Although a breathtakingly beautiful country, it is not a cheap one to say the least. I was looking at jewelery and clothes and looking at getting a few presents and souvenirs for myself, and I am thinking its a no go. I just can not bring myself to pay 400 for a sweater that I can get at home for 200, and certainly not 80 for something I can get for 10! Nope I can and will wait for when I get home and then go crazy buying wholesale apparel and telling myself I am actually saving money the entire time! Nature is free and I will just enjoy that!
Tomorrow we head towards Geyser (the one which has since caused all others to in fact be called Geyser!) as well as the other delights of the Golden circle of Iceland. Given that the whole of Iceland is one beautiful tourist attraction after another, I can only imagine just what this is going to be, since it is where you go when you have no time to see anything else in the country!
Recently the Dubai worm was put into my head by a friend. A fellow teacher, she was actually giving English lessons to a man about to relocate his entire business to Dubai, and he wanted to get his English into tip top shape as he figured his German native language was not going to be of much help. She then mentioned how she too was thinking about taking an English position in the country, as the money was a lot higher than what she could earn here, and all the talk about Dubai jobs and moving there started to get me thinking.
The big thing is I would like not just to visit another country again, but I would love to live and work in another country. I am slowly accepting that it looks like Germany is a place where I have put down roots (not that it is a bad place, its just that the thought of putting down roots terrifies me) and yet I still want a little more adventure. And though I teach English and can find a job anywhere, my developer partner is a little more hesitant to move.
However that was until I found out that Dubai engineering jobs are in fact available, and people are even looking for them there. And as my partner is in fact a trained engineer, perhaps a move would be possible. In fact they even help you move there, with assistance in finding a place and culture adjustment.
If you read over at Unleash Your Adventure as well you know that Iceland is not really as isolated in the interior as people have you believe. For sure you will not find a lot of Icelanders themselves. They tend to let the place be, after all only crazy tourists want to risk flat tires and empty gas tanks (and apparently young Icelandic men, but another story for another time!). However one thing I have to give those who brave the interior in their cars is that they are READY for it. With their filled thule rack with everything they will need (or even think they will need), even if a problem does arise they are ready to deal with it. Especially since in 20 mins the next adventurer fully loaded down with everything they think they will need is about to show up!
Is an Enduro helmet. At the very least not when the end of August arrives. BITTER cold on your face, even at 50 and on a dirt road! So trust me, leave your Enduro helmet at home (even with your goggles it will just not be fun) and instead ride with a helmet that has a visor. Less temper tantrums will ensure… (and you wont find yourself buying a new helmet in Iceland!)
So far we have used our Iceland Camping Card almost every night since we have arrived in Iceland. There were 2 nights just outside a national park where we were beyond any camping sites and another 2 were a bed was a better idea than a sleeping bag in the tent. But truthfully, even if the camping card was not such a great deal (which it is, for 100 Euro 2 adults and up to 4 kids can stay at the participating sites for up to 4 nights consecutively and return as often as they want!) but also the quality of the campsites (though they vary) astound me. Almost all have internet (except for in the west fjords!) and they have hot showers, nice patio sets with patio furniture covers , kitchens that you can use (even use their dishes) and sometimes even free washer and dryers! (Again though this varies, some places have a green space and a toilet, and another wanted 15 Euro to wash and dry our clothes!). But all in all very happy with the campsites so far!
I am in love with this country, even when its 5 degrees out and you think you must be mad to come here the end of August, you then come around a bend and think not only is every second worth it, but that you would do it all over again.
I don’t photoshop my pics, not for purity reasons, but rather out of just plain lack of time (and out of regular old laziness when I have time, Id rather read web comics instead!).
So note the difference about an hour makes and the sun coming out:
Iceland continues to astound me and I will say it now and a million times over, not only is it amazing, but I am only too happy we decided to come THIS year and not last year. I think last year I would have pulled off my helmet and cried! With river crossings and roads that had heavier bikes turning back (he had the R 100 and his girlfriend on back, sand is not your not friend at any time, but I can see why he said NO MORE after riding through it and being about 150 Kgs lighter than he was, and it was still a fight!) the riding is fun but has us in bed asleep every night at 8 or 9 pm! Its still daylight here then!
But seriously, even now that we had the unfortunate episode of BOTH bikes picking up tires in their back wheels, forcing us to stay here for 4 days trying to get new tires, I love Iceland, and I cant wait to get back on the road again, it makes me want to rush out and decorate my entire place with log furniture to keep the rustic theme back home. (No comments please on just how rustic my apartment is please! As I said before, there IS a reason why we can afford all this time off, and a fair chunk of it comes from what I like to call sustainable living, or taking the stuff that otherwise would make it to the garbage. I am happy in a tent, my apartment does not need to be snazzy.) But maybe the log furniture would give it a theme to the style…….
Either way, at the moment the German is repairing the bikes, and I am trying to update all our Internet stuff!
Sorry that it has been about a week since I last posted but we were 2 days racing towards the ferry, 2 days on the ferry, and now that we are in Iceland we only log into our accounts every couple of days. This being the second time in the last week. The first time around we had a week worth of email’s to catch up on, and so I was unable to do much else. But after the day riding we had yesterday (leave it to the German to suggest heading into the interior right off the bat and not just doing the hardest roads in Iceland, but also riding the ones no sane person would. We went off the “main road” by accident) we decided to have a complete day off tomorrow, especially since the day after we return to the road from hell to visit Askja!
But my log book you can also find here, as always:
I am seriously looking forward to jumping on the bikes tomorrow however, I was feeling at first as if I would never feel excited about this trip, with so much to do for university and work, but now that my last lesson is over, and I am sitting here “helping” with the final bike prep work, I am starting to get as excited as a puppy. (I tend to wiggle like a puppy when I am excited, so the analogy works), and i bought a pdf version of a book by nunomads on how to travel and work electronically. This would be even better than teaching English, because it means you do not have to commit to being in any particular place at a time. My new quest is to find a job I can do like that, I have even thought about buying Beading Tools and selling stuff on Etsy. How cool would it be to make jewelry by the fire at night and traveling the world by day!
You may in fact be asking yourself why am i here on the internet and not Iceland bound as planned. Well, when have we even left on time? For Turkey we were 3 days late, being one day late is in fact brilliant. (Of course we also were entirely on our time at that point, as there was no ferry we had already booked and paid a chunk of change for). But in fact we have a few days wiggle room, we wanted to visit Hamburg, and the plan is still intact, but it means one day less in Hamburg, and so less stress in general. So tomorrow we should be on the bikes headed north!
I am a non smoker in a relationship with a casual smoker (he would tell you he is a non smoker, but he smokes at parties and I always know if he has had a stressful day because he goes straight to the balcony and sits down and smokes a cigarette, so I am really doubtful on the ability of him to be able to say he is in fact a non smoker, but who I am to let something like reality deter the man). Either way, I am quite happy that smoking is no longer allowed in restaurants or coffee shops, and that really hit home just last year when I nearly died from smoke inhalation in Croatia, where the rules against smoking are not quite so strict.
So imagine my surprise when prowling around the internet (the German wishes for me to be there while he works on my bike, but I dont actually have to work on the bike myself) when I come across the heading “smoke anywhere even office, plane, airport” and “becoming a trend in pubs and clubs in UK.” I think to myself, I remember flying Aeroflot in 2000 when they still allowed smoking on that plane. It was horrible, why would anyone willing subject themselves to that? And isnt it good that they have to smoke outside? I like it better anyway. And then I find out that I am way behind in more than just my movies here, because before now I have never heard of an electronic cigarette.
I have honestly never come across or heard of them. If the claims are true it can in fact be a wonderful thing, I read of Sky cigarette, one of the electronic cigarette brands, that there are no harmful chemicals but same feeling and nicotine satisfaction as smoking cigarettes. If that is true they have revolutionized the industry, and even this turns out to be not entirely true (it sounds a little too good to be true to me, and I dont even smoke) the brilliant part is that it is 75% cheaper than smoking regular cigarettes, so at least it does not suck you dry of money in quite the same way.
Has anyone heard of these things before? Is a SKY cig the smokers solution to social acceptance by us non smokers again? Im intrigued.
I am so excited about the upcoming trip, this is our first major motorcycle trip in 2 years. Last year we only went to Amsterdam on the bikes and that was only for a week in total. Everything else was just weekend trips. So now that we have a 6 week tour coming up Im ready to jump out of my skin.
And so I am looking into headphone reviews, because in addition to a little laptop that is even lighter and more mobile than normal laptops, I also want decentheadphones so that I can work on the laptop without any impairments, be it from a cafe where we have stopped to do our uploads, or in the tent in the middle of nowhere, as if there is one thing we need in the house while we work on the computers, it is decent headphones as noise drives one of us crazier than the other. Ahem.
Ok so I am waiting for the German to finish looking for tires for Iceland (apparently in Germany you can not just put any ole tires on your bike without going to jail, but I know as soon I start something, he is going to be finished, and then I am going to be int he middle of something, so he will start something, and this will become a nasty downward spiral until about 2 am when we finally do go to bed. I am trying something new here, posting my fav bunny pics!)
Yes there is a million and one more important things I can and should be doing instead……
Maybe I can help pay for the babies that Johnny seems intent on creating by pitching him as the star of a PS3 game. We have Patrick’s nephews convinced he is a ninja rabbit, he fights crime and does dropkicks (they have seen his impressive sidekicks). Of course when I do the same sidekick they are not so impressed, so maybe you need to be furry to be cool to a 4 year old……Although something tells me that for a successful PS3 game we need a tad more violence…
So harmless looking, and yet I spent 30 mins this morning tearing apart gardens trying to find him, and where did I find him? His tunnel complete, he is in the neighbors backyard with the girl bunny.
Confessions of a Wandering Gypsy Princess
