B-b-b-b-berlin!

Gone to Berlin for the weekend.

Ah, the wonders of living on the mainland...

Expect pictures! Finally.

Scrape, scrape, scrape

There was ice on my windshield this morning.

As I was busy scraping it off, I imagined the scores of curious Belgians who must have been, at that moment, standing by their windows in all the surrounding houses, gaping in awe at this fantastic device used for that purpose. So specific, so effective against such a rare natural phenomenon that ice on the windshield surely is in this part of the world.

"Where do you get this sort of thing?" asks one in wonderment.
"What kind of genius could come up with such a device?" asks another.
"I wonder if he might also have some sort of cheese-cutting implement?" ponders a third.
"For God's sake," exclaims a fourth, "he's no superman!"

And I felt proud of myself and my northern heritage and my mastery of sub-zero conditions right until I took a wrong turn on the way to work and got lost. Again.

I heard the news today...

... and there was no mention of Iceland's EPIC victory over EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS France.

We lost what should have been the fight for second place, only to go on and do the impossible and beat France and win the group.

Huzzah!!

Next Sunday: Iceland v. Germany ;)

Handball

I've been trying to spark some interest in handball among my friends and colleagues, what with the world championships going on, but with little success.

I will still report on this page about the latest results, at least as long as they're favourable.

So Iceland started with a bang, beating Australia 45 - 20. It's a good indicator of what vastly different levels the teams in the handball world are at when you consider that Australia beat Cook Islands 63 - 5 to qualify for the finals.

Should Iceland qualify, they will end up in a group with Germany, so there's a chance I'll be able to see Iceland - Germany play while I'm in Berlin next weekend. But before then, there's some interest to spark. ;) Not counting on it :P

EDIT: And with yesterday's loss against the Ukraine it looks like I won't have to worry about it anyway. Bleh.

Wind

Two lives claimed in Belgium by the raging storm.

Raging storm? Only a few days ago while battling the Reykjavík wind I was thinking how I didn't remember it ever having been terribly windy in Belgium. Was it simply that my memory wasn't better, or was Belgium really not a windy place? Less windy than a flat, barren peninsula sticking out into the Atlantic Ocean, surely.

I guess I was wrong. On Thursday the wind was definitely a full match for a... well, a fairly windy day in Reykjavík. It wasn't until I ran into a tree that had snapped and lay on the road, and few minutes later one uprooted, leaning against a house, that I noticed that maybe this was more serious.

The next morning, as daylight shone on the backyard of the house, nay, mansion I'm staying at in Sint-Denijs-Westrem (it's a Bed and Breakfast just outside of Gent I'm temporarily living at), I saw that all of Madame Francine (the landlady)'s pine trees were either uprooted or broken in pieces, a large pile of branches in one corner of the backyard, next to the swimming pool (I mentioned it was a mansion, right?).

And then news of the casualties started coming in. Did I really misjudge the ferocity of the storm so much, or is this just an area not used to such storms as are so common in Reykjavík, making the effects more apparent? I don't know what the wind speeds were here, but certainly nothing close to what they had in Germany.

In any case, it didn't take long to clear the roads and get the traffic moving again, and in fact this evening when I went with 13 other (former) Nuance employees to the restaurant La Rustica for a pizza there was hardly any trace at all of the storm that had passed over just hours before.

Not quite

The plan didn't really work out, I ended up arriving in Denmark 3 days and 8 hours late. This included arriving in Bergen three times: once from the Faeroes, once after sailing for nine hours towards Denmark only to turn around because of the weather, and once when we had to turn around when the engine failed.

I won't go into too many details about the trip now, but to alleviate the boredom of waiting for the weather to clear up I had some truly inspiring conversations like this one:

Location: Somewhere on the way from the Faeroes to Norway.
Passenger (pensive): "My geography isn't very good. What ocean is this we're sailing on?"
Me: "This would be the North-Atlantic."
Passenger: "Ah. And the Mediterranean?"
Me: "Uhm... Well, it's a sea, not an ocean. And it's to the south of here, you know, between southern Europe and Africa, reaches all the way to Turkey and..."
Passenger: "Oh, and the Indian Ocean? That's in Africa, right?"
Me: "... it's close to India. India is in Asia."

But I made it in the end, and now I'm in Belgium starting my new job. :)

The Plan

It's all shaping up. The plan is now as follows

• Monday:
• Noon: Leave Reykjavík
• Evening: Arrive in Akureyri
• Tuesday:
• Chill
  
• Wednesday:
• Morning: Leave Akureyri
• Afternoon: Arrive in Seyðisfjörður, board ferry
  
• Thursday:
• Noon: Arrive in Tórshavn
• Evening: Leave Tórshavn
• Friday:
• Afternoon: Arrive in Bergen
• Evening: Leave Bergen
• Saturday:
• Noon: Arrive in Hanstholm, disembark, drive off
• Evening: Arrive in Hamburg
• Sunday:
• Morning: Leave Hamburg
• Evening: Arrive in Gent
• Monday:
• Morning: Go to work

Starting to get pretty excited... :)

Parma

Ég var að hlusta á Orð skulu standa á Rás1, og þar kom fram uppruni orðsins spaghetti. Orðið er sumsé dregið af orðinu spago, "spotti", og þessu alkunna ítalska smækkunarviðskeyti skellt aftan á. Spaghetti þýðir þá einfaldlega "smáspottar".

Ef við skoðum svo rétt eins og spaghetti Bolognese er þar með öðrum orðum átt við smáspotta frá Bologna, sumsé Parma, sem er bara örfáa kílómetra þaðan. Þannig má draga þá ályktun að spaghetti Bolognese þýðir líklegast Parma. Þá er bara eftir að skikka Ítalina til að kalla Parma skinkuna góðu prosciutto di spaghetti Bolognese.

Ég vil taka fram að þessar pælingar eru gerðar seint að kvöldi.

Memories

I could never remember my Visa PIN number. Finding an unopened envelope from Visa today explained why.

Busy bear

busy bear. n. Much like a busy bee, only much bigger and a lot busier, especially during the hibernating months. Famously likes saying: "I can hibernate when I'm dead!" Generally eats large quantities of pizza while busy.

So much to do in a really short time. I got back from Akureyri yesterday evening, and I'm leaving Reykjavík again next Monday or Tuesday. Before then I will have to empty out my apartment and clean everything, as well as take care of various details not related to the apartment. So, a bit of wild juggling ahead. Just hope the sailing will be smooth and relaxing, so I can recover some energy before the long drive to Belgium...

Enough of this, the pizza is ready.

tvöþúsundogsex -> tweeduizendzeven

Gleðilegt nýtt ár
Happy New Year
Gelukkig nieuwjaar

As you can probably imagine I can hardly wait for the new year to start with a new job in a new country. With everything so new it was nearly poetic when it started snowing, and this morning everything was white: my footprints writing the first words on the empty sheet the new year presented me with.

Note I said nearly poetic, you should see what happens when it's REALLY poetic.

But as much as I look forward to the coming weeks and months, these days I'm thinking equally of the year that's passed and all the happy moments I've had with all the wonderful people I'm honoured to call my friends. :)

Skál! Cheers! Gezondheid!