tóti would be just ahead of us in the traffic anyway. Dude, total chaos. I think we can just leave it there. Matthew, Karl and I all got our navigation skills from our mother, take me somewhere once and that is pretty much all I need. This can be a point of conflict especially when we start provoking each other.
Anyway we get back to Karl’s and pick up Matthew who had wisely decided not to come with us to get the rental car. We then head off to the ReykjavÃÂk Cemetery to visit the grave of our Amma, her sister (our great-aunt) and our brother. This cemetery was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It wasn’t at all like the one we live near and I walk past daily nor was it like the ones I saw in the town I lived in when in Germany. It was almost like an open forest which was littered with graves each lovingly tendered. I met my Amma once when I was 3 and spoke to her a couple of times on the phone since then. It is is an interesting thing having never really gotten to kn ow her but still knowing her very much through how my parents talked of her or the cards she would send each Christmas with Gleðileg Jól on the front and a parcel of dried fish if were lucky. We always knew was inside the parcel before we had opened it as it would have been opened by Customs and then closed up with all sorts of stickers saying “This parcel has passed customs”
After the cemetery we headed into downtown to have a stroll round and to show Mum, Pabbi and Matthew the ultra cool 3d scale relief map of Iceland in the ReykjavÃÂk City Hall. Hafþór and Sigga had brought me to see the map when I was in Iceland in 2002 so I knew I had to bring the others to see it because it really is ultra cool!
After we had poured over the map and further planned our travels we headed out for a walk round the area. Matthew and I lagged behind the “grown-ups” and he was even in a silly enough mood to tell me to take this photo of him with this wall of graffiti.
Just across the street from where the photo of Matthew was taken is Austurvöllur and a couple of days before we had arrived an utterly amazing fantastic photography display by Ragnar Axelsson from his book Faces of the North had been installed in the square. This is an utterly amazing document of life in Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
In the gardens bordering the square there was one thing that left me bemused and one thing that made me smile.
The first was Ornamental Kale in the gardens, this really had me stumped as I could not figure out why on earth there were cabbages planted in the garden bed, then Mum told me that they were designed for eating. The second was this bed of Pansies; a flower that very much reminds me of Iceland because a) you see it everywhere and b) it was one of Amma’s favourite flowers.
Cue some more cruising round the old town and then we were off to Tóti’s house to meet up with his family, look at photos, chat, laugh and giving me some time to be a 7 year old again. It was just so great seeing his family again, so great.
I got roped into playing a game of bingo with the girls and to hell with the language barrier it still worked out fine. When the one of the girls was spinning the dial the other would make sure that I put my piece on the right tile and when I was spinning the dial I would just make the noise or movements of the animal. It was a barrel of fun.
After hanging out at Tóti’s we made our way home via Hafþór’s where we all got to meet the ultra cute little DanÃÂel Smári in all his 23mth glory for the first time, Matthew and Mum got to meet Sigga and Sóley as well for the first time and I got to hang out Sóley who is my “twin” and happens to be my niece and a few years younger than me…
Well I think I have ironed out all the bugs of this new theme, what do you think?
I am still trying to decide what I want to put in the header so at the moment it is just a pretty simple graphic using a brush from Jason Gaylor’s Worn Hi-Res Brushes III.
I cracked down and bought a new camera bag yesterday, I got a CrumplerSeven Million Dollar Home in Blue. Buying a camera bag is one of the hardest things to do. I have been after a bag for a long time which would take some uni books, some other stuff and some camera gear, after playing with numerous different combos at the camera store and at the Crumpler store, I have had to decide that the product I want is just not on the market yet.
Mum is progressing along nicely, the other day she moved up from a 7/8 plaster cast to a fancy knee brace, which looks like the one on this page.
Before Sunset (This was an amazing film, very different to what I am used to as it basically only has two characters and the movie consists of them walking round Paris talking)
Bride & Prejudice (This was super rad, I could watch it over and over, loved the musical parts and all the colour)
The Princess Diaries (A simple little movie to curl up on the couch watching on a Friday night)
Tonight however, I will not be watching a movie but will be sitting on the edge of the couch full of anticipation as Australia goes head to head against Italy to play for a quarter-final spot in the World Cup! Go the ‘roos!
Some of you may know Karyn but for those who don’t, she was the first non-Australian person from 2peas that I gotten to know, she is in the USA Navy and is married to an Icelander (which is how we connected), well after some time spent training in SC she is now smack bang in the biggest sandpit she has ever known in other words she is now in Iraq (or in her words Irock the Casbah). She has posted some photos that are well worth checking out and she is always up for well wishes.
That is about it.
So the Socceroos didn’t get up, we only lost by two against Brazil and Japan-Croatia tied with no goals, which means that we still look good for the next round.
I did my last exam for the semester yesterday, now I just have to wait for the results to come rolling in, even though grades are not announced until July 5, I already know that I have gotten two distinctions (6) and I think I might get another two yet and one credit (5) if I manage to pull this off, it will be my best semester at uni ever. One of those distinctions would have been a high distinction if I had not done miserably (11/20) on the mid-semester. Bring on next semester (which is my last semester of my undergraduate Bachelors degree)!
I watched three DVDs yesterday. The first was with Mum – Hope Springs, quite a nice romantic comedy and the character played by Minnie Driver was just a total piece of work. The second was with Mum and Matthew – Do You Remember?: Fifteen Years of the Bouncing Souls, which was a really great doco about The ‘Souls which made me think I really should have gone with Matthew and his friends to see them when the played the other month. The last one I watched was Speak, this was an incredible movie, I didn’t think it would be anywhere near as dark as it was but it was just incredibly moving.
Bring on five weeks of holidays and try to forget that this time last year we were busy preparing for the Palsson Grand Iceland Tour of 2005, I guess though in four years times we will all do our best to make our way back as a family for the quinquennial clan gathering.
I have plans of grandeur to fill my holidays with, which include the following.
Attack the ever increasing pile of recipes to try and make a good number of them
Learn how to knit – Continental style (Mum was taught English style like most Australian’s but thinks it would be better for me to learn Continental style as it is so more efficient, she talks of when she was in Iceland and like most of the other women spent a lot of time knitting by hand or with their machines and how the Icelandic women were just powerhouses with their knitting, maybe I can talk her into paying for me to go to Iceland these holidays to learn how to knit?)
Get a couple of photos printed and mounted for a long overdue birthday present
Have fun
Work a heap
Organise some sort of filing system for the clippings I collect
Hit up the shops/life with Andrea
Party hard(ish) with Sam
Play copious amounts of Gamecube with Matthew
Organise something with The Girls from school
Read all the books in this monstrous stack I have – five different trips to the library and the four I need to finish beside my bed (if you click on the photo you can see it full size so you can have a “browse” of my library shelf)
The real question is how much of this list will I actually get through and how much I won’t finish.
One more exam over and it wasn’t as hard as I thought but I am still only aiming for 28/50 which will give me a credit for the course, now I just have the last one on Monday morning which is going to be a tough one as whilst I enjoy learning about contemporary Chinese politics I am not the best at remembering the names and dates. I did these two layouts when I came home from the exam as a wee break from the books. Who has been scrapping long enough to remember that Kangaroo and Joey paper on the first layout? I bought that sheet of paper back in early 2003 and I know it was released a while before then.
“In the final analysis, human security is a child who did not die, a disease that did not spread, a job that was not cut, an ethnic tension that did not explode in violence, a dissident who was not silenced. Human security is not a concern with weapons-it is a concern with human life and dignity.”
UN Human Development Report 1994, p229.
Powerful words which I found in an equally powerful reading by Steve Smith (Smith, S. (2004). Singing Our World into Existence: International Relations Theory and September 11: Presidential Address to the International Studies Association, February 27, 2003, Portland. International Studies Quarterly, 48 (3) pp. 499-515(17)), if you happen to come across it or have access to any of the various academic databases it is well worth a read even if you are not an International Relations person and is quite an easy read too.
The last couple of days I have spent doing exams, studying, not studying and studying (probably more of the middle one than I should have done but I have kept up with my study all semester so it is all in there somewhere I just need to pull it out at the right time). I have one exam tomorrow worth 50% and then I have my last one on Monday morning.
Mum saw the lower limb specialist the other night and was told that she has a Tibial Plateau Fracture and is booked in for a CAT scan on Monday morning to decide if she will need surgery or not, it seems that this type of brake can be quite iffy in terms of management. At the moment she looks like having 6 weeks in plaster and than another 6 weeks at home getting back on her legs.
I had started to write a bit on my love of the grocery store but I don’t really know if it had any point so it can wait for another time.
