Today I hung out with my friend Jackie after work. She lives out near Green River Community College, which is in the opposite direction from my house if you're coming from Kentridge. I'm not quite sure why, but on the way home I decided to go the long way...the REALLY long way. What should have taken me twenty minutes tops took me an hour, but I loved it!
You see, I love adventures but I hardly ever get them. Not that driving out of the way is much of an adventure, but I went on the back roads and on roads I'd never been on. I nearly got lost a couple times and it was perfect! One thing I like to do is scope out future residencies, like roads I'd like to live on or areas I'd like to live in. Today I went down a few of those.
By no means am I living my dream life. Don't get me wrong, I love my life, but if I could live exactly the way I want to it would look nothing like how I do, starting with my lovely abode. I currently live in a two-bedroom apartment with a noisy downstairs neighbor, not enough parking, and a street light right outside my window. My dream house is a country-style two story house with a wrap-around porch on at least two acres of land. In the back is a huge patio or deck, large enough for entertaining, plus a large grass area and plenty of trees and ferns. There's a porch swing in the front and a large circular driveway speckled with huge trees but not so many that the sun doesn't come through. Inside, it's open and welcoming with exposed beams on the ceiling and a large loft on the second story. Large windows on the front and back let in plenty of sunlight. In the far corner of the back yard is a chicken house with ten laying chickens and a goat barn with two goats for milking. Our dog, some sort of lab, runs around our yard with no fear of him running away since we have the invisible fence. Our two cats, Max and Mika, sit in the big window watching the birds in the trees and the humming birds drink from the feeders. Last but not least, there's a long media room above the detached garage (which is really a studio for my DIY projects) with a pool table on one end, tiered seating facing one wall, and a projector with a Bose sound system for watching our favorite movies.
*sigh* I guess everyone has dreams that will never be fulfilled, right? I mean, seriously...two teacher's salaries? My dream will never come true. And if I really did have chickens and goats (which I really do want), I'd have to tend to them, which means I couldn't work full time. And I'd love that. Another part of my dream is getting to a point in my teaching career where eight hours a day five days a week really is all I have to put in rather than ten hours a day five days a week, plus weekends. But that's another dream that's truly just a fantasy. My goodness...how life ends up so differently than we expect! And I'm still young! Goodness gracious.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
From the Moon to Helms Deep
Okay, not really, but everything here does feel like it's straight out of a Lord of the Rings movie. Yesterday morning we decided to rent a car and we've been exploring the areas to the north and south of Reykjavik ever since. We've driven approximately 450 miles in the past two days and, man, what an adventure it's been! On day one it seemed that Iceland was one big flat lava field covered in thick moss. Yesterday, however, we headed north along the coast and we definitely found our mountains. The weird thing is that the mountains come straight up out of the flat plains and there are hardly any trees on any of them. This is definitely not Western Washington! As we headed north along the coast, I kept hoping to see a whale but sadly that dream has not yet become a reality. A whale or a puffin...I've gotta see one before I go!
Anyway, after heading north for a while, we followed a fjord to its inner-most point where we went hiking up an old trail to a waterfall. It's supposedly the highest waterfall on all of Iceland. We actually couldn't make it all the way, though, because we were stopped by a river that I'm sure people walk across during the summer without getting their feet wet. However, we decided to come in early spring and, as a result, the river was much too high for us to cross. Instead, we found deep caves and caverns, abandoned military and farm houses, huge fields of thick grass to frolic in, and all sorts of other interesting things. By no means was it time wasted!
Today we headed out again but to the south this time. The terrain is much different heading to the south than it is to the north. We encountered the lava fields that we saw on the first day but eventually found more mountains, like in the north. It was so weird because if you looked out one side of the car the landscape was completely flat and led straight to the ocean. People actually farmed this land, but we're not quite sure what they're farming because it just looks like a bunch of grass and Icelandic horses to us. If you looked out the other side of the car it almost looked like eastern Washington, or maybe Utah. Huge stacks of rocks and sharp mountains protruded from the earth in varying shades of brown, black and green. You could see on the sides of the mountains where the earth had fallen off of the side to make sharp cliffs. Every once in a while a pillar of steam would rise from some random spot on the mountainside. The hot springs are anything but few and far between around here. We actually saw a little one about a foot from the road yesterday with no covering or barrier or anything keeping people from walking right up to it. I guess it's common enough around here that they don't have to worry about kids touching the literally boiling water.
Though the hot springs are interesting, the main attractions from our drive today were two large waterfalls. Since the mountains seem to rise out of the ground in complete randomness, it was easy to see both waterfalls from miles off; however, getting to go up close to each one was absolutely amazing!
We were able to walk behind the first waterfall. Petra (Ben's sister) and I stood on the edge of the path right behind the water and the power of the spray nearly knocked us off our feet! We were not able to go behind the second waterfall, but it was about twice as tall and twice as wide and we climbed a huge staircase to the top, providing an amazing panoramic view. Looking to the right, you could see the mountains just near Reykjavik - a couple hours drive away - and to the left was a faint gray outline of a small island (our third stop of the day) and a natural arc out in the water cut from the rock big enough for ships to sail through. This part of Iceland actually looked a lot like the Oregon coast except the beaches are stark black. The contrast between the white foam of the ocean against the black sand beaches was breath-taking. If you've ever been to a black sand beach, you know that they're usually pretty coarse - more like small rocks than actual sand. These beaches were as soft as white sand, but as black as if someone had dyed them that way.
Apparently this small island was made millions of years ago (or maybe just many thousands) by an underwater volcano that erupted and let out enough magma to reach the surface. Because of this, the rock formations are really unique. The rocks come up in thick geometrical pillars in black and gray. Not much grows here, as you can imagine, but much of the island has started growing a thin grass that really adds to the beauty of the contrasting colors.
At about this time, the rain finally came. We've been blessed to have nothing but sun since we got here and the forecast was set for 100 percent rain. This gave us a good excuse to head home, though, which brings us to the end of our day. It's amazing how quickly time goes by when you're on vacation! We've already been here nearly half of our trip. I just can't believe it! I'm looking forward to many more adventures ahead of us, however. We're not slowing down for anyone!
Anyway, after heading north for a while, we followed a fjord to its inner-most point where we went hiking up an old trail to a waterfall. It's supposedly the highest waterfall on all of Iceland. We actually couldn't make it all the way, though, because we were stopped by a river that I'm sure people walk across during the summer without getting their feet wet. However, we decided to come in early spring and, as a result, the river was much too high for us to cross. Instead, we found deep caves and caverns, abandoned military and farm houses, huge fields of thick grass to frolic in, and all sorts of other interesting things. By no means was it time wasted!
Though the hot springs are interesting, the main attractions from our drive today were two large waterfalls. Since the mountains seem to rise out of the ground in complete randomness, it was easy to see both waterfalls from miles off; however, getting to go up close to each one was absolutely amazing!
We were able to walk behind the first waterfall. Petra (Ben's sister) and I stood on the edge of the path right behind the water and the power of the spray nearly knocked us off our feet! We were not able to go behind the second waterfall, but it was about twice as tall and twice as wide and we climbed a huge staircase to the top, providing an amazing panoramic view. Looking to the right, you could see the mountains just near Reykjavik - a couple hours drive away - and to the left was a faint gray outline of a small island (our third stop of the day) and a natural arc out in the water cut from the rock big enough for ships to sail through. This part of Iceland actually looked a lot like the Oregon coast except the beaches are stark black. The contrast between the white foam of the ocean against the black sand beaches was breath-taking. If you've ever been to a black sand beach, you know that they're usually pretty coarse - more like small rocks than actual sand. These beaches were as soft as white sand, but as black as if someone had dyed them that way.
At about this time, the rain finally came. We've been blessed to have nothing but sun since we got here and the forecast was set for 100 percent rain. This gave us a good excuse to head home, though, which brings us to the end of our day. It's amazing how quickly time goes by when you're on vacation! We've already been here nearly half of our trip. I just can't believe it! I'm looking forward to many more adventures ahead of us, however. We're not slowing down for anyone!
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Easter On the Moon
I'm sitting here in our Icelandic apartment blogging and eating Easter dinner. Normally, Easter dinner is eaten with my mom's side of the family around 3 or 4 p.m. and consists of salmon (thank you, Scandinavian heritage) and a wide array of family favorites as side dishes, including my step dad's famous deviled eggs. Today, however, it's 6:40 (but really it's noon because of the time difference) and Easter dinner consists of soft tacos made of lettuce, mozzarella cheese (no cheddar - who would've guessed?), and some sort of ground meat that we're pretty sure was beef, but the package only had Icelandic writing so I really have no clue. Our second guess is lamb. We're just hoping for the best on that one :)
Anyway, my husband and I aren't really the biggest Easter participants anyway so it's not a huge deal that we're in Iceland today but it's definitely the most unique Easter I've ever had. We left for Iceland yesterday at 4:30 in the afternoon and arrived seven hours later on a new day. Considering we got here at 6:40 a.m. and it was 11:40 p.m. to us Seattlites, it's been a challenge to stay awake all day. In fact, I haven't stayed awake the whole time, but who can resist a half-hour cat nap while waiting at the airport?
After grabbing breakfast at the Keflavik International Airport and waiting around for the bus, we headed to what's known as the Blue Lagoon. It was only a half hour away, but in that short time I felt like I'd somehow traveled to another planet. Mars or the moon, most likely. I could tell from the airport that Iceland was flat (at least by the coast), but as we drove away, the landscape was unbelievable. We didn't see a single tree the entire half-hour drive. Even weirder was the jagged earth that went on endlessly in all directions. Volcanic rock covers Iceland like a densely-sprinkled doughnut. Or maybe like an ice cream sundae covered in peanuts. And rather than grass, because, seriously, how could grass grow around here, the ground - err...rock - was covered with a thick, rich green moss. It was beautiful, and it covered so much of the rocks that you could hardly tell they were there if you weren't looking directly at them.
Finally, we arrived at the Blue Lagoon. Let's just say, if I'd thought I was on another planet prior to entering the Blue Lagoon, it was confirmed the second they tore my ticket and I headed to the main attraction. The Blue Lagoon is basically a small man-made lake, except rather than what we're used to in Seattle, the lake they've made is filled with mineral-rich sea water pumped in many miles to process at a steam energy plant which is then pumped a quarter of a mile more to rest over a geothermal vents rising from deep in the earth's crust. Since Iceland is so full of volcanic rock, the air pockets in the rock act as veins for the heat to rise straight to the surface, basically creating a giant hot tub. Some spots were even too hot to stand in!
The water is also a milky-whitish-turquoise. Swimmers can't see more than two inches into the pool and the minerals in the water make it feel like you're swimming through thinned-out body wash. It's not uncommon to see swimmers with mud-masked faces, either. Swimmers will cover their face with a muddy white paste made of silica (yes, I did this too) that's supposed to revitalize your skin. I'm not sure if it revitalized anything, but we all got a laugh at how goofy we looked with the white paste dripping from our eyebrows, chins and noses! Or maybe it was funny because we'd been up for 18 hours and our bodies desperately wanted to be asleep. Either way, my stomach got a workout from laughing.
After a few hours of relaxing at the lagoon, we hopped back on a bus and headed to Reykjavik, Iceland's capital, to settle in to our hotel. We're actually staying in a short-term apartment. We have a little kitchen and a little living room where Petra will sleep (she's Ben's little sister - we kind of brought her here for her senior trip [she's in high school]). The kitchen has a refrigerator and a stove and oven, as well as a dishwasher, dishes, pots and pans, and the whole shebang. We were pretty excited to find such a well-equipped place to stay, considering food around here is two to three times more expensive than at home. If we had to eat out throughout our entire stay, we'd be bankrupt! Anyway, that brings me back to the beginning. Here I am, sitting in our little apartment - I've finished my soft taco already - just blogging away about my first day on the moon. Wait, did I say that? I mean Iceland. My first day on Iceland. It's only 7:e0 as I finish this entry, but I've been up for 29 hours at this point, and after a long, hot shower, I'm ready to head for bed. I'm excited to see what else this crazy place has to offer tomorrow :) Happy Easter, everyone!
Anyway, my husband and I aren't really the biggest Easter participants anyway so it's not a huge deal that we're in Iceland today but it's definitely the most unique Easter I've ever had. We left for Iceland yesterday at 4:30 in the afternoon and arrived seven hours later on a new day. Considering we got here at 6:40 a.m. and it was 11:40 p.m. to us Seattlites, it's been a challenge to stay awake all day. In fact, I haven't stayed awake the whole time, but who can resist a half-hour cat nap while waiting at the airport?
After grabbing breakfast at the Keflavik International Airport and waiting around for the bus, we headed to what's known as the Blue Lagoon. It was only a half hour away, but in that short time I felt like I'd somehow traveled to another planet. Mars or the moon, most likely. I could tell from the airport that Iceland was flat (at least by the coast), but as we drove away, the landscape was unbelievable. We didn't see a single tree the entire half-hour drive. Even weirder was the jagged earth that went on endlessly in all directions. Volcanic rock covers Iceland like a densely-sprinkled doughnut. Or maybe like an ice cream sundae covered in peanuts. And rather than grass, because, seriously, how could grass grow around here, the ground - err...rock - was covered with a thick, rich green moss. It was beautiful, and it covered so much of the rocks that you could hardly tell they were there if you weren't looking directly at them.
 | |
| Moss-covered volcanic rock in Iceland. |
The water is also a milky-whitish-turquoise. Swimmers can't see more than two inches into the pool and the minerals in the water make it feel like you're swimming through thinned-out body wash. It's not uncommon to see swimmers with mud-masked faces, either. Swimmers will cover their face with a muddy white paste made of silica (yes, I did this too) that's supposed to revitalize your skin. I'm not sure if it revitalized anything, but we all got a laugh at how goofy we looked with the white paste dripping from our eyebrows, chins and noses! Or maybe it was funny because we'd been up for 18 hours and our bodies desperately wanted to be asleep. Either way, my stomach got a workout from laughing.
After a few hours of relaxing at the lagoon, we hopped back on a bus and headed to Reykjavik, Iceland's capital, to settle in to our hotel. We're actually staying in a short-term apartment. We have a little kitchen and a little living room where Petra will sleep (she's Ben's little sister - we kind of brought her here for her senior trip [she's in high school]). The kitchen has a refrigerator and a stove and oven, as well as a dishwasher, dishes, pots and pans, and the whole shebang. We were pretty excited to find such a well-equipped place to stay, considering food around here is two to three times more expensive than at home. If we had to eat out throughout our entire stay, we'd be bankrupt! Anyway, that brings me back to the beginning. Here I am, sitting in our little apartment - I've finished my soft taco already - just blogging away about my first day on the moon. Wait, did I say that? I mean Iceland. My first day on Iceland. It's only 7:e0 as I finish this entry, but I've been up for 29 hours at this point, and after a long, hot shower, I'm ready to head for bed. I'm excited to see what else this crazy place has to offer tomorrow :) Happy Easter, everyone!
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Julia: this one's for you :)
The other day at lunch, you asked me what I talk about with my friends. I have to admit, I was stumped by the question. I'd never thought before about what goes back and forth between my friends and I. So, as a result, I decided to take note.
Since I was hanging out with a couple of my good friends that night, I decided to subtly track our conversation throughout dinner and then back at their place. We went to Cheesecake Factory (is there a 'the' in front of that?) in Bellevue, then back to their apartment on Mercer Island to play games, but I guess that's not the important part. The significant stuff is the discourse. I have to admit, we didn't talk about anything special. We discussed books (specifically Ender's Game and the series of books following that storyline), we talked about traveling (our friend Danny has basically traveled the world - earlier this year he discovered a shipwrecked boat off the coast of Mexico by using Google Maps and he later drove two hours with his dad just to find it and explore the place), we talked about music, and movies, and good beer. Oh, and we talked about our pets. Lots of talk about our pets. I guess that's what happens when you get five animal-lovers with no kids and very little free time together in the same room. I'm sure five years from now we'll sound less pathetic and we'll talk more about humans than their furry counterparts, but for now I'm content with cats and dogs.
On the other hand, when I get together with just my girl friends things are totally different. Friday night was girls and guys, so the conversation stays gender neutral. When it's all girls, things change. We still talk about good books, music, travel...but we also talk about girl stuff. I think girls can uplift their female friends in a way that guys don't understand. When I was in high school I had mostly guy friends. I liked that there wasn't any drama. However, all of my leaders and mentors would talk about how important it is to have a small group of girl friends who you're closer with than anyone else. I didn't learn how true this was until I grew up. We can talk about our bodies (and our discomforts or encouragements about them), we can talk about relationships, we can talk about our jobs, we can talk about our dreams...there's just a different sense of connection. Even with Ben it's different. Sure, he's my husband. He's my best friend. But he's my best friend in a vastly different way than my friend Tracy is, or my friend Jackie, or Stephanie, or Michelle, or Janine...okay, these are just names to you, but they're the important people in my life. One more: Jamie.
Jamie's getting married this summer. She and I have a lot of similar fears about relationships and abandonment. She and I lived together for three years during and after college. We know more about each other than anyone else except our own spouses (probably). We've been hurt and we've supported each other, we've fought and sworn at each other, we've laughed and cried together. Yeah, I love my girl friends. They're the best. Okay, this last paragraph got a little off track, but oh well :) THE END!
Since I was hanging out with a couple of my good friends that night, I decided to subtly track our conversation throughout dinner and then back at their place. We went to Cheesecake Factory (is there a 'the' in front of that?) in Bellevue, then back to their apartment on Mercer Island to play games, but I guess that's not the important part. The significant stuff is the discourse. I have to admit, we didn't talk about anything special. We discussed books (specifically Ender's Game and the series of books following that storyline), we talked about traveling (our friend Danny has basically traveled the world - earlier this year he discovered a shipwrecked boat off the coast of Mexico by using Google Maps and he later drove two hours with his dad just to find it and explore the place), we talked about music, and movies, and good beer. Oh, and we talked about our pets. Lots of talk about our pets. I guess that's what happens when you get five animal-lovers with no kids and very little free time together in the same room. I'm sure five years from now we'll sound less pathetic and we'll talk more about humans than their furry counterparts, but for now I'm content with cats and dogs.
On the other hand, when I get together with just my girl friends things are totally different. Friday night was girls and guys, so the conversation stays gender neutral. When it's all girls, things change. We still talk about good books, music, travel...but we also talk about girl stuff. I think girls can uplift their female friends in a way that guys don't understand. When I was in high school I had mostly guy friends. I liked that there wasn't any drama. However, all of my leaders and mentors would talk about how important it is to have a small group of girl friends who you're closer with than anyone else. I didn't learn how true this was until I grew up. We can talk about our bodies (and our discomforts or encouragements about them), we can talk about relationships, we can talk about our jobs, we can talk about our dreams...there's just a different sense of connection. Even with Ben it's different. Sure, he's my husband. He's my best friend. But he's my best friend in a vastly different way than my friend Tracy is, or my friend Jackie, or Stephanie, or Michelle, or Janine...okay, these are just names to you, but they're the important people in my life. One more: Jamie.
 |
| My best friends: Janine, Stephanie, Michelle, Jamie, Jackie, Tracy, and my husband, Ben. |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)