i am back

from iceland. total hours of daylight there--currently around 6 hours per day, (from roughly 10 or so in the morning, until 16ish in the evening.) good thing they make good coffee.

the air and water are so clean, it is remarkably fresh. add in the below zero temps during the past few days, and it's so beyond fresh it's perfect.

travels planned

- Tomorrow afternoon I go down to Basel by train for an all day meeting on Friday. I'll be taking the bus to the Koeln Hbf to avoid the train strike.

- In november I have booked a Thurs-Mon trip to Iceland.

Why iceland in november?
1. flight/accomodation prices fall drastically (compared to high season summer prices)
2. it's easier to find accomodation, and it's not booked months in advance
3. fewer tourists allow more interaction with the locals
4. there is the possiblity to see the northern lights in the winter weather
5. the cold, blustery weather makes for perfect conditions to escape inside for strong iceland coffee or to the hot water outside of the blue lagoon

Iceland (again!)

Since Iceland prices and tourist volume drop greatly in the colder weather, I decided to go back. I was there from Thurs until today. It was very rainy. A fish could have survived for days on the sidewalk it was so wet.

However, it was a nice visit. I went back to the Blue Lagoon. http://www.bluelagoon.com/ It's lovely to step outside in the air temp that was just below freezing to go the 15 steps into the very warm water.

I also went to the Reykjavik Museum of Photography which was showing an interesting exhibit of photos of Poland under communist times: http://www.ljosmyndasafnreykjavikur.is/english/index.htm

Finally, I went to the Reykjavik Art Museum. I went primarily because they were opening a show of young American artists as a part of an Iceland/American program. There was an interesting talk, in English, by the Icelandic and American artists involved. Here is the main museum link:
http://www.listasafnreykjavikur.is/index.en.shtml

The weather was very bad on Sunday so many trips were either cancelled or diverted through Glasgow, so unfortunately, some people arrived in many hours late. Since I was not leaving until Monday, I was ok. On Sunday I went to Keflavik, to stay at a guesthouse near the airport since my plane left early on Monday. I wandered downtown to eat at Pizza 67, the best pizza chain in Iceland. They are the home of the 'Sgt Pepper', which is mushrooms, onions, pepperoni (i skip that), fresh chili peppers, and black pepper (of the salt and pepper variety).

I also went to the local cinema to see a movie. Movies in Iceland are usually kept in the original English, but subtitled in Icelandic. It is a small cinema with two screens and very few movie watchers on a Sunday. I went to see that new Borat movie. Along with me in the theater were around 10 gentlemen from the New York area. They were on a flight back to the US that was delayed six hours so they came to the movies. Around halfway through there is an intermission when they turn off the film for five minutes. At that time they called the airport and found out they were delayed until the next day. It was a great movie to see with other people from the US as I'm sure if I would have seen it here in Germany the Germans would have given it a different spin, although overall it was not a great movie. Then after it was over I left the theater and stepped into a hail storm. Magnificent Iceland!

On the move

So I moved from Cologne to B. to an unfurished apartment and then took off for Iceland for 14 days. I've been back in the 95F heat of Germany and have spent the past week catching up on work stuff and trying to unpack.

This weekend I head up to Sylt for some cooler weather and seaside.

I haven't unpacked the cord to transfer the Iceland photos yet, so more when I come back next week...