I said things were changing quickly last time, well even more has changed now - and for the better!

Last week a got a call from Geoscience Australia telling me that unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in a job I applied for (they ranked me highly but found someone more experienced in data management). However, they said that there was another vacancy which they thought I would be better suited for, forwarded my details on and bang, I got the job.  They were right, I'm much better suited to the role they gave me, rather than it being primarily data management it's doing hands on work with satellite imagery which is great!

Today was day one and I thought it was really sweet how a lot of people went out of their way to talk to make, joke around and the like - it seems like a very welcoming and supportive group, a very intelligent group as well  - don't get me wrong, I thought most of the folk at Safework were lovely, but if I were to hear one more conversation about calories and gym workouts I was going to burst a blood vessel somewhere. The only catch is that I think I'm going to have to alter my sleeping patterns - several of the members of my team like to start work at 7:30am and finish and about 3:30. That's going to take some getting used to.

Even more wonderful is that some of my friends from WA are over for a conference and I caught up with them as well as the lovely Michelle and Suzi for drinks. I have a sneaking suspicion that one of them is going to try and strongly suggest I move back to Perth or at least back into the realms of academia. Perhaps, just not now. I don't think I could go though the hilarity of research again quite so quickly. Research assistant work I could do no problem, but the actual stuff, I'm not that sure about...

Meh, I need to do so ironing - more later

Moving along, too quickly sometimes

I can't believe it's almost the end of November, meaning that's it's almost the end of the year. I've been pretty impressed with 2010 so far so let's hope the last few weeks keep the standard up.

I've been in a bit of a mood these last couple of days, primarily because as of 4:30pm yesterday I became unemployed again - I had spent about 3 or so weeks working as an Executive Assistant for a family friend while a replacement was found and moves happened within the building. It wasn't thrilling work by any means but it was getting me out of the house and making my wallet pleased. Anyway the prospect of being unemployed again doesn't exactly thrill me, in part because I feel like I should be doing something more worthwhile with my time but primarily because when I meet new people and they ask me what I do for work I feel so uncomfortable saying I'm unemployed. I almost feel shame saying it which is silly because it's not as though I'm freeloading on welfare and not trying to find jobs - it just appears that the application process takes forever.

I'm pretty hopeful as far as one job I've applied for with Geoscience Australia is concerned - I had my interview last Thursday which I was really happy with, by Monday they'd emailled my referees so fingers crossed that pans out. The project would be so exciting and worthwhile (support work for the international forestry carbon initiative). I had another interview for a defence job on Monday, I'm not entirely sure how it went but I will be sure to never drink coffee again when I'm nervous, nor will I accidentally arrive 30 mins early again. It does nothing for anyone. The panel seemed nice and I thought I answered most of the questions fairly well (although I blethered), one question I had no idea about and said (almost) as much. I thought there would be limited point in me bsing about something I had no chance of getting right. Everything goes so slowly though! I'm not sure when I should be expecting to hear from GA, with defence, best case scenario I'll hear if I've passed this stage before Xmas, worst case, the end of January.

I've also been stressing a little about moving out. It all came up so quickly! I'm glad I've been at home for as long as I have been and it will do me good to move out. I've just ordered my bed today - a gorgeous looking futon - and hopefully on Monday I shall be purchasing a car! We'll see how it goes.

All from me for now

B
p.s. Most saddened, when I hopped in dad's car today to order said bed, the radio announcer informed me that Id just missed a performance by Pekka Kuusisto. Boo. I love him dearly...

Poems and python

Hm, so it appears that my weekly poetry shebang did not exactly last as planned. I did, however, come up with a ditty while riding home today. My parents, in their never ending quest to ensure I do not die under their watch, bought me a very sexy high-vis jacket. This poem I dedicate to them

High-Viz
I have a high viz jacket,
I wear it everyday.
So when I cycle on the roads
I keep out of harms way.

Brendan has challenged me to extend this to all safety equipment. I was able to freestyle a helmet stanza on the phone that I was pretty happy with as well

Helmet
I have a hardy helmet
To protect my fragile head
So if a car runs into me
I will not wind up dead

In other news, I've started a temporary job at Safework Australia as an executive assistant which isn't too bad. It's nice to be in "the workplace" rather than messing around at home. Ironically, one of my first tasks was to climb on a multitude of desks and attach numbers to a ceiling. Most of the time I had to climb up on the desks via a swivel chair. So much for the national office of OH&S.

I've also started teaching myself how to program using Python. So far so good. Although seeing my exceedingly rudimentary level I'm reminded of a book I loved back in highschool "Bach, Beethoven and the Boys" (incidentally, hurrah for the Beethoven trifecta on the classic100) . At the beginning of the chapter on Mozart the author wrote "Whenever you have composed a piece that you are particularly proud of, it is very humbling to remember that Mozart wrote more impressive works age 6." A similar scenario exists except it would be coding and the Mozart is my brother. Furthermore I think my brother was coding in C++ at that age. Joy.

Well we all have to start somewhere and after I master python (ha!), I believe I will venture down the path of R. That would make me truly impressive!

Pondering poetry

One thing I've always loved, though perhaps haven't concentrated on as much as I should have, is writing poetry. Mainly I write poems to be obnoxious - "I wish all RV's would spontaneously combust" being a prime example - or I write little bits here and there as a helpful way of reminding people about things  -e.g. My friend Myles said he'd give me coding for a particular statistical test one afternoon, three weeks later it still wasn't in my grasp so I thought I'd jog his memory. I think that one went something like this:

Oh dear Myles Menz, you're my means to some ends
I'm desperate for AICc*
To fulfill my quest for the statistics test
If you have a moment or three
Please send it to me, I'll be filled with such glee
And then I'll be richer and wiser
And I'll work out some trends, tidy up odds and ends
With this new wonderful analyzer

*(say each letter separately)
 - as you can see, very very helpful (coincidently, the code arrived on my desk that very afternoon).

But anyway, back to the point of this blog, I've always thought that one day it would be amazing to write something that wasn't entirely self indulgent. Perhaps write something serious or possibly a book for children. My main concern is that I sometimes feel as though I lack originality and find it hard to sit down and think of something creative. What I think now is screw originality, what's more important is to get the practice in, get words down so I think I'm going to attempt to post a stanza or two of something, anything each week and see where it goes from there.

Conveniently I have a stanza for this week. I was just playing a game of solitaire and it popped into my head.

Will I stumble blindly forwards through the dark and through the frost?

And abandon all I stand for, abandon all that has been lost?

Should I be forever grateful that from my path I have been swept?

In the end it didn't matter, in the end I only wept.

Perhaps I'll expand on it later, perhaps not. I like the repetition in it, I like also like the meter.

What I really want to concentrate on is some sort of fantasy poem set on Nightingale Island. I have nothing in particular in mind at present, I was just looking at my map the other and noticed it and other island in the Tristan da Cunha group and was struck by how dramatic it seemed. I don't have synesthesia but I do like to try and match colours with sounds, weekdays and other oddities, and as soon as I read Nightingale Island I felt like it seemed to be dark purple with silvery flecks. Probably nothing, but I think I'll dwell on it more.

To Byron, Ballina and back with B

Well last weekend saw me on an impromptu journey up north to visit my darling Brendan - the man in question was feeling "decidedly wealthy" so whisked me up to Ballina to see him. I flew into the Gold Coast as he and Jo (his acting partner in their children's shows) had a performance there that morning. It was lucky I arrived when I did, by the time we got back to Ballina, the weather had turned fairly vile - there was lightish rain but very strong winds. One the upside, they made the mysterious sculptures in Ballina seem all the eerier. We headed out to Lennox head that night for a lovely mexican dinner and then prepared ourselves for Byron.

Byrony...boo

I always enjoy going somewhere new, but I had mixed feelings about going to Byron Bay mainly because the dyslexic among us insist on calling me Byrony. In fact when I saw this sign, I subconsciously started grinding my teeth instantly recalling the plethora of emails I receive where my name is spelled this way. This wouldn't be so bad if my name was part of my email address. Despite my misgivings, I loved it there. After wandering around the main street Brendan and I went on a gorgeous walk up to the lighthouse, posing at the most eastern part of Australia we had a wonderful lunch and then lazed on the wonderful white beaches. I love it when there's so much silica in the sand that it squeaks.

Nice shot barring ridiculous hair action

An inquisitive dragon (?)

The Amaze 'n' place

Sunday saw a lazy morning and adventure. Brendan had  been going on about this place in Alstonville called Amaze 'n' place that he'd always wanted to go to. Never one to miss a good maze (although I don't remember going to any except for one outside of Wanaka. I must go to some of the ridiculous ones in the UK sometime where they have to send people in at the end of the day to find lost souls. The maze was fun though and full of questions and objects to seek out. To anyone who mysteriously finds themselves with an hour or so to spare in Alstonville (I appreciate this is rather slim pickings) I highly recommend the maze. Not only is it fun, there's also a pun.In the afternoon, Brendan and his partner Jo had to rehearse and perform their new children's show. I've put in a photo below. I wish I got paid to wear a cape! That night we went for dinner with Jo and Dan (he had been in another of Brainstorm's productions) which was a riot. Dan was an interesting character, after a breakup he decided to hitchhike from Adelaide to Brisbane and blog about it as he went. More people apparently read his blog than he anticipated and he was contacted by a fellow from SBS offering him $30k to do the thing again and get it on film. Not bad for something done on a whim!

All for now!
B

Holiday week - up north!

So after a furious week of lupin pulling (easily the most draining work I've done so far), we were set free for a week. Helard and I caught up with Bragi (the CSer who was going to drive us around for the holiday week) who took us to a charming cafe, Babalu (with the best Cheesecake I have ever tasted bar none) and then an impromtu tour of Reykjavik. I'd not been up to the Perl before (where the geothermal warmed water is kept), nor to the geothermal beach which I vowed to return to when I had my swimmers. Then Helard and I bummed around the campsite for a bit waiting for the others (Angela and Indi from trail team 7 - the other team on the same intake as me) to arrive - poor things didn't arrive until 10:30pm because while they were driving back from the Laki craters they got a flat, but in the mean time we did meet a bunch of people from the other trail teams who all seemed delightful. I'm slightly concerned as to what is being said about your humble narrator though as, when introducing myself to a couple of them I got the response "oooh *you're* Bryony". I can only imagine what they've been told...probably just warned against my sense of humour and rightly so, not everyone can handle the joy of puns.  

Anyway after very little sleep (for some reason the hotpools next to the campsite were open 24hrs, I find it hard to sleep when folk are screaming at 3am ...)we set off the next morning. The first stop I found somewhat troubling - it was where they slaughter whale once they've been caught and, depending on your view, we luckily/unluckily arrived when a whale was there (only happens a few times each year as the quota Iceland has isn't huge). I'm now rethinking my view on whaling, typically I'm all for people eating animals as long as it's sustainable and as cruelty free as possible (Iceland hunts minke which has stable populations and fin whales which are endangered) but watching this beautiful creature be slaughtered filled me with such sadness, especially when the innards had been removed and the whale was turned onto another side and blood just went everywhere (the slaughter proceess had been going on for quite a time by the time we got there and you can imagine how repulsive the smell was), such a magestic beast reduced to such a horrific sight. It seemed so unneccessary and such a dramatic waste. I can't really explain why I felt so awful watching it, possibly because it was a show of violence on such a large scale? I know a large proportion of it is anthropogenic bias. Maybe it's because the creatures are so huge or that its easy to get meat from other sources (Iceland gets so many things so right - all meat is free range and hormone free and sustainable which is why I'm eating it over here (that and I don't want to risk my iron levels getting crappy while I'm doing physical work)), yes it's culture but culture is adaptable. I don't know it's all very awful and I'm getting upset thinking about it so on we must advance!
We stopped a pottered around some volcanic craters which is always fun, passed by:
- a lot of hay bundles that had been beautifully decorated
- the most hideous church I've ever seen (modelled on a crater apparently)

- a hot spring right in the north right by the arctic ocean which featured in one of the icelandic sagas (these outlaws were living on a tiny island 7.5km away and occasionally had to swim through freezing water to the mainland and would warm themselves in the springs afterwards) and while it was stunningly beautiful there, for some reason a huge wall had been erected between the pools and the ocean so you couldn't see a damn thing! One of the two pools was also out of limits because people were filming a very low budget looking film hmmmm We opted to frolick about on the cliff tops instead. 
 A beautiful old church where the first viking to be born in America settled (these place was so old one of the gravestones in the cemetary was in viking runes!) 
Finally we reached Akueryi! bIt's a lovely little place with a gorgeous little botanic gardens (it's impressive how much they keep alive there considering the mean annual temp is about 4 degrees), a lovely down town section, wonderful icecream and fun couch surfers (Bragi, our driver, organised an impromptu meeting at a rather swish bar which made for a fun night out).

Day two was a lazy day: - after a nice relaxing start with some wonderful coffee we made our way to Husavik. We visited the hilarious phallic museum (containing specimens of every species naturally occurring in iceland (except for humans, however they do have some donors lined up and had taken casts of the members of the icelandic handball team that came 2nd in the beijing olympics).After this Indi and I went whale watching which was great. The landscape was astounding and we saw so many Minke whales, some got very close to the boat indeed which prompted me to make involuntary happy squeaky sounds. These sounds also made an appearance when I realised that many of the birds flying near the boat were artic puffins! Huzzah. We passed an island, Lundi island (lundi is icelandic for puffin) which had hundreds of them flying around which was so delightful (slightly less delightful were the two people catching a small number in nets and breaking their necks - puffin is eaten over here, it apparently tastes like fishy chicken - but in all fairness, it's probably the best way for any eaten animal to go. A whole life of going wheeeeeee and then a quick final few unplesant seconds. What's good to know is that these puffin hunters never take parents feeding their young (i.e. those carrying fish) so that's comforting. I thought the way the boat was navigated was very interesting - often they would head for where there was lots of birds feeding on the surface as minkes tend to feed close to the surface as well and even

if the whales hadn't make an appearance being surrounding by hundreds of puffins, gulls, things-that-look-like-gulls-but-aren't-and-are-actually-related-to-albatross, and the occasional gannett was quite something.

A wonderful wonderful afternoon followed by a nice evening - we continued to Asbyrgi, set up camp and spent the evening in a hot tub by the camp site.
Day three the 35km trek from Asbyrgi to Dettifoss (Europe's most powerful waterfall).

I've never been so knackered in my life. The brilliant walk took all day, the weather played ball (it was supposed to rain all day, but we had a few light showers and that was it. The overcast weather was also good because it kept the temperature down). There were some incredible basaltic rock formations, stunning waterfalls, fresh water springs (which tasted brilliant, forget that crap they pass off as spring water in Figi water bottles!), amazing canyons, water of the most incredible colours and one rather unanticipated river crossing (thankfully not the glacial river because a) I've never seen water move that fast in my life and b) the river we walked through was from a fresh spring and it was so cold it hurt, I can only imagine what glacier melt would be like), and rope climbing! Ha! I really liked the area near one of the waterfalls; the glaciers get a lot of silt landing on them which is of course washed away when the glacier melts.

In this one area the mist from the waterfall had caused all the vegetation to be covered in a thin layer of silt and so the landscape looked like someone had hit a greyscale button. Consequently, walking through it felt like being in one of those photos where everything is black and white but one thing of significance is filled in. :)
Ok the next day saw another lazy start (perfect) followed by a drive to Lake Myvatn (midge lake). The midges are such a pain in the arse, aside from the fact that they exist in mega swarms (we came up with a horror trilogy based on midges eating poor unsuspecting conservation volunteers), they love doing thing like flying down your throat, in your eyes, in your ears, up your nose. 
We wandered around for a bit around Viti and volcanic landscapes with boiling mud before relaxing in the blue lagoon - a geothermal heated swimming pool. Absolute bliss with the aftertaste of sulfur.
Wow this entry is getting long, might just dot point the last bits. Day 5 we wandered around Lake Myvatn, climbing craters, wandering around "dwarf city" (crazy lava formations) and seeing pseudo-craters and beautiful birds. The day was completed by catching up with Damien and Vasilis (our leaders from the first week who were working up in Myvatn) who showed us this secret swimming area. You climb down about 8m into this crevasse formed by the european and north american tectonic plates dividing and are met but the most beautiful clear water which was at about 40 degrees. Bliss. 
Drove back yesterday, the runtur was yet again participated in (the runtur is a bar crawl that occurs in Reykjavik every friday and saturday night). Started off at a rock/metal gig (saw a freaking awesome girl rock (+1x male drummer) group play - so great to see chicks in the rock industry. An excellent night was had. Died in bed at about 3am. Brain is semi active today. 

Hveravellir

Greetings and Salutations!
I've been rather busy this week up in the highlands of Iceland - sheep trader and formerly outlaw country! Had a wonderful time in Reykjavik the weekend before as well - I tell you what the live music scene in Reykjavik puts the scene in Australia to shame - pretty much every venue has live music each night (or at the very least on fri and sat) and most places are open until 6-7 in the morning. I was very impressed with the quality of a jazz band I went to see who started the night with only two acoustic guitarists on stage but by 12:30am when it all finished had three guitarists (on a comb of acoustic and electric) a bass player, pianist and saxophonist. They played a nice combination of jazz standards (encoring with Cantaloupe Island :) ), pop music arranged in a jazz format and they're own work which seemed to be incredibly technically difficult. Very impressed by their improv as well. 

Then off to Hveravellir! My goodness the ride in was long but this was primarily because the bus stopped from seriously significant periods of time at places like Thingvellir (site of the Althing, the oldest parliament in the world which is located in the area where the North American and European tectonic plates are pulling away from each other (a particuarly cheesy description I thought of while I was there was "Thingvellier, uniting Iceland, dividing continents" :) hehe) ) Geysir (exploding hot pools including the hotpool from which all other geysirs get their name!) and Gulfoss (meaning golden falls which is an exceedingly beautiful waterfall in a canyon). After 10 hours on a bus we finally got to our destination Hveravellir, a lovely area tucked between two glaciers: Hofsjokull and Langjokull.
One particular highlight of Hveravellir (pronounced Kevera (with a nice gutteral K, like the h in hava nagila) vet (because for some reason "ll" is pronounced lt) lir. You get 20 points if you genuinely got that one right. This language is imposssible. I can't wait until you guys see the jackets we were given which have the icelandic words for volunteer and environmental agency... oh but while I remember, a fun aside! As difficult as most icelandic words are, when speaking english many icelanders, esp children, can not say sheep properly, they say "seeps". To me this is entirely gorgeous and delightful. The sheep are pretty cute over here as well, they wool is a lot more wirey and they're all a bit shaggy. I don't know how it works with "shearing" time though as its never really that warm and I'd hate to be a newly shawn sheep in icelandic weather (e.g. yesterday it hailed on me for a bit, a week ago we had gusts of 90km/h) . I know most sheep here are bred for meat, possibly meat sheep are shawn before they're slaughtered?)

Monument to Halla and Eyvindur

So, Hveravellir. Back on topic! This is an exceedinly beautiful place - a wasteland of lava fields, grey sand, stones and hotsprings surrounded by glaciers. The campsite also has its own hotpool filled by springs. Bliss! The weather is a little so-so though - a day can start of with a clear blue sky and light breeze and an hour later it'll be raining buckets and blowing a gale (my tent has proven itself worthy many many times), but it adds to the excitment and gives us plenty of opportunities to wear our sexy orange waterproofs. One thing I particualarly love about the region is the lack of infrastructure. Walk 20mins along one of the walking trails and aside from the trail itself there are practically no examples of human existance. Anyway one the second day Anna (lovely french girl who still has her manicure intact? How I ask? Mine are awful and she easily works as hard as me!) and I were doing some raking as a complete twat had decided that doing offroad driving, in the form of doughnuts, in a fragile land was a super awesome thing to do and because the sand is so soft, some of the tracks were up to a depth of about 20cm. We were raking a) because it was hideously ugly and b) broken windows theory - if it's left it's seen as acceptable and more anti-social behaviour occurs. Anyway, it started raining on us in this barren landscape but the sun was still very much present and so as far as they eye could see all of the stones looked liked diamonds. It was purely breathtaking. 

One night was also particularly fun as the horse traders (including the parents of our ranger, Auster) were staying at the camp sight. They were great in that after everyone had spent copious amounts of time in the hottub they retreated to the hut/bar thing and sang icelandic cowboy songs! These fun and raucous (esp this one which sounded a little like raw hide, I can't remember this name of the song but it started with "rithum rithum" and was about running the horses quickly as they tore through the "Mountains of the Thieves"), but I stopped asking what they were about after I was told that one sad sounding song was a lullaby about a woman Halla (one part of the most famous outlaw couple, Eyvindur and Halla (she wasn't actually an outlaw, but followed him out of love) in Icelandic history (spent over 20 years on the run and then were pardoned)) who threw her children off a waterfall because they could barely feed themselves yet alone children. Amusingly the traditional songs were also indispersed with operatic arias from one of the traders (he favoured songs enjoyed by Pavarotti, I personally felt that he should have aimed for more of a Domingo repertoire).

Joe, outfit complementing the landscape

We've mainly done a bunch of small jobs here - repairing/painting benches at the campsite, building small bridges to prevent stream bank erosion, filling in sheep tracks to try and keep hikers on the right paths (which involved me and others getting our Gollum on and digging mud out of a tiny cave where not even *I* could stand up fully. Considering how slow things sometimes felt at Snaefellsness the pace we are trying to keep for Austa (the ranger here who epitomies the term "boundless energy" and is a lot of fun) has been challenging but immensly rewarding. Probably my favourite job was trail marking - Helard, Anna and I were given the task of replacing the stakes along a 6.5km trail. It was bloody hard work (carrying 75 stakes between us), and my arms look as about as appealing as my legs do now (I've been told I look like a battered woman, apparently eating meat here hasn't affected how pathetically easily I bruise) but the scenery here is so fantastic that it barely mattered. I had the task of running ahead of the others and laying down the new stakes before returning to join them to carry the old stakes which suited me to a tee. 

Helard approaching the crater

Our last night was brilliant as well - Joe (this weeks team leader), Helard, Anna and I decided to walk a second trail (10km return) which lead to a crater after dinner (hurrah for long days meaning you can finish a hike at 11:15pm and it's still light out). Words can't begin to describe how breathtaking the walk , and especially the end, a massive volcanic crater was. I'll be uploading a bunch of photos on facebook soon so keep an eye out. It's the first time I've felt like I've been somewhere truly unworldly. It's really the perfect setting for any fantasy novel and I wouldn't have been surprised if elven warriors, hoards of vikings or dragons or anything had appeared. I may have also gotten certain lord of the rings themes stuck in my head ... I embrace the tragedy

A tern for the worse...

The departure from Skaftafell to Snaefellness was a long one - 11 hours travelling in total including a brief dinner in Reykjavik but a heck of a lot of bus stops. Halldor Laxness captured the soul of bus travel in Iceland perfectly in his very silly but wonderful book "Under the Glacier":
The few folk who are on the move... sidle off the bus at unexpected places and vanish into the moorland beside the road as if they lived in some bog there; or else the driver pulls up at some unaccountable point in the middle off nowhere and tosses out of the window some trifle, which usually lands in a piddle: a bundle of newspapers, a small bag, a parcel.
This book quite an interesting read - it just so happened to be set in Snaefellsjokull (jokull in icelandic just means Glacier) which was wonderful and has a very interesting commentary to make on Christianity. 

It goes a little demented in the middle but is generally hilarious (and surprisingly informative, apparently the best time to eat fermented shark is after it has been fermenting for a good 13 years, before that the ammonia hasn't left it. My desire to try this is nominal at best...).
Anyway, so we got into Snaefessness at around midnight and the "sunset" was absolutely stunning (it still doesn't really get dark here at all), the colour burnt orange was everywhere. Also a plus at this site - we were staying in a house! Beds! Joy!
This placement's aim was to put in a wheelchair friendly path in an area called Arnarstapi where this is a massive statue of the giant Barthur Snaefellsas who got pissed off at humans and sodded off the glacier forever and apparently protects the area from evil. Sadly he doesn't do a very good job of it as there are a multitude of evil little artic terns who love dive bombing everyone (it seems that they have singled me out as a character to be particularly mean to. I've been dive bombed countless times, during two of these the arsewipes made contact with my head which hurt a lot and, icing on the cake, one day when I had both hands full one of these bastards shat on my face. Yes that's it, right in the kisser. Thankfully I had my mouth closed, my cheek/hair was no so lucky. The reaction of my charming team was first to laugh and then take photos. Fail. Why do so many animals hate me? A stupid chihuahua peed on my bag in Skaftafell (I would have kicked it but I had steelcaps on), these terns loathe me, what next?? Will I be attacked by a puffin? A skua (I bloody well hope I don't get attacked by a skua, those mofos are big). That said, there was a pretty incredible sight on the second day we were working here, for some reason they terns got all riled up and started bombing horses that lived across the road (Icelandic horses are stunning) and, if you ignore the fact that being bombed by these birds is seriously unplesant, watching these horses tear around wildly was a fantastic sight to behold. 

Anyway most of the work has been great (some is experimental so it feels like significant amounts of arsing around have occurred at various stages which can be a little frustrating but I wont bore you with the details), the work site is just on these cliffs made of beautiful hexagonal basaltic columns, there are huge numbers of nesting gulls who aren't kamakazi birds at all and we've been getting in some pilot shark watching in our down time (we may have seen an orca once and whales are known to hang out in this area but no major sightings as of yet). As well as the path I've worked on fixing a bridge (a poxy job had been done with the rails) and today I helped fix a path on a volcanic crater, Saxholl, as the steps had become dislodged recently due to bad weather.

The crater work was great but my arms are a little worse for wear after having to carry rock from the crater's base to steps/other sections that required modification (the crater itself is very fragile so rocks couldn't be removed from areas off the path). It wasn't that they were heavy, far from it - when they erupted they must have been filled with air pockets - but they were pretty sharp. I'm building up quite a sexy collection of scabs and bruises I must say. Oh and my tan lines are exceptional - sock line, neck line, arm line, I possibly even have a fun little tan on my lower back due to riding up tshirts. I'm quite clearly irresistable :)

Also got to do some touristy things on the weekend - stopped at Djupalonssandur Beach and Dritvik Bay to look at the remains of a ship that had been wrecked there as well as the stunning coastline. They had some fun lifting stones at the beach as well but were used by the old fishing communities for people to prove their strength before they were hired. There were "fullsterkur" (full strength) weighing in at 155kg, "halfstekur" (half strength) at 140kg, "halfdraettingur" (weakling) at 49kg and "amlothi" (useless) at 23kg. If they couldn't at least lift the last two, they could forget it. Sadly my rock skipping skills which improved dramatically due to my trip to Alaska have diminished. Upper body strength has considerably improved though in part due to some yoga positions given to me by Angie, a fell trail teamer (but in a different group) and the work as well. I'm going to have quite the pair of guns by the end of this let me tell you!
Loving Iceland to bits, the weather on the whole has been pretty good and there's nothing like falling asleep on a pile of moss. The only complaint I have so far is that the absense of trees and often rather smooth topography often make it rather challenging for one to see a man about a dog discreetly. This is especially hard when certain tourists follow certain people "too see what nook and cranney they were heading into" while possess freaking telephoto lenses. That tourist fails.

Today involved going into lava caves and observing human feces at light houses. Those tourists fail as well.
More to come as life progresses!

Week 1 in Iceland

"Mother Earth" by Einar Jonsson

I have just had an absolutely fabulous week! Last friday saw me fly into Reykjavik where I frolicked around for a day in a dazed and slightly confused state (approx 3 hours sleep and a 4 hour time difference can do that to you).
Flying into the main Icelandic airport was such a refreshing change to border security in the USA. No one took my finger prints nor did a retinal scan. No one tried asking me questions in an overly aggressive manner in order to try and catch me out on anything. They simply SMILED at me, asked me how long I'd be in Iceland and told me to enjoy my stay.
My baggage was also out for me in 5 minutes and I have a sneaking suspicion that the baggage handlers didn't throw it around. Everything was smooth, efficient and clean. I think I fell a little in love with the place :) 

Mysterious knitted tree

Reykjavik is a lovely little place filled with street art. There's a lot of really interesting architecture and a looming church that just towers over the city. It's fun to play the game "guess who has pure viking ancestory". It's very easy. They're the ones who have white-blonde hair, piercing blue eyes and are far more attractive than they have any right to be. No complaints from this end.

Things are freaking expensive though, food from a supermarket was fine but many other things are just ridiculous (i.e. buying one of those hand knitted jumpers would set you back around 20000 kr ( the exchange rate is something like US$1 is 125 Kr. )) That said I had a lovely morning wandering around the church, headed to the museum (very ambitious of me considering the amount of sleep I'd have and the time zone I was operating on), found some music for a friend of mine and went to some art exhibitions, one which included a knitted tree that was about twice my height. Caught up with Michelle (who I met in Portland) in the hostel which was lovely, also met a couple of guys on their way to Greenland, wicked.

The next day saw Michelle and I head to the bus going out to Skaftafell where we were to spend out training week. The bus ride was fabulous - beautiful waterfalls, haunting wastleland, turf covered houses, fields of green, fields of lupins (boo), sheep! Surprisingly there was only a little bit of ash as we passed Eyjafjallajokull (which I can pronounce there - it's not actually so hard!), sadly there was a lot of low cloud so we didn't see the perpatrator of all the hassel. In an hour or so we head back to Reykjavik so I might have more luck then.
During the bus ride Michelle and I worked out that everyone still on at the end was part of the team. Everyone is absolutely lovely and although I'm sure it will be character building at times due to being around the same people on an almost 24/7 basis, it'll be an amazing summer (there were 9 people on my trail team and this group was subsequently divided into 2). So we met the people running the course, this weeks team leaders (Vasilis and Damien, both experts in shameless greek and french style flirting respectively :P it's all in fun though) set up our tents and wandered around Skaftafell. 

Sel

Skaftafell is a stunning spot, it's at the southern point of a massive ice cap (approx the size of Yorkshire) and we had glacier "tounges" on either side of the park. Apparently the place gets rather exciting every 10 or so years as underneath the massive glacier is a volcano - it erupts, melts ice (but not all of it as the glacier is about 1km thick) and the melt water eventually finally finds its way to the weakest part of the glaciers and spews out. In the eruption that occured in 1996, this was to the tune of 3-4km3 of water in 11 hours. Not a heck of a lot was left after that. I'll have you know that you've all seen a glimpse of Skaftafell, well those of you who have seen Batman Begins - the bit where he goes to tibet to get all trained up was actually done here for reasons beyond my comprehension. 

Tiny tiny hot pool

This week I'd discovered a new appreciation for rocks, primarily because our task was to build a few ditches and drains to help limit erosion (both from spring ice melts and people walking off the trail which is really just a glorified sheep path), and if this week is anything to go by, my dream of having decent upper body strength will certainly become a reality. While the work is exhausting I feel like I have so much energy here, but not like I'm buzzing with it, just that it takes ages for it to fade away. Consequently the hikes some of the guys here and I did after work didn't kill me as much as I had anticipated 
- (i.e. one day we went to a hot springs which was 1.5 hours fast walk one way over gravel. This was a lovely experience especially arriving back at midnight but still having plenty of light (unlike Alaska, it never gets dark here. This is both good and bad, good because you can hike at any time and it's not dangerous bad because my body goes "oh it's siesta time" and I wake up approx every two or so hours.

View from the top of Kristinatindur

Getting back to sleep is usually pretty easy but was less great last night when people were singing "She'll be coming around the mountain" at 2am in Icelandic. The Icelandic people clearly having partying down pat - we were invited to a bonfire at the park a few days ago which was just a big singalong which was fine. Attempting to sing songs in Icelandic is hilairous. One song, however that translated amazingly well was the "Hokey Pokey"- especially the "in, oot, in, oot" part. I would like to add that unlike the lame American version, they have "wooooooah the hokey pokey section. Americans, you don't know what you're missing out on. This has gone rather off topic. Back to the topic )), we also did another one to the top of a mountain called Kristinartindar. We were told it was about a one hour walk from our work site (which is in turn about a 1.5 hour walk from where our tents were set up) so thought it would be fine to go up and get back before dinner.

View number 2

Two hours later we had finally gotten to the top...we got back at 9pm freaking starving as we hadn't really had anything substantial to eat since lunch at 1pm. When I asked Damien (the french team leader) that he'd gotten the time slightly wrong he just replied "Well, it's easier for the brain to think of one hour not two, if you thought two you wouldn't have done it, so it's good, no?" I said something very rude to him in French. 
The food here has been surprisingly good especially skyr a special kind of yoghurt (although some of the confectionary is a little questionable).


Must Dash!


B

Monterey: "Heaven can wait we're only watching the stars" - Forever Young

Monterey Beach - seals in the background

 Now I am well aware that the original singers of this song are german and not from the USA, and that Youth group who covered this song are Australian. I am being dodgy and will use the fact that Jay Z just massacred the song by remixing and adding some terrible rap.

So I'm in Monterey for the next few days, Steinbeck country for those of you were are inclined towards American Literature (I even passed the river where the final sequence of "Of Mice and Men" is set). Well at first glance I'm completely in love with the place. Hey, John Denver liked this area so much he decided to stay here...permanently. Sorry that's rather tasteless and no one likes plane crash jokes.
Still, it's a gorgeous place and I could easily see myself living the kind of life outlined in Tortilla Flats (although I would love to hang out with Danny from the novel, I don't think I'd have the tolerance of he or his friends who regularly down gallon bottles of wine).

Matching the scenery in Monterey

A bit tired to do a proper entry today (probably something to do with getting up at 3am this morning to Skype with the parentals and 4am for Brendan. Crazy.

I will however share with you a poem I wrote while waiting for the train today. 
"I wish all RV's would spontaneously combust" (works to a general country/western tune, I recommend Tim Minchen's "the Good Book" for an idea)

I wish that all RVs would spontaneously combust
I say this in America, where "In God we Trust"
I hope that someday soon I'm going to leave them in the dust
With their owner's lookin' helpless an' their engines turned to rust

Watching the sunset with Franke

I say this 'cause the drivers seem to drive when they are high
They hog the road (they're so damn large) and never let you by
10 miles neath the speed limit? I guess they might get nigh
The frustration brings an angry little tear unto my eye

So please dear God almighty let the RV's all explode
Someone attack the factories and then get the mother load!
And to all the scumbags to'om* I dedicate this ode
Please find yourselves a smaller faster transportation mode
 *to'om = to whom abbr. 

Proper update later!

The lone pine

Squirrels, sneaky

Seahorses from the aquarium