Friday, October 12, 2007

Ice Ice Iceland Baby...

We went to Iceland.

Succinct aren't I?

Ok, that deserves some elaboration. We went to Iceland way back in July 2007, but didn't get around to adding it to the blog. Well that's just not right, since Iceland happens to be a pretty dang amazing place. Check this out:
If any image deserves the term "spiffy", then I think this one qualifies easily. It just radiates spiffiness... Ahem. Anyway, this is one of the many beautiful spots you can visit in Iceland. Specifically, this is a shot of Gullfoss - one stop in our Golden Circle tour. The other stop was Geysir, the original water-shooting-out-of-a-hole-in-the-ground attraction that all others are named after. Check it out in action!
Oooooh... Yup, very oooh.

We also made our way around Reykjavík, which is a absurdly attractive city. The houses are all painted various colours and together they create a very lively effect. We toured the local attractions, including a very cool looking church (the largest in Iceland at that) and generally had a great time.

What else? Well, how about a tour to the rather brilliant Glacial Lagoon in Jökulsárlón? Now that is really something to see! Great blocks of icebergs constantly break off Vatnajökull glacier and drift on the lagoon before being carried to sea by a glacial river. Scenes from four big movies (A View to a Kill, Die Another Day, Tomb Raider and Batman Begins) were shot at and around that spot. Check it out:
Once you get there, you can jump in a amphibious boat and scoot around the icebergs in the lagoon. Very chilly and also extremely fun. Highly recommended.

There were a bunch of other things we did, but this is already getting a little lengthy... Needless to say there was a great deal of enjoyment to be had going offroad in a massive 4x4, visiting various magnificent attractions and best of all... Puffins! (No, you can't keep them, we already asked...)

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

New York Redux

Pop off to New York for the weekend... Sounds like a great idea right? Well, only if you have amazing stamina and no requirement for sleep!

A few key points:

1. Immigration queues are evil.
2. Airport security queues are evil.
3. Standing in an airport security queue for an hour while the PA announces the final boarding call for your flight is the work of the devil. Also, it is evil.

Apart from that, we had a lovely time! The shopping was good, although I think we caught things a little too mid-season and there wasn't as much on offer as normal. Our plan to buy iPhones was killed by the latest firmware revision that makes them un-unlockable... *shakes fist at Apple*

Now to plan our next trip...