land of (melting) ice

Last stop. We landed in Reykjavik, Iceland, Monday on an extended stopover between London and Baltimore.

My first thought on landing was the similarity between this and my home in Montana. I realized it's not particularly similar in the details, but in a few bold strokes it is: the lack of trees, the yellowed grasses sticking up through patchy snow, and mountains in the distance.
Mostly it's the lack of trees. Like home, you can see as far as the weather conditions and terrain will let you. It's a perspective most places we've been haven't had, and I'd forgotten how much of a difference it made.
Tomorrow, we get out of Reykjavik on a day's bus tour. Geysers, waterfalls, volcanoes are on the agenda. This will complete a geothermal trilogy for me; I've now visited the earth's main hotspots of Yellowstone, Rotorua, New Zealand, and now Iceland.

The weather isn't as bad as expected. It was right around freezing when we landed (and a cold wind made walking around unpleasant). Today it was up around 40, and even tonight it's warm enough most of the snow and ice is melting. Got my jeans drenched waiting to cross the street when a car hit a puddle, a few minutes after I'd fallen on the lumpy, wet ice covering the sidewalk.

What is just as expected is the daylight situation. When we landed at 4:30 in the afternoon, the sun had already set. That wasn't too unusual for winter locations. This morning, however, I managed to wake up before dawn. And I wasn't awake until 10 a.m. Really, it's perfect for me. Especially since I'm not at work through the four hours or so of daylight.

I didn't realize (until Kirsten read the in-flight magazine on the way here) Iceland has 300,000 people in the whole place, and about three-quarters of them live in Reykjavik. From what I've seen of the place, it looks like a larger version of any mountain town; lot's of cozy-looking buildings and lights on trees and in the street. Feels like I should be skiing while staying here.
The prices aren't as cozy. We're staying at the Salvation Army (not quite as dodgy as it sounds; it runs a basic guesthouse). For single beds with no blankets in shared rooms, we're paying right around $40, each, per night. At least there's a kitchen so we don't have to buy all our food out. I read today Big Macs cost the equivalent of US$7.50. I did, however, have a $4 hotdog which was excellent, as well as being the cheapest option in town.

out of london

London
Originally uploaded by Churcho.

Ryan has one of the coolest locations in London. To walk to the tube (subway) he walks along Tower Bridge, then past the Tower of London, two of my favorite things to look at in the city.

We had quite an ordeal before we saw them again this weekend. After spending Thursday night and most of Friday in Belfast, we were set to fly out to London. Unfortunately, EasyJet pushed our flight back from 9:35 to 11:35 p.m. By the time we actually lifted off, it was close to midnight. Even taking a shortcut to speed up the flight put us in at 1 a.m. Our bags came off at 1:20. The last train into the city from Gatwick Airport was at 1:35 a.m. We made it with a few minutes to spare. A half-hour trip, then found a night bus toward Ryan's. It didn't actually make it round until 3 a.m., then we had to cap the night with a short cab ride before arriving at our destination at 4 a.m. Ryan was very nice about it all, and Saturday we gorged ourselves on a Thanksgiving dinner put on by the LSE American students living in his hall.

Tower Bridge
Originally uploaded by dannywartnaby.

the end of the emerald

In a few hours I will be leaving Ireland. We left the Republic yesterday on a bus to Belfast. Tonight to London, then just one more stop before our final U.S. return: Monday we head to Iceland where we'll be in the dark most of the time.

Ireland has certainly lived up to its reputation for friendliness. We had a couple of contacts here when we arrived. From there our Irish network ballooned; everywhere we met people we were offered places to crash or at least had people to go and get a pint with. The Guinness really does taste better over here, music is easy to find, there are stone ruins everywhere you look. I'll have to get back here someday.

ireland is meant to be experienced indoors...

A long weekend in Galway probably led directly to the cold that hit me today. It doesn't help that Ireland, as expected, has been rainy every day and intermittently cold.
Our Irish friends took us to Galway to meet their friends, who happened to be reuniting a band for a Saturday gig. We got to the venue after their friends had finished, but in time to see the headline act, a band I'd been introduced to just weeks before. We had no idea that's who was playing, but it was an awesome show.
Then a post-show house party running until well into the next day (which I imagine weakened my immune system, allowing the current bug more or less to have its way with me). Loads of fun, and the weekend proved one of my hopes: as soon as you meet one of the Irish, you're their friend (at least if you're introduced by a mutual friend). The friends we came to Galway with left the city Sunday, but we crashed there for an extra day with the new Irish friends (and probably headed back this weekend).
Monday we hired a car (or rented, if you're in America). We've been cruising south along the West coast, taking out-of-the-way routes along windswept peninsulas. Castles, stone forts, grand views (when the clouds clear) - all of them all over the place. Monday night we ended up stopping in Ennis and discovered it was the final day of an Irish Music Fest, so we drank Guiness and listened to a traditional session.

Tonight, we're in Cork. Just arrived after dark, so will hopefully have a chance to rest and recuperate. Not sure where to next - we have the car until Monday.

and Ireland strikes back

After our experience getting through British immigration, we had another fun exchange in Ireland.

As far as I can tell, US visitors are generally given three-month tourist visas. Kirsten preceded me in line, and the official grilled her. Stamps from a year-long study abroad trip in 1997 somehow led him to believe she was a threat to stay and work in Ireland. How long are you staying? About two weeks. So she gets exactly two weeks (after he mistakenly writes two days to begin with). I go through: Are you with her? Yeah. Two weeks.
It wouldn't be a big deal, except we actually wanted 15 days. So we have to make travel plans to avoid becoming illegal overstayers in Ireland.

I'm so far behind on posting things my stories are going to be well out of date by the time they get up here - it'll probably be when I get back to the States and just want a place to put the stories.

We are now in Ireland - spent a day in Dublin and are heading west to meet our friends in Cavan (more New Zealand flatmates). This will conclude our New Zealand reunion - in the last few weeks we've seen Stephen and Reike in Germany, we just left Lang and Steph in Newcastle, and now we're off to see Paul and Kieran.

The tour has been good - it's been great to see everyone, although we haven't always had enough time to see them. We ran into a serious time crunch at the end of Germany. In Freiburg we spent a couple days with some family friends of my uncle, who showed us wonderful hospitality, took us on a day trip into France and walks in the Black Forest. We also found time to see Reike, our former flatmate, although since she was working and we only had a few days, our time was short.

We left Scotland this weekend for Newcastle and stayed with another set of flatmates, Steph and Lang. They managed to get a couple days off work and took us on tours of the countryside (and then on drinking tours of all Northern England's beers). Also had a day to wander around the city, including the old castle.

Not sure what we'll be doing the next few weeks. Two weeks in Ireland, then a weekend in London, a few days in Iceland and back to the States...

Scotland, again

This isn't exactly the peak tourist season here in Northern Britain. It's chilly and often wet, so it's understandable most tourists are giving the land of Haggis a miss in November. Three times now we've booked into a multi-bed shared dorm and been the only people in the room (a happy side effect of traveling at this time of year).
Despite the weather, driving around the Scottish countryside in November is an enjoyable experience. You still get a glimpse of a castle every few minutes, the leaves are still on the trees but have taken the time to change color, the hills are covered in plants dead for the winter, but showing a nicely blended mix of yellow grasses and red heather.
And if you're in Scotland, the skies are supposed to be grey, right?

The haggis is also quite nice. I've sampled the speciality deep-fried, as well as wrapped in bacon and stuffed in a chicken. Gotta say, I'm a fan. It's a dense mix of things that end up tasting like moist meat, even though it's not exactly meat.

On a map, it looks like we've made a comprehensive tour of the heart of Scotland. On the ground, we haven't been anywhere very long. We flew into Glasgow, then bused north to Aberdeen the next day to meet up with another New Zealand friend. A day there, then south to Edinburgh for a couple days. We hired a car Wednesday (after spending Halloween with the Edinburgh crowds) and headed east. The first travel day (or afternoon, really) was mostly spent wandering around Stirling Castle. On the second, we made it to Loch Ness. Today we drove further east, all the way to the Isle of Skye (with a side trip to the dentist for Kirsten, who managed to break a tooth in the midst of our fun). We headed back toward Edinburgh (got to return the car tomorrow) with the intention of stopping part way. Oddly, we hit a part of the country with apparently no afforable accommodation, so we just kept going all the way to Edinburgh.

Another day and a half here, then on to Newcastle (more New Zealand roommates to see). Middle of next week, Ireland (ditto). Then we start to look toward the States...

bonny scotland

When planning this world tour, we were worried about running into poor weather on most of our stops. So far, we've been amazingly lucky. We avoided the rain in Thailand, picked up some fine, clear days in China, had perfect weather in Germany for a hike around the Black Forrest, and even fared well in London.

Today in Scotland we had our first sub-zero (Celcius) night since leaving New Zealand. The sun is shining, the land is beautiful, but the air is cold. I think we have to accept winter is here, and we're not going to be traveling out of it. (It's too bad - New Zealand is nice this time of year).

So far we've toured around Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh. We rented a car yesterday and are now wandering up the Scottish east coast. Our lunch stop today on the banks of a Loch has free Internet, something I haven't often seen on the travels.