In Which the OMG I'm 35 Trip Turns Into the F*#% Yeah I'm 35! Trip

Sunshine in Iceland!

Today was another fantastic day. We wound up getting to bed earlier than originally planned last night - it was cloudy and the Northern Lights tour was cancelled. Made it much easier to get up early this morning!

We had a quick breakfast at our Guesthouse - cereal, fruit salad, homemade bread, cold ham and cheese, and coffee/tea/OJ. Delicious! Then we got picked up for our next tour, Reykjanes Peninsula and the Blue Lagoon.

The Reykjanes Peninsula is at the southwest corner of Iceland. Relatively flat, mostly covered with ancient lava fields, and very few houses or settlements. We saw a few "villages", some of which consisted of about 8 farmhouses. Very desolate area, even though I know this is one of the more populated parts of Iceland as it's less than an hour drive from Reykjavik. It was overcast when we started out, but the sun came out and we had such a beautiful day! Driving along the Atlantic coastline was just amazing. Again, pictures are coming (or if you know me, you can check the Book of Face) but the upload speed from the hotel is just really slow right now.

We got dropped off at the Blue Lagoon Spa around 11:30. Merrow and I were starving, so we hit up the cafe for lunch - Caesar salad and wine - before spa-ing it up. After my experience at the Dead Sea, I was expecting it to be much more sulfuric than it was, but the water was mostly just salt and calcium. The locker rooms open out into a huge thermal pool area. Some parts are warmer than others, depending on how close you are to the steam vents. We did silica mud on our faces, and then just chilled in the water for a couple of hours. It was sunny, the sky was bright blue, and it was probably about 55-60F outside. You can stand up and cool off when you get too warm, and slide back down into the water when you get chilled. No extra spa treatments for us, but we did partake of the swim-up bar. The white wine was good, but the strawberry champagne was better!

After the spa, we headed back to Reykjavik. Wandered through the local flea market, grabbed cold (non-alcoholic) beverages, poked through a few shops, and grabbed an early dinner at a place called Cafe Paris. Seemed fitting. We both had burgers, which we pretty much inhaled - long day! Unfortunately, as we were eating, the clouds started rolling back in. So strike 2 for trying to see the Northern Lights. One last chance tomorrow, which doesn't look good. Ah well, I will just have to come back!

And come back I will. Iceland is just incredible. The people are so nice and friendly, and the scenery is just amazing. Completely out of this world. Merrow and I were saying to each other tonight that we've run out of words to describe it - pretty unusual for either of us! So one photo for now, and good night.

OMG 35 day 1 and 2

Update, 9/23/12: Now with pictures!

Flight over yesterday was fantastic. If this is how the rich and famous travel by plane, sign me up! With our Economy Comfort tickets (which were essentially Business Class), we got lounge access pre-flight, free wine for the entire flight, and when we dropped the fact to our flight attendant that this is my birthday trip, she gave us the First Class gift bags with refreshing toiletries, socks, eyemasks, candy, and More Wine.

Merrow, demonstrating that the third seat between us is not so much a seat as it is our own personal drinks table.

Announcements in English and Islandic

Moonrise over the Atlantic. Full moon Friday night!

We entertained ourselves with wine, and more wine, and food, and wondering what the story behind the "Happy Marriage Cake" on the menu is, more wine, and Strategery on Merrow's iPad.

World domination is always more fun after a couple of drinks!

Today was a slightly slow start to the morning (see above re: Wine, Too Much), but we rallied by 10ish and wandered around Reykjavik for a while. Weather was overcast, cloudy, foggy, drizzly, and partly sunny - in about the space of 10 minutes time. A quick stop back at the hotel, a little snack of cheese and crackers, and we headed off for our first tour - lava cave exploration!


We wound up in a small tour group of 6 and headed out to some ancient/cooled lava fields about 45 minutes outside of Reykjavik. At some point in time, the lava made tunnels and caves, and we were able to crawl inside for about an hour. We probably walked about 3/4 of a mile total, in a figure 8 pattern. Coolest. Thing. Ever! Fantastic experience.

For dinner we headed to a local bistro where we split an appetizer of traditional Icelandic meats - cured beef, double-smoked lamb, and puffin, all served with blueberries. Puffins are cute - and DELICIOUS.

Now we are getting ready to head off and hopefully see some Northern Lights. Though, doubtful, as it's pretty cloudy right now.

Pictures tomorrow!

Almost There: Another Parisienne ADTL Update

One! More! Week!

- Renew passport since it expires less than 3 months after I'll be traveling and it would be great if the countries I'm planning to visit didn't refuse me entry.
- Make sure taking off the Friday before is ok with my boss. Boss is A-OK with me not working the Friday we leave! Which is good, since we need to be at Logan shortly after noon for our flight.
- Research flights with the work travel agent and confer with Merrow that times/dates work for her too.
- Book flights.
- Research places to stay:
        -Iceland  Booked! We are staying here.
        -Paris (one place or two?) One place, because we don't want to move all our shit merde via Métro halfway thorough. Booked and staying here.
        -Alps Done. C and I finally agreed on a hotel, and Merrow said whatever was good with us was fine with her.
- Book lodgings.
- Research transportation options:
        -Airport transfers in Iceland Booked!
        -Airport transfers in France I think the easiest thing is just going to be to buy a Métro ticket for the trip, rather than trying to add it on to the Navigo Découverte.
        -TGV tickets/France rail pass/Paris metro pass France Rail 5-day pass booked; buying the Métro pass there.
- Plan Iceland activities with Merrow.
- Book any Icelandic adventures that need to be pre-booked. Done! We are doing this and this and this and this! And probably not much sleeping.
- Make a list of everything I want to do in Paris. Done. It is loooooooong.
- Edit list to a realistic length since I will be there for 12 days, not 12 years. Hahahahahahaha, this will not actually happen until I am on the plane home and cannot cram in any more activities.
- Determine what on list shall be done with Merrow and what will be done on my own. We have a rough idea of what we're going to do together. Events will probably include climbing the Eiffel tower, lots of café sitting and wine drinking, the Louvre, the Orangerie, Versailles, and we booked this tour for the first night we're there.
- Book any Parisian activities that need to be pre-booked. Wait, do I really need to pre-book "sit in a café for hours on end with wine, crêpes, and a good book"?
- Plan Alps Side Trip activities:
        -Determine what dates to head to the Alps End of week 2.
        -Determine if there is enough time to make a side side trip to Other Alpine Town Sadly, not this time. Which is too bad, because I know Merrow and C would love it, but they are going to have a kick-ass time in Switzerland, so next time.
- Make any Alpine reservations that are necessary. We're going to play it by ear, so all we really needed booked were the hotel and our train reservations.
- Start packing. This weekend. Really. NOT next Friday morning. I am not going to start this trip stressed out.
- Oh, and re-learn French.  :) Merde. This totally did not happen. Let's hope that I can get by on my 17-years-ago memory and a decent translator app!

The iPod Project

I currently have 19,164 songs on my iPod. That's down from a high of around 23,000-something, but doesn't include the last few album purchases I've made. Figure another 100 songs to throw in there. That is 54 DAYS of music.

Too much. A lot of this music has been hanging around since my high school and college days - pushing close to 2 decades now. Even more has been, er, not-entirely-legitimately acquired from a friend who's musical tastes are 70% overlapping and 30% "I can't stand that crap". And there's a few songs in the category of "like the artist, bought the whole album, don't care for this song."

So I'm going to edit my collection. My goal is to work my way through all the damn songs (or at least a really good portion of them!) and delete off the ones I don't like. I finally broke down and bought an iPod transmitter so I can listen in my car, which makes this whole project possible. Thank goodness for the Last Skipped column in iTunes, since I can skip what I don't like and then sort them out to delete all at once.

Songs 1-150:

Deleted - 15 songs (really? It seemed like I skipped so many more than that.)
Rediscovered favorites - "A House" by Doves, "Courage" by Glen Phillips, "Colorful" by Rocco Deluca & the Burden

New total: 19,149

Personalized Vanity

One of the benefits of having a rather lengthy highway commute (and trust me, there's not many) is that I get to amuse myself with other people's vanity license plates. Here's a few of the better ones I've noticed. I think the Mini Cooper owners have the best sense of humor.

Paprika-colored Mini - PEPPAY

Silver/black two-toned Mini - VRM VRM

Bright red Chevy Aveo - SODACAN

Smart - DETHTRP

Some kind of sedan, in black - IT NINJA
Definitely a ninja, as he's so sneaky I don't remember what his car is!!

NH's conservation fund plates have a moose on the left-hand side, and we also allow some special characters on our plates. Ran across one personalized conservation plate that was &SQRL. I think we need more Rocky & Bullwinkle themed plates in the world.

My own license plate is an unremarkable, impossible to remember 7-digit number. I keep it programmed in my cell phone under 'License Plate' for when I have to give it out as I seriously cannot remember it. I've thought about getting a personalized plate before, but can't come up with anything that doesn't either make me look like an idiot or I won't get sick of in a few months' time.

Parisienne ATDL Update

Just over 2 months to go! Merrow and I have plane tickets, a place to stay in Iceland, pretty solid plans for our Icelandic activities, a rough idea of our Parisian activities, days we will be road-tripping to the Alps (is it rail-tripping if you take the train?), a tentative place to stay in the Alps, and no idea yet of where to stay in Paris.

I also have, in my hot little hands, a brand spanking new passport (which will not be "new" by the time I go as I'm heading back to Israel for work next month) and a 5-day France Rail pass.

- Renew passport since it expires less than 3 months after I'll be traveling and it would be great if the countries I'm planning to visit didn't refuse me entry.
- Make sure taking off the Friday before is ok with my boss. Boss is A-OK with me not working the Friday we leave! Which is good, since we need to be at Logan shortly after noon for our flight.
- Research flights with the work travel agent and confer with Merrow that times/dates work for her too.
- Book flights.
- Research places to stay:
        -Iceland  Booked! We are staying here.
        -Paris (one place or two?)
        -Alps
- Book lodgings.
- Research transportation options:
        -Airport transfers in Iceland
        -Airport transfers in France
        -TGV tickets/France rail pass/Paris metro pass
- Plan Iceland activities with Merrow.
- Book any Icelandic adventures that need to be pre-booked.
- Make a list of everything I want to do in Paris.
- Edit list to a realistic length since I will be there for 12 days, not 12 years.
- Determine what on list shall be done with Merrow and what will be done on my own.
- Book any Parisian activities that need to be pre-booked. Wait, do I really need to pre-book "sit in a café for hours on end with wine, crêpes, and a good book"?
- Plan Alps Side Trip activities:
        -Determine what dates to head to the Alps
        -Determine if there is enough time to make a side side trip to Other Alpine Town
- Make any Alpine reservations that are necessary.
- Start packing.
- Oh, and re-learn French.  :)

Monday Montage

Which is posting on Tuesday. Oh well, at least I'm posting! Moving on....

Miss me? I've just been slowly going crazy with an overwhelmingly overloaded schedule here!

I spent most of Memorial Day weekend with my parents in the Lakes Region of NH. We went to the Canterbury Shaker Village on Sunday and hiking on Monday.

Earlier in June, I took this group of munchkins to Washington DC for 4 days. We had such a blast! The girls all had a fantastic trip - we got to tour the US Capitol Building, visited the Air and Space Museum and the American History Museum, spent almost 3 hours at the National Archives, walked all over the Mall, and went a giant Girl Scout Sing-Along at the Washington Monument. And I do mean GIANT:

We all had a blast at the concert, but I think the highlight of everyone's 90-degree day was when the Washington DC Fire Dept stopped by with their ladder truck. Giant sprinkler party!

Tired feet after a long day.

I left DC and flew directly to San Francisco for work. Do not pass NH, do not collect $200. I was only in town for a few days and most of it was spent either giving training classes or trying to catch up on some sleep. I did get a chance to walk around Pier 39, have a drink, and see the sea lions though! And I got to spend the night with Red and her awesome husband.

After a convoluted planes-trains-automobiles trip home from CA, my parents joined me at my house for another weekend and we hit up Ribfest. Ribs, pulled pork, bbq chicken, beer, grilled corn on the cob, fresh cut French fries, fried Oreos, and a really good Beatles cover band. Perfect weather, it was a great night.

Mom and I made a long-planned visit to see Auntie L, my grandma's twin sister. Today the twins celebrate their 83rd birthday! I will be seeing Grandma this weekend when I make the trek up to Maine for some family celebrations.