Holy Days

It has been the Easter season, as we all know. This is also associated with numerous days off. However, this year in Iceland, it was the week after Easter that was riddled with public holidays. Ok, maybe not public holidays, but they were definitely Me Holidays. And for good reason.

When the snow's away, the mice can play!

Monday (Game of Thrones Day)

8 am – 5 pm              Thought about studying. Brain malfunctioned.

5 pm – late                Ate. Game of Thrones. Pictionary.

Good morning Sunshine! 

Tuesday (ANZAC Biscuit Day)

8 am – 2 pm              Thought about studying. Brain called in sick.

2 pm – 5 pm              Group study. Made ANZAC biscuits.

5 pm – late                Ate. Pictionary.

The world says hello!

Wednesday (Last Day of Winter)

8 am – 2 pm              Thought about studying. Brain went for a walk instead.

2 pm – 3 pm              Thought a little harder about studying. Brain nearly died.

3pm – 5 pm               Youtube.

5 pm – 8 pm              Ate. Pictionary.

8 pm – 11 pm            Water polo.

11 pm – even later     Last Day of Winter Festivities.

Blue sky can exist in Iceland

Thursday (First Day of Summer - Official Public Holiday)

8 am – 8 pm              Respected that it was a Holy Day. Enjoyed the sunshine.

8 pm – 9 pm              Dinner with flatmates’ family.

9 pm – late                 Cups of tea. Arm wrestling competitions.

Sometimes

Friday (Family Dinner Day)

8 am – 3 pm              Thought about studying. Couldn’t find my brain.

3 pm – 8 pm              Made my contribution to Family Dinner.

8 pm – late                 Ate Family Dinner.

Temperature was off the thermometer at 12 ˚C 

Saturday (First Day of the Weekend)

8 am – 12 pm            Ran errands. Sent some personal letters to Obama.

12 pm – 2 pm            Had a nap.

2 pm – 5 pm              Enjoyed the sunshine with friends.

5 pm – 8 pm              Recovered from spending time with my friends.

8 pm – even later      Ate.

Sunrise: 0511 Light appearance: 0410

Or something ridiculous like that

Sunday (Day of Rest)

I kept the Sabbath.         

    

Sunset: 2142. Light disappearance 2329. 

Or something ridiculous like that.  

‘Twas a difficult week for me.

I Never Went South

The weekend festivities took place (largely) at the ‘I Never Went South’ (Aldrei fór ég sudur) Music Festival in the West Fjords of Iceland.

You know the saying that it is all fun and games until someone gets hurt. It’s a fact.

Fortunately, removing the lower half of one of your incisors doesn’t hurt and fun could be had for the remainder of the weekend.

Welcome to the West Fjords

~~~

Sidenote

Official Story: My friend and I were re-enacting the scene from The Hangover where Stu gets his tooth pulled out and accidentally broke off half the tooth.

Unofficial Story: My friend fell over playing ping pong.

You can decide which you want to believe.

~~~

Picnic spot

There were many prominent figures at the festival and if they weren't prominent then they definitely should have been because they were great. Including but not limited to:

General ambience

Mr Iceland: Present and presenting. Not actually Mr Iceland, but epitomised what a Viking should be complete with shield, sword and a set of lungs that would embarrass even Black Bolt.

 Mr Iceland

Páll Óskar:  He came decked out in a hot pink suit, a serious comb over, glitter cannons and balloons.

Páll Óskar

Hermigervill: Played the theremin. Enough said.

Hermigervill

Retro Stefson: Containing the only two (not quite, but might as well have) black brothers in Iceland. I'm not racist, that's simply a fact - almost.

Retro Stefson

A few tricks that I have learnt from the weekend:

*      A winter jacket is never a good idea in a mosh pit if you don’t want to die of hyperthermia.

*      Always go to the bathroom before entering

*      If you do need to weasel your way back through the crowd, yelling ‘Mum!’ at the top of your lungs has a tendency to get it to part for you (alternatively, if you only have half a tooth, simply smiling works just as well).

The accommodation

Other worldly weekend full of crazy Icelanders, good friends and incredible music.

The outlook

Peace out, Rockstars.

ThinkTank

This week, my friends and I formed a ThinkTank in order to produce a rap video for a friend’s birthday. While ThinkTank’s are a good idea in theory, the reality (at least for me) was much less appealing. Ideas are filtered and shaped onsite, in the presence of all your teammates. The idea filtering process went something like this:

A beautiful day in Sunny Reykjavik

Task 1 - Choose songs to perform

Me:                              I don’t know any rap songs. What about ‘What Does the Fox Say?’

Bystander #1:            I hate that song and refuse to perform it.

Bystander #2:            What about Macklemore. Thrift Shop. Or Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song?

Bystander #1:            They are great ideas! I reckon we should use both!

Me:                              Ok.

Which way is up?

Task 2 - Work on the lyrics

Bystander #1:            What rhymes with shame?

Me (thinking):           Pencil, crocodile, street, purple, tree. No, no, no, no, no.

Bystander #2:            Lame

Bystander #3:            Aim

Bystander #4:            Claim

Bystander #5:            Fame

Bystander #6:            Name

Bystander #1:            Very good guys! I like it, I like it a lot! We’re going to get this lyrics pumped out in no time!

Me:                            Ok.

Something to aspire to.

Task 3 - Film the video:

Bystander #1:            We need to camera out a little more. How could we do that?

Me:                              Well, I saw that somebody had a shoehorn in their room. And I have hair ties. Maybe we could tie the GoPro to the shoe horn? Would that work?

Bystander #2:            I have a GoPro film pole. I’ll just go and get it for you.

Bystander #1:            That sounds perfect! Thanks so much!

Me:                              Ok.

 

Maybe I'd be more useful at the bottom of the cliff?

Task 4 - Edit the video:

Bystander #1:            Cool. So it’s all done. Should be all good to go.

Me:                              Awesome. Is it saved? Can I close it?

Bystander #1:            I’m not sure – maybe just check.

Me:                              Apparently iMovie automatically saves all your projects. I’ll just close it and see what happens.

If the ThinkTank are standing where the photo was taken. 

I am the football. 

Turns out it doesn’t really ‘save’ everything.

Me:                              Ok.

Stumbling around in the dark

I remade the video. 

The Grass is (Getting) Greener...

I have come to the conclusion that the grass is getting greener. For some people, it is greener over the fence, or in the house (depending on your intoxication levels).

The flora is getting greener

Having dinner parties is common place. However, due to the lack of functional windows in Iceland there are limited air circulation options, which usually results in the opening of doors; commonly the front door.

The (not so hot this week) hot river

It is true that Iceland is one of the safest countries in the world (during my research, I found that NZ was the safest, which I thought was more than slightly ironic, given the stabbing of the hitchhikers last week). But, whatever, with Iceland ranking 4th, we concluded we were safe. Not a problem. So we (whatever - I) left the front door open and got back to eating dinner. 

Some steam

For one guy though, with the door open, the lights on, an slight increase in temperature and being rather under the influence, concluded that our house looked much more inviting than the cold, dark street. So he showed himself in, took himself up the stairs, and put himself to sleep on the landing of the second storey of our flat.

A luke warm pool

All this occurred unbeknownst to us, happy in our ignorance, feeding our tummies in the kitchen. 

It would be fair to say that this guy would not have passed a breath test. When his presence was discovered, my kindly turnip-shaped (Swedish) flatmates helped him down the stairs and then turned him lose as soon as his feet touched the pavement.

We left him to find his own way home

Or was it this way he needed to go? 

We looked at each other. Took stock of the rather odd situation. And went back to eating dinner.

As much as he was not invited, if anybody is looking for a drunk Icelandic man to invite himself into your house and put himself to sleep, I would recommend this one.

He had the following great qualities:
- Quiet
- Entertaining
- Co-operative
- Didn’t need to be walked home (open to debate)

The grass is always greener

However, some improvements for him to work on for next time:
- General cleanliness
- Announcing his arrival before putting himself to sleep

Some art (because I'm into that now) at Harpa

For this guy at least, the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. ‘Props to him though for having the initiative to cross the fence and go to that place where the grass was greener. He was a trooper.