Tagged: holidaze

24
Oct
2011

MARVELOUS CARVERS

How many more years will I get to enjoy this part of Halloween WITH my kids? Martin is nearly 14, Karin 12…time flies so fast and when I look back at all the years of jack o’lanterns I can’t help but hope there are still a lot more in our future. This was the first time that I handed everything to the kids: spoons, knives, bags, ideas and let them have at it. I helped out with the hard parts and stuck knives and tiny teeth cuts here and there but mostly they did it all from start to finish....

23
Oct
2011

HALLOWEEKEND

This has been a very Halloweenie-weekend. Karin had a girlfriend over to spend the night on Friday who wasn’t going home until late afternoon on Saturday and to stave off any whining about having nothing to do, after breakfast I got out the meager bag of Halloween decorations (which include toilet-paper ghosts made by the kids when they were around 4 years old) and told them to have at it. They had a great time decorating the kitchen and little hallway, hanging ghosts from the ceiling lamps and paper pumpkin strings across the bay window in the kitchen. They found...

06
Aug
2011

BU-BU-BU-BUBBLING

Several people who had been there, before we actually went to Iceland and saw for ourselves, when trying to describe the landscape of the country referred to it as a moonscape. In the late 1960s, Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 crew came here to train for their impending moonwalks, so I guess the impression the place leaves is accurate! Our last stop on our Mývatn tour was the Leirhnjúkur geothermal solfatara. It is a very stark area, devoid of trees or much growth other than the ubiquitous lichens and moss on the ancient lava fields surrounding it. A solfatara...

05
Aug
2011

TO THE NORTH!

Before going to Iceland, the furthest north I had ever been was Bergen, Norway (60°20’N). Reykjavik is further (64o09’N), and 4 days into our Iceland trip, we went almost all the way to the top of the country. Reykjavik is less than 330 km from the Arctic Circle, but Akureyri is only 100 kilometers away! Akureyri wasn’t even in our itinerary but a volcano ganged aft agley and put a stop to our plans to head for the southeast coast of Iceland, to see Skaftafell National Park, the Vatnajökull Glacier and Svartifoss (the Black waterfall). After 4 days in Reykjavik,...

31
Jul
2011

THE GOLDEN CIRCLE, PART 2

MAN, that was a long break. I meant to post this directly after part the first, but Livejournal has been completely down or wonky for a week. 🙁 After Gullfoss, and waiting for EXTREMELY late stragglers to get back on the bus…which, seriously people, what is up with that? You know the time to be back at the bus: pay attention and plan accordingly! We then drove over to the Haukdalur Valley which is full, full I say, of geothermal activity. On the steaming slopes of Laugarfjall are more than 40 hot springs, mud pots, geysers and other fumaroles. The...

18
Jul
2011

WHALES & PUFFINS & GULLS, OH MY!

If I’m not careful I will be turning my biorhythmical clock upside-down. It’s really easy for me to do when I’m on vacation. I stay up later and later and then I wake up later and later. I have to start restraining myself or I end up sleeping all day and being up all night. When we’re traveling, however, it’s harder to do, since we usually have things scheduled: places to be, things to see, goals to achieve (my goal for Iceland: find a silver puffin charm for my countries-i-have-been-to-charm bracelet). It’s funny, I didn’t actually inspect the paper money...

17
Jul
2011

NOT ENOUGH SYNONYMS FOR AMAZING

Iceland was amazing. I wish we’d had more time and that I had better feet for hiking and better knees for climbing because that country is just MADE for hikers and climbers. Everywhere we turned there was something incredible to look at. We were completely saturated in natural beauty for 8 days straight. 1000-year old lava fields covered with pale green-gray moss like melted cheese on pizza (for MILES). Craters tall and squat and smooth. Pseudo-craters covered in short, brilliant green grass looking like a string of octopus tentacle suckers. Lava formations like some crazy-quilt rock-garden fantasy. Bright blue mineral...

04
Jul
2011

AMERICAN STYLE

Yesterday, we were all-American…even those of us who don’t come from the United States. We had our annual Independence Day BBQ hosted by the AWC at a lovely location on the shore of Ringsjön (a member’s home). Thanks to the high level of moisture content in the air, Barky had a great time playing Humidity Hair From Hell plus I had a red red nose (from the allergy-treatment aftermath (so no photos of me, ahem). There were hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill and watermelon slices and red/white/blue berry desserts, but alas, I didn’t have time to make deviled eggs...

06
Jun
2011

AFTERNOON ON A SUNNY SUMMER HOLIDAY

The breeze is ruffling the parasol—it’s making flapping sounds like the wings of some large captive bird. A delirious dance of wind and rippling fabric. The eges of the parasol are frayed; it’s almost always windy here and they’ve had several summers’ worth of windy workouts. The sun has heated the wooden boards of the deck to a degree that makes them unpleasant to walk barefoot on. The wood is bleached to a soothing gray and darker knotholes contrast with marching rows of shiny nailheads. Dandelions, grass and clover stretch illicit green fingers up between the planks. Karin just came...

31
Dec
2010

RETROSPECTIVE

find closure in the year-end retrospective that I’ve been doing on this journal for—goodness!—8 years. It’s fun to look back and count up and tote up and list the things that happened, the experiences that shaped the year and the literary and musical discoveries I made. Outside the window, the world is white: still so much snow on the ground and the sky is white as well. The hoarfrost of yesterday is gone, but a heavy fog descending promises more for later. Two Swedish couples, very good friends of ours, are coming to celebrate New Year’s Eve with us; Anders...

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