Finallz got a chance to get online... itäs quite hard, and probablz worse than I thought. Bz the waz, this kezboard is all changed around, so when I tzpe a z, it#s actuallz a y...
This is onlz going to be short unfortunatelz, as I am in the office of the hotel weäre in in Innsbruck, Austria. We have been driving for most of this week - Frankfurt, Rothenburg, Strasbourg, Fussen and now Innsbruck... Rothenburg ob de Tauber, and todaz - Schloss Neuschwanstein were quite amaying. Thanks Astrid for the recommendation.
In a couple of dazs we are going to be in Swityerland with our familz friends, and will be able to upload a host of photos from the rest of our staz in Iceland, then Germanz, France, and Austria...
Just so zou know, mz parents are currentlz travelling in Turkez and Israel... makes me feel quite jealous...
Thanks so much for keeping in touch... and if zouäre hanging out for photos... just a couple dazs more....
Cheers
Mark - for the rest
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Has anyone seen my puffin?
Gday from Iceland... the land of fire and ice...
Seriously, it´s not suprising that it isnt called the land of trees. On our 50min drive to the ferry to the Vestmannaeyjar Islands we didnt see ONE tree. Nothing even that closely resembled a bush [perhaps this is the only country where a Bush hasnt really got a foothold] - just this mossy stuff that youd see on the chin of a 15yo.
The trip across was not great. Whos idea was a ferry in the North Atlantic? The weather was pretty gloomy [and to give you an idea, here in the end of summer the weather was cooler than at home in Adelaide at the end of winter] though the locals thought it was ´a pretty smooth crossing´. Aaron looked particularly green and Jude stoically fought off the rumbles till the last 5 min. Lucky for us, the ferry ride only lasted 3 hours. Zoe slept half the way [courtesy of another 11pm bedtime] and I had to concentrate pretty hard on the horizon in order not to lose my lunch.
Now, back to my headline... the main, nay whole, reason for this part of the Icelandik voyage was for the kids to get involved in rescuing pufflings [yes, that is the name here for the baby puffins!] from being run over. The Vestmannaeyjar island is home to the worlds largest colonies of puffins. And at this time in August - ´yes we are in high season´ reassured our guesthouse managerby email before we left home - the local kiddies go out in the evenings and rescue the pufflings in boxes from the roadside and release them back to the wild.
All well and good youd think... except for there arent any puffins here now. ´Oh, there havent really been any here for the last couple of years... we had maybe 5 last year. When I was little there were hundreds.... blah blah blah.´ Hang on, didnt you say in your email that .... oh never mind. I hope you are enjoying our money.
So, the other riveting thing to do on the Vestmannaeyjar Island is to see where the island was enlarged by 1/3 in the early 70s by a volcanic eruption... and it was actually pretty spectacular. The line between the original settlement and where the new lava is quite abrupt. Pretty abrupt too I guess for those poor buggers who lost their homes. Of course in their very iceland-ickly indomitable way, the just built new houses. One can imagine them saying, as the nailed the last sheet of iron down on the roof... ´what are the odds of that happening again...´
Jude went for a strapping hike up the side of the hill overlooking the town and got some great shots. Nothing like learning to shoot on location. When we are back in Bergen on Wed night, Iĺl try and upload some pics for you. While she was being all intrepid, I was swimming in the local pool with the kids. We are still trying to reconcile this kind of modified expectation. Sometimes, I am living as vicariously through the photos as you are.... ha - you think Im joking. And youre getting it for free...
Anyway, its amazing that a whole country could feel so hunkered down. So pragmatic. One is really really aware of how the weather pretty much does as it wants, and you suffer it. Theres no amazing architecture, no flash colours in the housing like in Norway or Denmark, no trees, no agriculture, no MacDonalds [just kidding]. They fish and they stay indoors away from the howling wind and driving rain and blinding snow with a dark winter lasting nearly 10 months a year. I found it just incredible that 1000 years ago, people left their perfectly good homes in other countries and struck out across reasonably inhospitable water to build hunkered down kind of lives in a barren and windswept place like this... Now thats not to say that it isnt amazing in a remote and barren kind of way. It is, and we are both - now that the ferry rides are done with - quite struck with awe at it all really. Iceland. I mean really... Iceland. And we are here. It kind of feels normal in a Ive-never-done-this-before kind of way. I guess that didnt make any sense.
The multicultural life continues in Guesthouses and Hostels. We ate together with some greeks, germans and poms tonight. Breakfast this morning with a lovely german woman who came to Iceland for a month to study how a culture could arise unaffected by the romans.... We just came here because it seemed like a cool place. How shallow and unlearned!
Anyhow, tomorrow we go off to see the geysir after which all geysirs on earth are named... and europes largest waterfalls. Im not sure whether that refers to volume or height or amount of money obtained from tourists....
Iĺl let you know tomorrow....
Seriously, it´s not suprising that it isnt called the land of trees. On our 50min drive to the ferry to the Vestmannaeyjar Islands we didnt see ONE tree. Nothing even that closely resembled a bush [perhaps this is the only country where a Bush hasnt really got a foothold] - just this mossy stuff that youd see on the chin of a 15yo.
The trip across was not great. Whos idea was a ferry in the North Atlantic? The weather was pretty gloomy [and to give you an idea, here in the end of summer the weather was cooler than at home in Adelaide at the end of winter] though the locals thought it was ´a pretty smooth crossing´. Aaron looked particularly green and Jude stoically fought off the rumbles till the last 5 min. Lucky for us, the ferry ride only lasted 3 hours. Zoe slept half the way [courtesy of another 11pm bedtime] and I had to concentrate pretty hard on the horizon in order not to lose my lunch.
Now, back to my headline... the main, nay whole, reason for this part of the Icelandik voyage was for the kids to get involved in rescuing pufflings [yes, that is the name here for the baby puffins!] from being run over. The Vestmannaeyjar island is home to the worlds largest colonies of puffins. And at this time in August - ´yes we are in high season´ reassured our guesthouse managerby email before we left home - the local kiddies go out in the evenings and rescue the pufflings in boxes from the roadside and release them back to the wild.
All well and good youd think... except for there arent any puffins here now. ´Oh, there havent really been any here for the last couple of years... we had maybe 5 last year. When I was little there were hundreds.... blah blah blah.´ Hang on, didnt you say in your email that .... oh never mind. I hope you are enjoying our money.
So, the other riveting thing to do on the Vestmannaeyjar Island is to see where the island was enlarged by 1/3 in the early 70s by a volcanic eruption... and it was actually pretty spectacular. The line between the original settlement and where the new lava is quite abrupt. Pretty abrupt too I guess for those poor buggers who lost their homes. Of course in their very iceland-ickly indomitable way, the just built new houses. One can imagine them saying, as the nailed the last sheet of iron down on the roof... ´what are the odds of that happening again...´
Jude went for a strapping hike up the side of the hill overlooking the town and got some great shots. Nothing like learning to shoot on location. When we are back in Bergen on Wed night, Iĺl try and upload some pics for you. While she was being all intrepid, I was swimming in the local pool with the kids. We are still trying to reconcile this kind of modified expectation. Sometimes, I am living as vicariously through the photos as you are.... ha - you think Im joking. And youre getting it for free...
Anyway, its amazing that a whole country could feel so hunkered down. So pragmatic. One is really really aware of how the weather pretty much does as it wants, and you suffer it. Theres no amazing architecture, no flash colours in the housing like in Norway or Denmark, no trees, no agriculture, no MacDonalds [just kidding]. They fish and they stay indoors away from the howling wind and driving rain and blinding snow with a dark winter lasting nearly 10 months a year. I found it just incredible that 1000 years ago, people left their perfectly good homes in other countries and struck out across reasonably inhospitable water to build hunkered down kind of lives in a barren and windswept place like this... Now thats not to say that it isnt amazing in a remote and barren kind of way. It is, and we are both - now that the ferry rides are done with - quite struck with awe at it all really. Iceland. I mean really... Iceland. And we are here. It kind of feels normal in a Ive-never-done-this-before kind of way. I guess that didnt make any sense.
The multicultural life continues in Guesthouses and Hostels. We ate together with some greeks, germans and poms tonight. Breakfast this morning with a lovely german woman who came to Iceland for a month to study how a culture could arise unaffected by the romans.... We just came here because it seemed like a cool place. How shallow and unlearned!
Anyhow, tomorrow we go off to see the geysir after which all geysirs on earth are named... and europes largest waterfalls. Im not sure whether that refers to volume or height or amount of money obtained from tourists....
Iĺl let you know tomorrow....
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Did you hear me groan...
I did a very bad thing today...
I deleted an entire gigabyte of photos by mistake. A bit over 200 shots. No backup.
For all you crossword puzzle do-ers out there, a 'string of invective' floated out across the sea to Iceland, Greenland, and beyond. It echoes still...
Most of them were of the Sognefjord ferry trip, which thankfully we have some on video and some of the end of the fjord on the new card [see photos], but there were shots of the kids catching fish off the small jetty in Nordstrøno as well. Others I can't remember, but I'm sure will come back to me in a mid-night flashback. Running from giants and all that.... I'm not the flavour of the month at the moment. And probably for good reason. Probably also for good reason, 'we' have altered my 'camera-card finish, replacement, download and delete' process.
I have uploaded quite a few more photos into the Bergen, Norway photo album, so be sure to check it out.
We are flying out to the Land of Fire and Ice tomorrow afternoon, and as we may have only intermittent access to the internet, you may not hear from me till mid next week.... check in our back blogs - July - for our itinerary...
I deleted an entire gigabyte of photos by mistake. A bit over 200 shots. No backup.
For all you crossword puzzle do-ers out there, a 'string of invective' floated out across the sea to Iceland, Greenland, and beyond. It echoes still...
Most of them were of the Sognefjord ferry trip, which thankfully we have some on video and some of the end of the fjord on the new card [see photos], but there were shots of the kids catching fish off the small jetty in Nordstrøno as well. Others I can't remember, but I'm sure will come back to me in a mid-night flashback. Running from giants and all that.... I'm not the flavour of the month at the moment. And probably for good reason. Probably also for good reason, 'we' have altered my 'camera-card finish, replacement, download and delete' process.
I have uploaded quite a few more photos into the Bergen, Norway photo album, so be sure to check it out.
We are flying out to the Land of Fire and Ice tomorrow afternoon, and as we may have only intermittent access to the internet, you may not hear from me till mid next week.... check in our back blogs - July - for our itinerary...
Friday, August 15, 2008
Bought a Troll today...
Not too many days in your life you can say that....
The fish markets smelt as you would imagine, but other than that, Bergen has such an iceberg clean kind of smell. The forest up the top of the hill was mossy, with tall pines and birch trees. We rounded a lake where 3 strapping young lads had just taken a 'bath'. They looked sufficiently braced against the cold, with the more malleable apendages retreating to warmer climes... They said that they were camping for 3 weeks. This may have been their first wash. In this part of Europe one can camp for free on any public land.
We have been particularly lucky with the weather, as Bergen just broke it's own record for the most days in row that it has rained... over 100! They average just under 2.5 metres of rain/year.
It doesn't get really really dark here till after 11pm, so the kids are living a little more at the end of the day than usual... for eg, Jude and Helga are out for a walk now and it's just after 10pm... but just the beginning of twilight. At the height of summer they really only get 2 hours of semi darkness - midnight til 2am.... makes it great for sightseeing... but hard to get the kids to bed...
Zoe bought a moose finger puppet today... and for some reason chose to call it 'Seagull'. Can't quite predict how she'll go on this kind of thing... I hope she marries well.
Tuesday just gone, we spent the day on a ferry pottering up some of Norway's most famous fiords... the Sognefjord [pronounced Sogg-ne-fiord]. The longest fiord in the world at 204km. The weather was quite moody, perhaps taking it's lead from our youngest, but it only enhanced the drama of the setting - unlike our youngest! People have built their houses in the most incredible places... and we continue to be amazed at how this planet shows us its maker [sorry, a little bit o' religion there...]
Make sure you have a look at our online picture album every few days, as sometimes I upload more pics to the same album... I am just about to load some shots of the fiords and Bergen fenicular....
- [By the way, for those of you who are not so technologically advanced... where there are words highlighted in a different colour, you can click on them and you will be taken to another website that has some video of where it is we've been. I am using other people's video as it takes a good deal of time to upload video, and I'm lazy, so if you see other people in 'our' videos, don't be alarmed...!]
The fish markets smelt as you would imagine, but other than that, Bergen has such an iceberg clean kind of smell. The forest up the top of the hill was mossy, with tall pines and birch trees. We rounded a lake where 3 strapping young lads had just taken a 'bath'. They looked sufficiently braced against the cold, with the more malleable apendages retreating to warmer climes... They said that they were camping for 3 weeks. This may have been their first wash. In this part of Europe one can camp for free on any public land.
We have been particularly lucky with the weather, as Bergen just broke it's own record for the most days in row that it has rained... over 100! They average just under 2.5 metres of rain/year.
It doesn't get really really dark here till after 11pm, so the kids are living a little more at the end of the day than usual... for eg, Jude and Helga are out for a walk now and it's just after 10pm... but just the beginning of twilight. At the height of summer they really only get 2 hours of semi darkness - midnight til 2am.... makes it great for sightseeing... but hard to get the kids to bed...
Zoe bought a moose finger puppet today... and for some reason chose to call it 'Seagull'. Can't quite predict how she'll go on this kind of thing... I hope she marries well.
Tuesday just gone, we spent the day on a ferry pottering up some of Norway's most famous fiords... the Sognefjord [pronounced Sogg-ne-fiord]. The longest fiord in the world at 204km. The weather was quite moody, perhaps taking it's lead from our youngest, but it only enhanced the drama of the setting - unlike our youngest! People have built their houses in the most incredible places... and we continue to be amazed at how this planet shows us its maker [sorry, a little bit o' religion there...]
Make sure you have a look at our online picture album every few days, as sometimes I upload more pics to the same album... I am just about to load some shots of the fiords and Bergen fenicular....
Monday, August 11, 2008
US, Denmark, Norway...
Hi all...
Apologies for the delay in getting this to air.. there was a problem with our sponsors. So many have written asking for more pictures. Noone particularly asking to see shots of me... but I can only guess as to why...
I am uploading pictures from our day in New York, couple of days in Copenhagen, and of today in Bergen, Norway. If you EVER get the chance to come and see Skandinavia you just have to...
New Jersey/New York...
Staying with Rob and Joanna and their kids in New Jersey. Just to prove that I am hip and up to date with my political correctness I have a friend from Costa Rica. Well, his parent are from there, but he was born here. But his skin is dark... does that count for being differently ethnically abled?
We did the bus ride around Manhattan for a number of hours. Again, the kids were great, and were pretty wide eyed most of the time. On the ferry out to Ellis Island, we were able to stand right in the front of the boat, and Jude had a Titanic moment. Coincidentally, we passed the mooring on the Hudson River that the Titanic would have docked at should history have been written differently. Another fame-claim that the americans have owned. I was feeling strange about visiting Ground Zero - like I would have some kind of epiphany about world peace, but it was a construction site with excavatos and bulldozers and a lot of men standing around in smelly blue tshirts whistling at girls... ok, I made that last bit up, but you can see how my sense of romance was jarred a little. But there is a church right next door that somehow survived and is a kind of living memorial of mementos and for mourners and distant participants like us. Time Sqaure was a riot, and by the time we got home we'd been going more than 7 hours. Did I mention that we have amazing children?
Quite a long flight to Denmark on Wednesday, and an overnight flight at that. The kids slept about 3 of the 7.5 hours, and Jude and I took turns sitting next to a grownup adolescent american rap DJ who did karaoke to his ipod and talked loudly to his DoughBoy mate in the seat in front... God bless Cattle Class!
Cobenhavn, Denmark...
We checked into our first Hostel of the trip feeling very grumpy and not altogether the model family. There was an aussie guy working there who was very helpful and we were soon asleep for a few hours. Feeling like death-warmed-up-only-slightly we searched for food and went for a walk along a canal in Christianshavn - a bohemian enclave taken over by the uppermiddle classes who wish to have the appearance of coolness. I'm glad it didn't alter the actual architecture, just the atmosphere for the locals...
Day two presented us with the chance to putter along the canals in downtown, and for an hour or so, we oohed and aahed at the kind of lifestyle that we'd have had if either of us had married 'old money'.
We then spent the next 9 or so hours at the Tivoli... Until we left at around 10.30pm the kids literally didn't stop to breathe. They went on every ride they were allowed.. .about 21 at last count... the only thing stopping them was a height restriction. Spin, whirl, jump, slam, laugh, trip, steer, pull, laugh, scream, and laugh... [sounds like a church service to me...]
It is the most enchanting place I've been, and Aaron reckons his best day of his life. Big boast from an 8 year old...! Jude and I even went on the spinny-upsidedown-double loop-the-loop-corkscrew one... once.
We felt our time in Cobenhavn was far too short, with only an hour left before the plane left to race through 24 viking rooms at the national museum. Interesting, but I don't think I got much detail! ha
Bergen, Norway
We are staying here with a fantastic couple we met in Egypt in 2000. Of course, we are older and greyer, and they are not, but it has been a very warm and generous welcome. I cannot believe how beautiful it is here. Just agape. Bergen is hosting a port-of-call for an annual tall-ships race, and so today we walked - in the rain [about 1000 inches/year!] - around the harbour and had a geezer. We are planning a fiords and mountain pass kind of tour on Tuesday, so I'll post some more pictures after that....
You have to come to Norway.... really! Well, not right now... but sometime soon, before some blasted aussie builds the Big Viking or something and ruins it...
Apologies for the delay in getting this to air.. there was a problem with our sponsors. So many have written asking for more pictures. Noone particularly asking to see shots of me... but I can only guess as to why...
I am uploading pictures from our day in New York, couple of days in Copenhagen, and of today in Bergen, Norway. If you EVER get the chance to come and see Skandinavia you just have to...
New Jersey/New York...
Staying with Rob and Joanna and their kids in New Jersey. Just to prove that I am hip and up to date with my political correctness I have a friend from Costa Rica. Well, his parent are from there, but he was born here. But his skin is dark... does that count for being differently ethnically abled?
We did the bus ride around Manhattan for a number of hours. Again, the kids were great, and were pretty wide eyed most of the time. On the ferry out to Ellis Island, we were able to stand right in the front of the boat, and Jude had a Titanic moment. Coincidentally, we passed the mooring on the Hudson River that the Titanic would have docked at should history have been written differently. Another fame-claim that the americans have owned. I was feeling strange about visiting Ground Zero - like I would have some kind of epiphany about world peace, but it was a construction site with excavatos and bulldozers and a lot of men standing around in smelly blue tshirts whistling at girls... ok, I made that last bit up, but you can see how my sense of romance was jarred a little. But there is a church right next door that somehow survived and is a kind of living memorial of mementos and for mourners and distant participants like us. Time Sqaure was a riot, and by the time we got home we'd been going more than 7 hours. Did I mention that we have amazing children?
Quite a long flight to Denmark on Wednesday, and an overnight flight at that. The kids slept about 3 of the 7.5 hours, and Jude and I took turns sitting next to a grownup adolescent american rap DJ who did karaoke to his ipod and talked loudly to his DoughBoy mate in the seat in front... God bless Cattle Class!
Cobenhavn, Denmark...
We checked into our first Hostel of the trip feeling very grumpy and not altogether the model family. There was an aussie guy working there who was very helpful and we were soon asleep for a few hours. Feeling like death-warmed-up-only-slightly we searched for food and went for a walk along a canal in Christianshavn - a bohemian enclave taken over by the uppermiddle classes who wish to have the appearance of coolness. I'm glad it didn't alter the actual architecture, just the atmosphere for the locals...
Day two presented us with the chance to putter along the canals in downtown, and for an hour or so, we oohed and aahed at the kind of lifestyle that we'd have had if either of us had married 'old money'.
We then spent the next 9 or so hours at the Tivoli... Until we left at around 10.30pm the kids literally didn't stop to breathe. They went on every ride they were allowed.. .about 21 at last count... the only thing stopping them was a height restriction. Spin, whirl, jump, slam, laugh, trip, steer, pull, laugh, scream, and laugh... [sounds like a church service to me...]
It is the most enchanting place I've been, and Aaron reckons his best day of his life. Big boast from an 8 year old...! Jude and I even went on the spinny-upsidedown-double loop-the-loop-corkscrew one... once.
We felt our time in Cobenhavn was far too short, with only an hour left before the plane left to race through 24 viking rooms at the national museum. Interesting, but I don't think I got much detail! ha
Bergen, Norway
We are staying here with a fantastic couple we met in Egypt in 2000. Of course, we are older and greyer, and they are not, but it has been a very warm and generous welcome. I cannot believe how beautiful it is here. Just agape. Bergen is hosting a port-of-call for an annual tall-ships race, and so today we walked - in the rain [about 1000 inches/year!] - around the harbour and had a geezer. We are planning a fiords and mountain pass kind of tour on Tuesday, so I'll post some more pictures after that....
You have to come to Norway.... really! Well, not right now... but sometime soon, before some blasted aussie builds the Big Viking or something and ruins it...
Friday, August 1, 2008
Our human spirit
This has been brewing for a while, but has had less polish than a begger's best silver...
A couple of days ago, I was mulling over the fact that it seems 'sacreligious that our ordinary selves be involved in this journey of ours'. Know what I mean? Having to adjudicate in spats between Zoe and Aaron, and us arguing about which off-ramp to take while driving. Even eating our personal meals [feasting with friends somehow seems more noble], keeping our toenails clipped, finding another toilet for Zoe, deciding that yesterday's tshirt is still not smelly enough to warrant a full laundry load... seems to detract from the grandeur of the vision, the beauty of the journey, that my actual self is somehow tainting the purity of it.
I've been wrestling with this incongruity and it's a division of my own making [I reckon]. In the past I have found comfort in a monk's place of silence - separating my physical from my spirit, as though my body has no place in heaven - but I don't think a full life is to be lived out there. When I feel I'm living a full life, the ordinary is full of food and feasts, good wine, and beaches, and sport, towering trees, huge farts [all too often I'm afraid] and laughing so hard I can't control my saliva... and companionship, planning a life, brushing the hair from Zoe's eyes when she's asleep, good loving [not often enough I'm afraid], dreaming of what might be, sharing people's stories, watching mine unfold... all of the stuff that is 'ordinary' - but FULL of life.
If life in the spirit is anything at all, it has to be about these things. Ok, maybe not the farts.
Hopefully we return from this trip more ordinary than before...
A couple of days ago, I was mulling over the fact that it seems 'sacreligious that our ordinary selves be involved in this journey of ours'. Know what I mean? Having to adjudicate in spats between Zoe and Aaron, and us arguing about which off-ramp to take while driving. Even eating our personal meals [feasting with friends somehow seems more noble], keeping our toenails clipped, finding another toilet for Zoe, deciding that yesterday's tshirt is still not smelly enough to warrant a full laundry load... seems to detract from the grandeur of the vision, the beauty of the journey, that my actual self is somehow tainting the purity of it.
I've been wrestling with this incongruity and it's a division of my own making [I reckon]. In the past I have found comfort in a monk's place of silence - separating my physical from my spirit, as though my body has no place in heaven - but I don't think a full life is to be lived out there. When I feel I'm living a full life, the ordinary is full of food and feasts, good wine, and beaches, and sport, towering trees, huge farts [all too often I'm afraid] and laughing so hard I can't control my saliva... and companionship, planning a life, brushing the hair from Zoe's eyes when she's asleep, good loving [not often enough I'm afraid], dreaming of what might be, sharing people's stories, watching mine unfold... all of the stuff that is 'ordinary' - but FULL of life.
If life in the spirit is anything at all, it has to be about these things. Ok, maybe not the farts.
Hopefully we return from this trip more ordinary than before...
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