Wheels.

Exciting news on the home front: a short 9 days into 2008 and we became proud owners of…a new car!! Well, maybe not quite new, but our friends John and Becky did a great job making it feel new with this air freshener to give it that just-out-of- the-factory scent. It was great to be able to buy the car from friends, especially since we wouldn’t have had the first clue how to go about getting a car on the open market.

Our new chariot is a blue Peugeot 206 “3-door”, since apparently they count hatch-backs a “door”. I think if I was buying a new car I would make the dealer enter and exit the car from all 3 doors just to prove the hatch is really a door. Anyway, it’s small (apparently 3800mm long) but zippy and those French really know how to style a car. It’s got some nice curves, and two impressive though surly over-done air intake holes to let the 1.4 liter monster of an engine under the hood breathe. Most importantly, it unlocks hundreds of potential day and weekend trips in the UK, and I even hear there are ferries that will take you over to Europe in your car! Now if we could just get rid of these time-demanding jobs we could be in Hong Kong by Summer.
Realizing this weekend that 1) we own a car and 2) it’s the weekend, we headed out on our first road trip to the Welsh border town of Ludlow, to see not one, but two castles! You can’t walk to the coffee shop in this country without tripping over a castle =). Check out a few pictures of this rare sunny January day.

Celebrate, Celebrate!

It was very, very difficult for me (Lauren) to leave home, especially after having such a wonderful time with my family - I'll try to post soon on some of the games that we played, because in true Horstmanian style we had days in a row where we did nothing but play games - but the transition has been a little bit easier because the Horstman family has received so much good news this week:

• Aidan, who is a senior in high school, received a scholarship for Akron University's Honors College, which is his top choice!
• Megan, who has been working full-time but for part-time pay at a local school, was hired for a great full-time position teaching sixth-grade science and social studies at a school just outside of Springfield - she starts next Monday!
  
• my parents are going to visit us this fall to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary,
  
• and, best of all, my mom, who finished chemo this fall, had her three month appointment the day I flew back, and her numbers are the best they've ever been, so she is really cancer-free!

We have a lot to be grateful for right now!

…And We’re Back!

Not returning empty-handed: Nick hit the 70lb checked bag limit right on the nose with all the American delights that a suitcase could hold. These delicacies of Uncle Sam’s kitchen should last us through the winter, or at least till the end of the month. I have no idea, but this might be the first time that Auntie Anne’s pretzels were ever birthed in their soft, buttery goodness on English soil. When we do make them, we should send one to the Queen so she can command Auntie A to open a store here by royal decree. That still has some pull I understand.

Apologies for the massive blogging gap, but it has been a crazy December. To fill you in using one sentence, work has been really busy for both of us and Nick is now a FULL UK LICENCE HOLDER capable of backing around a corner, driving on the left (wrong) side, and navigating 16 lane roundabouts with ease. Nest stop: car ownership.

We had a great last 2 weeks at home with our families, and the time sure reminded us of all of the amazing people we left behind for a time in the States. We spent the break eating, grinning, playing games, throwing surprise parties, attending cultural events, shopping for cheap (re: any) American products, walking, singing, and laughing a lot. All at once.

Lauren returns to the UK on Wednesday, and until then I’m doing my best to keep it together and avoid a repeat of the lows of last year. Here’s to the civilized male, in the land of civility.

Happy New Year!

Day Trip to the Center of the World

Always eager to explore our adopted home, Lauren and I took a train trip down to London last weekend to visit Greenwich (pictures). Greenwich is on the Thames River just southeast of the main city, and is know for three things: seafaring, astronomy, and time. The two main attractions in this really nice part of the city are the Royal Observatory at Greenwich (home of the Prime Meridian separating the East and West Hemispheres) and the national Maritime Museum.

We spent most of the day at the Royal Observatory which was a really fascinating place. Our guide was especially good and told the story behind the race to find an effective way of measuring longitude…

In the 18^th century ship navigators had a real problem in that they couldn’t tell reliably how far east or west they were while at sea. Latitude (N-S) was easy since you can see how high the sun gets above the horizon at sea and calculate how far you are from the equator, but east-west is much harder. In the early 1700's there was a horrible accident where English ships crashed in the shallows off of Land’s End because of an error in Longitude and 1200 died. The King put out a prize of 20,000 pounds to the first person to give a reliable way to measure longitude. A self-trained clock maker in England (from York in the North) came down with a clock he invented that used springs instead of a pendulum to tell time at sea accurately. After decades of trials and new models, he was finally able to convince the King that his clock was accurate enough and it became the first chronometer.

Using this clock you could always have the exact time at Greenwich "with you" in the ship, then use the sun to find when it was noon wherever in the world you were. Some simple math with the time difference gave you your latitude quite precisely, as long as your clock was precise and you knew your fixed comparison point. As simple as it sounds, this method was revolutionary since you didn’t have to sight the stars or sun to estimate your position, all it took was reading a clock. So that all the ships in port in London had the exact correct time, there is a ball that has dropped at the top of the Royal Observatory at precisely 1pm since 1833 so that all the ships in harbor could set their clocks. One of the ships was even designated to be "on the ball" and fire a small cannon at that instant, so that ships that couldn't see the ball, didn't miss the time. Our guide had a great time telling us all this and was really good.

It was neat to get a sense for the navel tradition of Britain and its links with astronomy and time, as this work with determining longitude accurately allowed ships to sail more boldly around the world. These connections are very strong at Greenwich, and I came away really struck by what an inventive, courageous, and inquisitive time this age of English seafaring was.

Yo-ho-ho-ho a sailor’s life for me.

Fun with a camera...

...in London. I just got back from a 2-day course and got a chance to take a flight on the London Eye for the first time. Afterwards I had a good time just walking around with a camera for a few hours.

An Arup Gateway to Europe

I’ve been a bit slow on the draw…er…“write”, but last week was a big one for my London-based design company, Arup.

Almost as soon and the Chunnel Tunnel between England and France was opened, people realized that it wan’t exactly the best set-up travelling at 180mph from Paris to the Dover coast, only to craw through the 100-year-old railway network of England on the way into central London. Arup basically just paid some of its top thinkers to just dream up the best way to extend this high-speed line into central London. At considerable cost and risk, the company suggested a method to the government, and they agreed. 18 years and 2.7million Arup man-hours later that dream is a reality.

A huge part of this project was totally renovating the historic St Pancras Station to accept the 400m long Eurostar trains, and you can see a great BBC slideshow about this process here. We’re excited to experience the new line and station first hand in February on our upcoming trip to Brussels!

Below are 2 posts from an internal Arup Blog about the opening, if you’re interested in reading more.

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“Queen opens Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) and St. Pancras Station Today”

2hrs 3mins 23seconds.

That’s how long the inaugural journey from Paris to London took on 6 September 2007. The new St Pancras station in London, and the Eurostar service that will run this route, is officially opened today by the Queen. Regular service will commence on 14 November from the new station to the centre of Paris and Brussels, running at speeds of up to 200mph.

The result of more than 1600 Arup staff and 2.7million Arup man-hours.

A Grand Opening Summary

Last night the new St Pancras International station played host to the opening celebrations of both the station itself and High Speed 1, with the Eurostar service.

It was a phenomenal celebration of an amazing engineering project, delivered on time and on budget, which Arup has been involved in for the past 18 years. St Pancras International will now be seen as one of the world’s greatest stations. For the evening it was transformed into an event venue to accommodate 1000 guests, including the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, Lord Heseltine, John Prescott, and a full house of other dignitaries.

Her Majesty the Queen reviewed the arrival of two Eurostar trains and the first ‘Bullet’ train - the high speed domestic train linking Ashford and Ebsfleet to London, and providing a seven-minute ‘Javelin’ service between Stratford and King’s Cross ready for the London Olympics in 2012.

The occasion was highly appropriate for us, because of the thousands of Arup staff who have worked as part of the Rail Link Engineering (RLE) services and also the ‘maverick group within our extraordinary company’ (quote from ‘The Right Line’ book by Nicholas Faith, which tells this story and to be launched at the House of Commons on 3 December) that created this project; the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

The Master of Ceremonies last night was Timothy West, who acted the part of William Henry Barlow, civil engineer, who in 1863 designed the original station. We were reminded that this famous train shed arch spans 240ft and is over 100ft high at its apex. On its completion in 1868 it became the largest enclosed space in the world.

And now, nearly 160 years later this space has been transformed into probably one of the finest stations in Europe, and possibly the world - an icon has been reborn.

But, to me, this transformation was due to the brilliance of individual Arup engineers and, those individuals, working as part of the RLE and Union Railways North, should be hugely proud of their achievement. As should all Arup staff. Of course, I personally was also hugely proud of that ‘maverick group’ - the project creators. We often fail to acknowledge their role when great engineering achievements are being celebrated.

A wonderful day for Arup.

High-Beam Post: Set Your Browsers to Anti-Dazzle

On of the more painful steps in our gradual Englishization has been going through the long and arduous process of procuring a driver’s license. Since the States is not part of the EU or a Commonwealth country, (we said we want a Revolution) apparently the price of our freedom is US expatriates going through the incredibly bureaucratic and expensive process of attaining a UK license.

The first step for me (Nick) was to study 1,300 multiple choice questions and take a 1 hour theory test, which includes a hazard perception portion in a driver simulator to make sure that you can click a mouse when things pull out in front of you. Then, 2 months later when you can get a slot, you have to pay $200 to take a 1 hour practical driving test with a pass rate of 35%. In the mean time, you get to pay a professional instructor $45 an hour to teach you the correct way to handle roundabouts, bus lanes, and the 200 types of pedestrian crossing they have here.
Last week I was very proud to pass my driving theory test with flying colours, proving to the government (and Queen Elizabeth herself??) that I am ready for the real deal: the road test. December 12^th is my date with destiny.

To take you, our readers, on the excitement of this journey with me, I’ve included some real test content below. You can see how you might fare here in a 21^st century low-emissions plastic car on streets designed in the 12^th century. To warm up, here’s some vital definitions:

Carriageway - One side of a road or motorway. A ‘dual carriageway’ has two lanes on each side of a central reservation.
Pelican crossing - A crossing with traffic lights that pedestrians can use by pushing a button.
Puffin Crossing - Similar to a Pelican crossing, but with no flashing amber light
Toucan crossing - A type of pedestrian crossing that cyclists can also use
Zebra crossing - A pedestrian crossing without traffic lights
Pegasus crossing - An unusual kind of crossing. It has a button high up for horse riders to push (Pegasus was a flying horse in Greek legend).

Now, on to some of my favorite real test Sample Questions:

You have been involved in an argument before starting your journey. This has made you feel angry. You should:
a) start to drive, but open a window
b) drive slower than normal and turn your radio on
c) have an alcoholic drink to help you relax before driving
d) calm down before you start to drive

Take your time to think of the right choice on that one. Now, let’s see if you know how to drive with some real panache:

Using rear fog lights in clear daylight will:
a) be useful when towing a trailer
b) give extra protection
c) dazzle other drivers (correct!!)
d) make following drivers keep back

I always drive to dazzle. Ok, let’s say I’ve just blinded you with my flair…

You are dazzled at night by a vehicle behind you. You should:
a) set your mirror to anti-dazzle
b) set your mirror to dazzle the other driver
c) brake sharply to a stop
d) switch your rear lights on and off

Anti-dazzle mode: ENGAGE! Armed with this practical know-how, Y’all (like me) are so ready to take to the streets of Britain. I’ll be honking and circling a roundabout endlessly if you need to find me…

The Law of the Land

Last week UKTVGold (television channel devoted to 'classics' such as 'Jim'll fix it') published a survey on England's wackiest laws, according to public vote. This is the kind of thing we yanks over here live for!

The Top 10

1. It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament

2. It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside-down

3. In Liverpool, it is illegal for a woman to be topless except as a clerk in a tropical fish store

4. Mince pies cannot be eaten on Christmas Day

5. In Scotland, if someone knocks on your door and requires the use of your toilet, you must let them enter

6. A pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants, including in a policeman's helmet

7. The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the king, and the tail of the queen

8. It is illegal to avoid telling the tax man anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing

9. It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament in a suit of armour

10. In the city of York it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow

See here for the full BBC article. And thanks, Martha, for bringing this to our attention!

Candace Rae, Aquanaut

There's a chance that you don't know Candi, since she hasn't made the trip to visit us yet. Most of you, though, probably already know that she has been a dear, dear friend of mine since kindergarten, that we went to 'university' (as I now always say instead of college, which causes Nick to shake his head at me in shame of my growing vocabulary of Brit-speak) in the same city, and that she was one of my bride maids.

What you may not know is that Candi is getting ready to complete a three-day stint as an aquanaut! She will be living and studying under the ocean with Project SeaCAMEL. If you're interested in learning more, such as reading the mission blog, finding out how Candi will be spending her time, and reading her profile, check out the mission site here.

On another note, one of the guys I works with sends some of us our profiles and the word of the day every day. A couple weeks ago the word was aquanaut. Amazing coincidence, I know. :-)

UK Travels: Back in the Saddle

After a few weekends of rest, we’ve managed to get out exploring the UK a bit these past 2 weekends and will report briefly on our progress =). First, we joined 3 friends on a trip to the Brecon Beacons in southern Wales for a 10 mile “Waterfall hike” that was heavily hyped. It ended up being a really nice fall day and was probably one of the best walks we have done here. At one point the trail actually goes behind a waterfall, and the views from behind a sheet of water are really cool. It was perfectly laid out walk too, with a village pub right at the halfway point for some grub and a pint of ale. We posted some photos of the walk here.

Last weekend we borrowed our friend’s car again for a birthday trip for Lauren to the Cotswolds, a range of hills about an hour south of Birmingham. This region is called the Heart of England and is dotted with “cookie-tin villages”, as they call them here, which are so perfect they could go on some quaint biscuit box. We stayed one night in Broadway, which is supposedly one of the nicest towns in the area, but all of the places we visited looked like movie-sets for a quaint and charming English village. Even the names are charming…we visited Stow-on-the-Wold, Bourton-on-the-Water, Chipping Camden, and even drove through a place called Studley.

It was a pretty leisurely weekend of driving from town to town, checking out the shops and bakeries, and having morning, afternoon, and evening tea. It was an incredibly British birthday for Lauren, though we still stick out as pretty clear tourists with my sneakers and our American clothes. We should have come on horseback wearing a traditional plaid ridding hat and bonnet…if we managed to avoid speaking we might have been able to fool the locals. Oh well, we’re yanks in the UK and proud of it =). Here's some pics of that adventure in Britishness.

English Lesson #1

I'm hoping this will be a running feature, with whatever new 'English' word or pronunciation I've learned. Then your challenge could be to use the word in a sentence, or try out the Brit pronunciation in a posh voice and impress (amuse? annoy?) your friends.

Today's lesson: whine and whinge are two different words with almost the same meaning. For years, whenever someone would 'whinge' in whatever Agatha Christie book I happened to be reading, I pronounced it in my head as whined, chalked it up as a typo or crazy British spelling, and moved on. But no - whinge rhymes with binge, is almost interchangeable with whine, but as Tim, co-worker and guest-blog-writer-extraordinaire, put it 'kids whine, adults whinge.'

Happy Birthday Lauren!!

Well, I’m a day late, but I just found this handy feature of back-dating posts. Ehem…

Today Lauren surges confidently into her mid-twenties as we celebrate her 26th BIRTHDAY!! Much has changed for us since I wrote her last birthday post 1 year ago, but the love and joy that she brings to everyone around her sure hasn’t. I’m just one of the many that are blessed through her sacrificial love, and I know many, many people are thankful for her 26 years of life. We’re celebrating this weekend with a trip to an as-yet-undisclosed location in Britain…we’ll tell you all about it when we get back!

British Air Magazine on...the British

On our British Airways flight to Iceland we discovered a wealth of blog-post-worthy segments in the complimentary (I hope?) in flight magazine. The following was written by Tim Dowling who moved to England from Connecticut 17 years ago. He picks up several things we’ve noticed, obviously with more humor and insight then we could give…

I wonder what our growing British readership thinks of all this??

How to Greet an Englishman

This forward was going around the office, and I think it does a good job summing up people’s expectation for England’s match against South Africa in the final this weekend.

(Background: England won a surprise victory against the Australians to make it to the semi-final game against France, and lost something like 32-0 against South Africa about a month ago).

What the Ruck?

Tim's back, this time to set the record straight on rugby...

I'm loving the confusion over the great English game which is rugby. Here is my American’s Guide to Rugby.

Rugby officially started in 1845 when 3 boys published some written rules for a game which had been played in England for a couple of centuries. The boys were from Rugby School (less than 30 miles from Birmingham) and that's why it was called rugby.

Rugby came across to the US of A and the first match was played at Harvard in 1874. Eighteen years later a sub-game, based on rugby, was spawned which we now know as American Football. Why did rugby decline and American Football take over? Your guess is as good as mine but perhaps there weren’t enough pads and passages of play lasting more than 3 minutes in rugby!

Rugby played today has two halves of 40 minutes (yes there are no timeouts in that time, a whole 40 minutes of continuous play) with a ball a very similar shape to that of your American Football, minus the big stitching. There are 15 players on each team and although it’s a very physical game there are few serious injuries. Rugby players are that hardcore they had to introduce a rule whereby they must leave the pitch when they were bleeding as they were just playing on regardless. They are now swapped out for a ‘blood replacement’ and they come back as soon as the flow is stemmed!

The only other main differences I know of (I don’t really know much about American Football though!) is that in rugby you can’t pass the ball forwards and you have to touch the ball down to score a try.

For those of you not following the Rugby World Cup (RWC), USA was in the same group as England. For a non-professional team they put up a gallant fight with a final score of 28-10 to England. They were also in the same group as South Africa so at least you guys can say you played both the World Cup finalists (and lost!).

The USA, Tongan born!, centre Salesi Sika is one to watch as he is definitely one of the fastest rugby players I have seen. He can run the 100m in 10.5 seconds which is almost as fast as me!

That’s it for today’s lesson. Watch the final on Saturday for more of the ultimate game and I’ll watch Superbowl XLII in Feb for some comparisons!

COME ON ENGLAND!

Rugby for Harry, England and St George

Not that most would have noticed back in the States, but it was a massive weekend of sports here in England with both the national football (“soccer”) and rugby teams playing on Saturday. The Rugby game was the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup against France, and it was one of the most-watched games in the history of British Sport (I think I read that means 12million viewers!).

Since England has been at war with France over most of its history, I knew the Rugby game would be big, but I got a real sense of how war-like it would be when I got this email from the Royal Shakespeare Company the day of the game:

"Cry, 'God for Harry, England and St George!'"
Henry V Act III, Scene 1

This weekend as England prepares to take on the French in the semi-final of the Rugby World Cup in Paris, ITV has called on the RSC to help set the tone for their coverage of the game.

Geoffrey Streatfeild, who is currently in rehearsals to play Henry V, will appear in ITV Sport's build up coverage on Saturday evening, performing extracts from Henry's iconic speeches delivered on the eve of battle against the French.

Best wishes,
Royal Shakespeare Company

The quotes, read during clips of monster-like men painting their faces, slamming into each other, yelling, sweating, and staring down the camera were:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother

And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us

When the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

After that intro, performed as only a RSC actor could, I was ready to go fight for England. The game was savage, brutal, and pretty awesome to watch (even though we didn’t understand most of the rules). England was triumphant, and Shakespeare was right, after watching those guys go at it for 80 minutes, I did hold my manhood cheap. It’s strange to say, but I think we’re actually excited to watch the final against South Africa next week. We are going to miss our favorite Frenchman though, Sebastian Chabal, who had fans in the stands holding clubs and dressed up as cavemen.

When he came in for a substitution, the announcer said [British Accent]: “Hello, the 21^st century Aztec is taking the pitch.”

Iceland Part 2

The rising sun filtering through the frost on the car windows woke us up early the next morning, and I was surprised to find I could actually breathe through my frozen, icicle of a nose. Scraping a hole in the window ice, I realized that the sun was just rising and we hurried to get bundled up and go see sunrise on the lake. When we left the car the wind had died down, though the air was still crisp and very cold. As we approached the lake we found hundreds of tiny “icebergs” had washed up on the shore overnight, and got some amazing pictures of the various shapes and colors in the rising morning sun. The lake was magical, and having clear skies there at both sunrise and sunset was amazing.

We got on the road quickly since we had quite a way to drive, covering almost 1/3 of the whole loop road to make it to lake Myvatn that night. After 2 hours of beautiful driving along the south east coast, we stopped at the charming fishing town of Hofn, to get some supplies and stop in the library for internet. We were shocked to STILL have no word from Duane, now 4 days after he was supposed to have arrived in Iceland, and wrote a few even-more desperate emails to friends in Pittsburgh. Back on the road, we spent 3 hours winding up and down dirt roads around mountains and following the jagged coastline of the east. Eglisstadir is the only major town in the east, and we stopped for gas, a bacon-wrapped hotdog, and another call to Duane. After 4 rings, this time, he picked up.

“DUANE!!!! How are you?? Where are you!?? What happened?”

“uh…yeah, I just got out of jail.”

“what!?”

It turns out that 6 hours before he was supposed to leave on his flight, while he was on the way to the store to get supplies for the trip, the police pulled him over and took him to jail, where he stayed for 4 days. It seems there was some horrendous mix-up where he was keeping some Habitat for Humanity supplies (Duane leads HFH operations in St. Bernard Parish, New Orleans) in a city school building that was being torn down. He went there with some volunteers one night to get their supplies out, someone saw them leaving and reported it to the police. They thought he was stealing the supplies and a week and a half later found him and arrested him. Most of his bosses were on vacation, so they kept him in jail for 4 days.

Lauren and I were obviously shocked at this incredibly terrible luck, and that such a basic mistake could cost him his trip to Iceland, the whole reason that we were there. We had thought of lots of reasons that Duane might not have been able to call…but jail sure wasn’t one of them! Though obviously down, Duane said “at least I got a break from work.”

There was nothing we could do but get back on the road and keep driving, but the whole thing was pretty upsetting. At least Duane was OK, but what a crazy, unlucky, immensely unfortunate mistake to make us miss out on the time together. Rather then pausing after every amazing sight and saying “but where’s Duane!?”, from this point on we switched to “but poor Duane!” What an incredible, crazy story!?

Tired by the hours of driving and down about Duane, we continued on and finally made it near to our camp for the night at about 3pm. Before camping, we wanted to make the 24km trek to Detifoss, Europe’s largest waterfall, and turned up a poor dirt track that followed the river through a grey moonscape. The road got worse and worse, and we started to hit patches of dirt and deep puddles, so filthy you couldn’t tell how deep they were. The car quickly became caked in red mud, and while sending up walls of water going through the puddles at full speed started as fun, the drive became pretty treacherous quickly and getting stuck or damaging the car was a real possibly. We slowed down and battled our way along for what seemed like hours, finally making it to the clearing for the waterfall. I was impressed to see that we were the only 2WD vehicle in the parking lot, while Lauren was just happy to step out of the car alive.

The landscape around the falls was bleak and inhumane, with jagged rocks everywhere and barely any signs of plants or life. There were patches of snow and not a soul in sight, and the walk down to the falls felt like we were exploring the edge of the world. Dettifoss fit the harshness of the scene perfectly, and the violence of the falls was incredible. It was just jagged, angry water the whole way down, and after awhile you actually felt bad for the water droplets that had to go over this jagged cliff of doom. It was thunderously powerful and overwhelming. We walked a circuit down the river to another waterfall, and made it back to the car as the sun was getting low. A much slower drive back got us over the 24km road in one piece, and we made it to our campsite on lake Myvatn at sunset.

After another freezing and cramped night in the car, we were pretty tired of car camping and happy for the accommodation we’d booked for our next 3 nights. Today (day 6) was our whale-watching day, and we got cleaned up and made the 1 hour drive north to Husavik on the coast by 10. We stopped by the whale-watching stand to confirm our 1pm trip, only to find that that was canceled due to bad weather expected, but there was a boat leaving in 3 minutes. We raced to the car, grabbed every warm piece of clothing we had, and made it to the boat just before they headed off. We were given these sweet lined whaling cover-alls, which were stylish and functional, as the pictures will show. Our captain was a pudgy, red-faced man with a huge grin, and (best of all) one of those sweet fur-lined Russian winter hats with the flaps on the sides. This guy was the real deal.

We were at sea for 3 hours, and spent most of that time scanning the choppy water and trying to face away from the driving rain. We were only a few miles from the Arctic Circle here and it definitely felt like it. I don’t see any need to ever go further north than this, and it is pretty impressive to look at a map and see we were north of Hudson Bay in Canada and most of Alaska. We spotted the fin of a Minke Whale and a few large birds, but most of the animal life had, sensibly, gone somewhere much warmer after summer. Our guide told us we would pass close to Puffin Island, which was pretty exciting until she added that all of the birds flew to Cuba at the end of August. A round of hot chocolates and cinnamon buns as we came into port made it all alright though, and we did get to see lots of pictures and skeletons of whales in the Husavik Whale Museum where we spent the afternoon. We finished our time in the town with some great seafood chowder and headed back to lake Myvtan and our hotel.

Day 7 we awoke in the warm comfort of our hotel room, and it was nice to be able to feel my nose through the whole day, instead of just the second half. We headed off on a tour around the volcanic lake and made stops at several sites to take hikes and explore. We climbed the 2000-year-old Hverfell explosion crater and walked around the rim, then wandered among the strange stone pillars and arches formed in the Dimmuborgir lava field. Finally, we visited Iceland’s most spectacular lava field, the Krafla area. In the 1970s drilling that was being done for a geothermal power plant is thought to have triggered a series of eruptions called the Krafla Fires. The plant is now built and functioning, but the ground in the area rises and falls through the year as magna moves around below the surface.

As we drove up towards Krafla, we passed the eerie space-station-like power plant. With huge pipes crisscrossing the snow and blasts of steam pouring out of valves and holes in the mountain, it looked like the evil lair of a Bond villain. The temperature dropped noticeably as we climbed at it started to snow, really setting the stage well for Krafla. We got out of the car and headed down the trail that, until recently, was guarded by a huge sign warning visitors that this was a dangerous area and volcanic activity could begin with short notice. Apparently the sign was such a draw for tourists that they took it down and I guess you just have to assume from the ominous, steaming landscape that it’s not particularly safe.

We walked passed a steaming lake smelling of sulfur that had stained the surrounding rocks all sorts of different colors. A poorly marked trail led into the black lava field, and the snow drifts interspersed with black, jagged rocks made it look like some sort of Oreo Cookie landscape. We walked along the path, avoiding razor sharp rocks that hadn’t been around long enough to be smoothed by erosion, and got some good pictures of us in front of what was obviously a volcano of some kind. The whole area was wild and downright sinister…we were pretty happy to make it back to the car unscathed and head back down to town.

We picked up a group of 3 cold backpackers from Switzerland who asked for a ride down to town, and they invited us in for tea and Swiss Chocolate, which Lauren wisely accepted. It was fun to hear about their experiences in Iceland, and they loved that Lauren was from Springfield, and kept talking about Simpson’s characters. We got their emails and hit the road, making a 3-hour drive to the north west of the island and arriving at our hostel there just before 10.

This put us in good position for our last day exploring, and we made it out to the tip of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula by mid-day. This area is famous for the Snaefellsjokull glacier which is the point where Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth begins: the explorers enter through a crack in this icecap. After our last glacier walk, I was excited to make it back onto a glacier again, and it was really disappointing to learn that the tourist office that runs trips up the mountain to the glacier was closed for the season. Not one to give up too easily, we found a jeep-track on the map that went up to the glacier, and made it 12 of the 14km to the edge of ice, before we crested a hill to enter a world of nothing but white. The car got stuck in the snow, and I had to concede that yes, it was physically impossible to make it to the glacier.

We had a great afternoon driving and walking along the coastline anyway, and enjoyed a clear and sunny last day. We made it back to Reykjavik after our 6 day trek just as it got dark, and managed to rally for one last night in the capital. There was a great all-you-can-eat seafood place in our guide book, and we enjoyed a nice last dinner there, before wandering the streets to check out some of the colorful corrugated metal architecture and interesting art and clothing shops. We joked about how Reykjavik would actually be a pretty cool city to live in, and how crazy it would be to actually do that. Until about 4 months ago I didn’t know that there was a place called Reykjavik.

The next morning we were off bright and early to return our battered and filthy rental car, which had been our home for 8 days, and fly back to Heathrow and our “home” here in England. It was a wild, amazing, and exhausting vacation, but one we are so glad we were able to go on. Duane was right about Iceland, and the trip is definitely dedicated to him, poor guy. We hope to see him soon.

And now, the link you’ve all been waiting for…our trip pictures!

Enjoy.

Iceland: Part 1b

Ok, so as you can see from the title, I didn't quite make it through writing the dramatic conclusion to our Iceland adventure, so these 'sampler pics' will have to hold you over until later in the week, a taste of what's to come...

Master and Commander: Not so far side of Europe

(Note: To continue to keep the Icelandic suspense going, we have a very special treat for you: our first ‘guest spot’! We’ll be back in our regularly scheduled capacity this weekend.)

I have been very privileged to write a guest article in this good, sorry great, blog I stumbled across a couple of months ago and now regularly look forward to reading! Firstly let me introduce myself as Tim one of Lauren’s colleagues and English language coach!

Whilst Lauren and Nick were braving the Artic climbs of Iceland (which is also a UK budget frozen food shop) I was sunning myself in Sardinia with my lovely girlfriend Sarah. (Sardinia is a small Italian island off the west coast of the mainland).

The holiday started very badly after being delayed for 7 hours at London Gatwick airport. However, I spent the time at the airport wisely by watching rugby (this is a game similar to American Football only we don’t wear girly pads or rest every 2 minutes!) and using the new Dyson hand driers! Wow is all I can say!

We finally got to our hotel at 4am and after a couple of hours sleep got up ready to hit the water for 9am. The resort we were staying was wholly owned by a British company called Mark Warner and catered for activity holidays (sailing, kayaking, windsurfing, tennis and mountain biking to name but a few activities on site) and was basically a British compound with British guests and British staff (except the catering and housekeeping staff).

As one of the sailing instructors commented we weren’t “the usual people” that go on a Mark Warner holiday. How right she was! We were the youngest there by a long way and at 25 I was practically a baby. There were also a group from a singles travel agency which were also very weird. Without being too rude I can see why most of them are single! These included a guy who dressed up in a yellow suit complete with leopard print cuffs and a wig and many people dancing like that embarrassing uncle at a wedding.

Anyway as we are both keen sailors the main reason for the trip was to get some hours on the water. This involved a strict regime of being ready to go sailing at 9am until 5.30pm and then ‘socialising’ until the very early hours. The free wine at dinner was a recipe for disaster with many a stagger back up to the 5^th floor each night but we still made it up and after a quick dive into the sea we were ready to go.

We had a great week and had lovely hot sunshine everyday and the wind wasn’t too bad. As the demographic of the guests was somewhat elderly we were pretty much the only ones using the boats and had pick of what we wanted. We got to know the instructors pretty well and they gave us endless stick all week for taking our own buoyancy aids (BAs). The reason we did was a tactical sunbathing one as both Sarah and I have nice small BAs to allow for a better tan. However, I now have a nice tan line in the shape of a BA.

I would like to put something in this section about how we embraced the Italian culture and did some touristy bits. However, the furthest we got was to the shop up the road to buy postcards! We did see some of the country on the transfer back to the airport but apart from that the focus was on getting as much time sailing, windsurfing and kayaking as possible.

Hopefully you all (sorry, y’all) enjoyed this post and you never know I might be invited back again… TTFN

Iceland: Part 1

"I should imagine that no place on earth can show anything to correspond with [Iceland], and there is nothing that one has learnt to consider beautiful or ugly with which it could be compared. It is quite unique, offering no single point of contact with any of the beauty-values that civilization has taught us."

-Glaciologist Hans Ahlmann

“Incongruent with our beauty-values” was a phrase we jokingly used often in Iceland as we marvelled at bizarre lavascapes, moonscapes, and icescapes throughout the country. We spent 8 days driving around the island visiting waterfalls, glaciers, volcanoes, lava fields, hot springs and geysers. We covered 2800 km of paved and unpaved roads (see below for Indiana-Jones style map), slept in 5 different parts of the island, and saw every major site accessible by 2WD (and some that probably shouldn’t have been). Many of the places we saw really did feel other-worldly, like the set from a movie or an Apollo moon mission.

Our flight from London landed on Saturday morning, and we discovered a rocky and foreboding place made all the more unwelcoming by the freezing rain that was falling. Our trip to Iceland was inspired completely by our friend Duane from Pittsburgh, who said that rather than visit us in England, he would meet us in Iceland (Iceland!?). We were set to pick Duane up the following morning, but first were to meet another friend of Nick’s from high school who also ended up being there for the first 3 days of our trip. We make the 50 minute drive from the airport to capital of Reykjavik across strange rocky lava fields, and got there just in time to meet Scott at the statue of Leif Erickson in town. Wasting no time, we hopped in his rental Yaris and headed out of the city for the afternoon to see what this land had to offer.

Many of the main roads in Iceland are sealed but a good section of the far eastern ring road and most roads off of the ring road are still just gravel, so it is a pretty harsh island for rental cars. By the end of our trip we had pushed our Ford Focus station wagon (or 'estate' as they're called in England - strange!) about as hard as I think it would go…but that tough made-in-America car stayed together and flat-free. With Scott we headed south of Reykjavik onto the Reykjanes Peninsula stopping at a black sand beach, some bubbling mud pits, and finally finishing of the day with a nice long soak in the famous Blue Lagoon. The lagoon is a rocky outdoor lake filled with hot mineral water pumped from the ground, next to a geothermal power plant. The bottom is covered in silica mud and the water is a milky blue color, with the eerie effect of steam rising everywhere into the cold air. It was a great place to spend a cold and rainy afternoon, since the water was super warm and surprisingly energizing.

The next morning after a night in Reykjavik I went out to the airport to get Duane…and waited 4 hours to no avail: the flight came in with no Duane. We emailed and called him, but finally figured we had better make the most of the day and if he came in somehow, he could meet us at our hotel. We visited the three sights of the “Golden Circle” popular with tourists: Thingvellir, home of the first Icelandic Republic in 950AD; Geysir, site of 3 geysers and the namesake for all geysers; and Gulifoss, one of the largest waterfalls in Europe. All three were quite impressive, but Gulifoss was our favorite, and the raw power of an unbelievable amount of water pouring over the rough river in torrents of whitewater was hypnotic. We got the all-you-can-eat Viking stew at the restaurant by the falls and headed back to town to look for Duane and check out the city.

No luck with Duane, and after another round of calls to his cell phone and concerned discussion, we headed out to check out the busy streets of Reykjavik. We had heard that places there don’t get busy until 2am on a weekend, and that seemed to be true, with most restaurants and bars quiet. Generally we were pretty impressed with the food options in Iceland, and in many ways they seem better off than England…the gas stations around the island manage bacon-wrapped hotdogs (Nick’s main breakfast on the road) and Betty Crocker cake mix, two items you can hardly get anywhere in England! In the end we found a café in town and ordered a round of Viking brand beers and some nachos…very Icelandic.

The next day I made another trip to the airport, enjoying another sunrise drive to see if Duane caught the flight from NYC on Monday. No luck again, and I returned, really worried about what could happen to someone to keep them from coming on a trip they were so excited about, and not telling the people they were meeting—we were getting really worried. We emailed friends in the US to see if they could keep calling him, but figured we had to make the most of our time and get moving if we wanted to make it around the island in a week. We set off with Scott for a long drive east along the Route 1 ring road to another waterfall then something I’d never seen before—a glacier!

After a 5 mile drive on a poorly-built jeep track through black sand and lava rocks, we arrived where ice meets rock at the edge of a huge glacier (named “M” then lots of letters that aren’t on my keyboard). The glacier was like a giant mountain but made of ice, and to get to it we had to follow a river across black sand (some of which was quicksand) to an ice-cave that the river was flowing from. Though innocent looking, walking on the glacier was so dangerous…the combination of melting ice and gravity could kill you in a variety of ways. In many places the ice was too steep to walk on without slipping, and if you slipped there were plenty of dark crevices, razor-sharp projections, and holes that disappeared forever into the heart of the glacier. We made our way carefully to the far side of the river into the ice cave, which was amazing: the ice was all different colors, but looked like polished blue crystals in many places and formed incredible shapes. We left as it started to get dark, and the ice was much more slippery as the air cooled and the surface re-hardened. I was struck by the cold brutality of the ice, and even being extremely careful, glaciers seem incredibly dangerous places to be.

After our death-defying glacier walk, we parted ways with Scott and continued east to the fishing town of Vik where we spent the night in a hostel, saving our first night camping for the following evening. We fell asleep happy to be having such adventures, but wondering what event might have befallen our friend and trip-inspirer Duane. The possibilities did not seem good.

The next morning we went to the post office to check email and voicemails, and were dumfounded when there was still nothing from Duane. We sent a few more pleading emails and headed on, continuing our counter-clockwise island circle. After a futile trip to the ocean to try to see some Puffins on the sea cliffs, we took to the road again and were struck by the emptiness of the island as we moved away from Reykjavik. We passed fewer and fewer cars, and it really was just us, the landscape, and Justin Timberlake (one of the 2 CDs we had for the rental). The road cut across yellow and black deserts, where you apparently cannot cross in heavy winds due to the terrible sandstorms that blow up. After a few hours we started to see more mountains (all snow-capped) and glacier tongues, and crossed these vast black flood plains with various river courses carved into them, like the water picked a new way to flow each morning. There were simple bridges where the road crossed some of these rivers, but it was clear from the massive flood plain that the river must get many, many times bigger with melt water in the spring.

We pulled off at the start of the largest icecap in the world outside of the poles and Greenland, the Vatnajokull glacier, to visit the tourist office at Skaftafell National Park. There we learned about the geologic history of the area, including the unbelievable phenomenon of sub glacial volcanoes. Vatnajokull has several active volcanoes under the 1km of ice, and in the 1990’s one of them erupted for days, taking 2 days to melt its way to the surface and creating an enormous reservoir of melt water under the ice. When the water gets to a certain pressure, this lake is able to lift the glacier (since ice floats) and, like a bathtub, the lake drains. We saw a video of the flood and the water ripped through the side of the ice, carrying chunks of ice the size of 3 story buildings out to sea, and utterly decimating all in its path. The bridges on the ring road snapped like toothpicks, and later that day we saw two giant steel bridge girders that had been twisted and driven into the ground by the flood. Nick took a moment of silence.

After hiking around the National Park for the afternoon, we drove on along the southern edge of the glacier to our campsite for the night: the amazing Jokulsarlon lake or “Iceberg Lagoon”. This lake is a surreal phenomenon (i.e. incongruent with social beauty-values) where a lake has formed between the glacier and the sea. Giant icebergs break off (calf) from the glacier and slowly melt, flip, and break up over 7 years until they float out the river to sea. We arrived just as the last boat tour of the entire season was out among the icebergs, but the operator said that if enough people came he would run one more tour. Lots of people stopped in, so we got to take the very last boat tour till June of this lake…some pretty nice luck. The icebergs are all different colors and shapes, some black from volcanic ash, some white from the sun causing air bubbles near the surface, and some are crystal smooth blue, if they have recently flipped over. I took like 100 pictures out on the boat, then we walked along the shore as the sun set in a crystal clear evening sky. Sunset on the lake was a photographer’s dream, and one of the highlights of the trip.

But where was Duane!? Would we survive the freezing cold night camping? What else did Iceland have in store for us? Will I ever finish processing and uploading our ridiculous quantity of photographs for you to see?

Tune in next week for the dramatic conclusion to our Iceland adventure!