Hi!Well. Here we are. It's been a while, I know, am sorry - been having yuuuuuuuuge internet problems over these last few weeks and couldn't do anything because it either wouldn't connect, would connect at old fashioned dial-up speeds or it would just plain drop out after, oh, 30 seconds. And after having spent the better part of three weeks-plus on the phone with Optus (phone/internet company - grrr) who have assured me they've made major tweaks to my speed and it should
therefore be amazing - I can't tell a difference between before it quit working and now that they say have it working. Guess they'll say anything to make you think they did something so you don't think you wasted your time calling them on a toll-number. Today's phone call, however, ended with them scheduling a technician to come to my house in a couple days. We shall see. I've threatened not to pay, so maybe now they'll be more inspired to fix it. So, for now, I will power on (har har, no pun intended) and hope [wait] for the best (thank heavens for being able to use my cell phone's and work's internet)!
Anyways, all has been well here in Paddington. Got the chores all done and then
some in honor of the twice-yearly real estate "invasion" that happened last week. Not that the place is ever a mess, but when you have strangers with cameras and clipboards coming in to judge how you live, you tend to go the extra mile and dust and vacuum up all those dead bugs on the window sills and in the sliding glass door tracks............ So, I passed, of course. And my prize was a lease renewal for another year! What a pain. I mean, I get why they do them, but I still don't like strangers wandering around in my place unsupervised, which is why I have to take the day off from work. It sucks to burn a real vacation day to babysit and not lounge on a beach sipping Margaritas all day. And I'm sure
these people are fairly trustworthy, everything's insured and let's face it, I don't have the Crown Jewels (heh, if I did I certainly wouldn't be renting!), but still. It's weird. I don't remember them doing this in the US.......... But! We now have the chores all done, happy clean laundry, bills are all paid, got the cool jazz tunes from probably one of The Best internet radio stations out there, got a nice cool glass of the stand-by Sauv-Blanc - yes, life is good!
these people are fairly trustworthy, everything's insured and let's face it, I don't have the Crown Jewels (heh, if I did I certainly wouldn't be renting!), but still. It's weird. I don't remember them doing this in the US.......... But! We now have the chores all done, happy clean laundry, bills are all paid, got the cool jazz tunes from probably one of The Best internet radio stations out there, got a nice cool glass of the stand-by Sauv-Blanc - yes, life is good!
So, work. Yep. Is good. We're apparently going to have a bit of a
re-organization in April (they must do two or three of these a year) and while it won't affect us it'll affect the people who directly own us; and we're also having our job descriptions "re-aligned" to go with how the US does everything. This should be interesting. On one hand I'm not nervous, but on the other, given the fate of the other two Editors I used to work with, yeah....... We can only wait and see. This past week I had to fly down to Williamtown and the air force base there (where our customer lives) to train a couple of new guys how to do a job I was doing but now they get to do (updating a chemical database). A bit of trouble with flights being cancelled, etc, so I was only able to sit with them for an hour before I had to catch my flight back to Brisbane! Ahhh well, it was my first work trip ever and was kinda fun. Tho, the un-fun part was the getting up at 3.30am to catch a 6.15am flight that ended up being cancelled........ Never mind, a somewhat-productive day was [hopefully] had by all! And that's one tedious job off my desk forever! Yay! And what else.......... I think that mountain of work we've been expecting for over two years now ain't coming, soooooooo, well, at least
am not busy-busy, especially now that I offloaded that one task I was doing. Now, I'm fixing up graphics using Corel Draw 14 (yes, they still make it), crappy old software because A) That's all our old graphics guy knew how to use, and even that taxed his soon-to-retire brain, and B) The company won't spring the cash to upgrade to any other kind of software, let alone modernize us to version 18. Yep. Guess the CEO needs every penny he can get for his bonus, wouldn't want the guy to go hungry or without a roof over his head now, would we. So, yes, updating some drawings and the odd editing - that's me. Thankfully, I don't have to help out that other project..... for now. But ultimately, as I always say, am forever grateful to have a decent job that pays to keep the lights on, even if the internet doesn't want to go most of the time!
minor sport is in town, and out of town for that matter, but they won't talk about one of the city's most successful teams. Bastards. Last year the Mayor gave them the keys to the city, haven't heard what's planned to celebrate this year's win...... Poor overlooked Bandits. I'm tempted to call their marketing team and give them what-for. So, that was one weekend........... Honestly, the weekends been pretty quiet since it's been so hot and muggy, then again, it is February, the worst months for living in Brisbane......... Hopefully global warming doesn't punish us too much and keep summer going through March..........
And then there is the next installment of The Big Nordic Adventure!!!!! So, after 
Denmark I flew to Reykjavik, Iceland, where I met up with my friend Kerry whom I hadn't seen in about 13 years! That was loads of fun, much catching up over a bottle of wine. It was great. Note to folks tho, Iceland is wicked expensive, like, wicked expensive. That bottle of wine costs $16 bucks here, just down the street from my apartment; in the hotel bar, and I know they mark stuff up, it cost $87 Australian dollars. Gasp! Next time will use my currency exchange converter before I buy the wine!!!!!
Denmark I flew to Reykjavik, Iceland, where I met up with my friend Kerry whom I hadn't seen in about 13 years! That was loads of fun, much catching up over a bottle of wine. It was great. Note to folks tho, Iceland is wicked expensive, like, wicked expensive. That bottle of wine costs $16 bucks here, just down the street from my apartment; in the hotel bar, and I know they mark stuff up, it cost $87 Australian dollars. Gasp! Next time will use my currency exchange converter before I buy the wine!!!!!
So, early the next morning (heh 'morning', you couldn't tell because the sun didn't actually come up, kinda, until 10am or so), we met our guide, Ole along with our very stoic driver Paule, for our six day Hidden Powers and Northern Lights tour across the south-western coast. I won't bore you with
too much day-by-day but it was a lot in a fairly short amount of time. Have a look at the little link I included, it gives great details about each day, what we saw, where we went, etc. Even tho it was mid-winter, we didn't actually get any snow, saw some light patches but they weren't very big and didn't last long. All the weather did was rain and be cloudy the entire time. In Denmark I saw the sun, I think, two days out of the eight I was there and same for Iceland, tho I think it was only half a day, if that. And 'day' lasted from about 10am to 3.30pm, 4pm! Ha, and if I thought that was a short day, did I have a surprise waiting for me in northern Norway!
too much day-by-day but it was a lot in a fairly short amount of time. Have a look at the little link I included, it gives great details about each day, what we saw, where we went, etc. Even tho it was mid-winter, we didn't actually get any snow, saw some light patches but they weren't very big and didn't last long. All the weather did was rain and be cloudy the entire time. In Denmark I saw the sun, I think, two days out of the eight I was there and same for Iceland, tho I think it was only half a day, if that. And 'day' lasted from about 10am to 3.30pm, 4pm! Ha, and if I thought that was a short day, did I have a surprise waiting for me in northern Norway!
But there were a few highlights from our tour that immediately spring to mind - 
on the first day, technically Day 2 according to the tour, we drove to the site where the Vikings used to hold their annual meetings in the springtime, Thingvellier, which is actually right there along the ridge where Iceland shares both the North American and Eurasian continental plates - pret-ty cool. In fact, there's a lake between the two ridges that you can scuba dive in, and it's not that deep, so you can say you've scuba dived on two continental land masses at one time! All of which is why Iceland is so geothermally active with a few restless volcanoes, the most infamous being Eyjafjallajokull (roughly pronounced, aya-feya-yokul - see? I learned how to pronounce it properly and now you can too!). Also along 
the way we stopped in at Laugarvatn Fontana Geothermal Baths (we didn't go in tho), which has an excellent cafe with a geothermal bakery, and had bread baked in the ground/beach (well, in a pot in the ground, of course!)! It was mooooooooost excellent bread too, very moist, kind of like a dark, dense cake, only rye. Soooooooo good with fresh Icelandic butter - wonderful! I grabbed the recipe but now I need a geothermal beach.... Someone in our group said to try it in an oven on 100° for 8 hours, and now I can't remember if that's Celsius or Fahrenheit...... Probably Celsius, everyone on the planet except for the US uses C. Am so going to try it!
on the first day, technically Day 2 according to the tour, we drove to the site where the Vikings used to hold their annual meetings in the springtime, Thingvellier, which is actually right there along the ridge where Iceland shares both the North American and Eurasian continental plates - pret-ty cool. In fact, there's a lake between the two ridges that you can scuba dive in, and it's not that deep, so you can say you've scuba dived on two continental land masses at one time! All of which is why Iceland is so geothermally active with a few restless volcanoes, the most infamous being Eyjafjallajokull (roughly pronounced, aya-feya-yokul - see? I learned how to pronounce it properly and now you can too!). Also along 
the way we stopped in at Laugarvatn Fontana Geothermal Baths (we didn't go in tho), which has an excellent cafe with a geothermal bakery, and had bread baked in the ground/beach (well, in a pot in the ground, of course!)! It was mooooooooost excellent bread too, very moist, kind of like a dark, dense cake, only rye. Soooooooo good with fresh Icelandic butter - wonderful! I grabbed the recipe but now I need a geothermal beach.... Someone in our group said to try it in an oven on 100° for 8 hours, and now I can't remember if that's Celsius or Fahrenheit...... Probably Celsius, everyone on the planet except for the US uses C. Am so going to try it!
On the third day we stopped to admire two spectacular waterfalls (with very long names. Again, check out the website for better details!) on our way to Reynisfjara beach. This was pretty impressive for how black the sand was against the white-ish, grey sky and the thundering ocean with its massive
crashing waves. Not to mention the most amazing cliff/rock formations, they looked like pipes from a massive, massive pipe organ. It was beautiful. Treacherous beach tho, it kills for fun. They lost a few folks (read: shit-stupid tourists) over the years, so keep one eye on the scenery and one on that water.
And then on the fourth day we stopped at Skaftafell National Park to take in Europe's largest glacier. That was impressive. The colors, the shades of blue and green, and the clarity and denseness throughout it, it was mesmerizing. And if some of the other tourists would've shut up for longer than ten seconds, 
which they did briefly, you could actually hear it groan and creak and crack. That was amazing, and kinda creepy, but way cool. Then we drove around to basically the other side to see where bits of it had come off and were floating down a "river", which is actually Jokulsarlon Glacial Lagoon, bound for the sea, which we also drove around to check out. Both were simply amazing. Black sand beach littered with chunks of glacier of all sizes and colors. It was an amazing and beautiful sight. Freezing cold and rainy, but I thought that just added to it all. It was one of THE coolest things I think I've ever seen!
which they did briefly, you could actually hear it groan and creak and crack. That was amazing, and kinda creepy, but way cool. Then we drove around to basically the other side to see where bits of it had come off and were floating down a "river", which is actually Jokulsarlon Glacial Lagoon, bound for the sea, which we also drove around to check out. Both were simply amazing. Black sand beach littered with chunks of glacier of all sizes and colors. It was an amazing and beautiful sight. Freezing cold and rainy, but I thought that just added to it all. It was one of THE coolest things I think I've ever seen!
And finally on our fifth day we met the Eyjafjallajokull volcano and had a brief visit to the farm's visitor center that sits at its base (scary) and watched a short documentary by the farm owners about the eruption and following days and weeks. Pretty interesting and not a little terrifying. And after that we were
bound for civilization but before arriving at our hotel we had a dip in the Blue Lagoon. Now, I'd heard lots and lots and lots about this lagoon, both from tourist sites and friends who'd been there, not to mention stories from our guide who used to hang out there in the early 70s before it is what it is now, a massive tourist cash machine (and you won't be at all surprised to hear that they're expanding it by yuuuuge leaps and bounds), and I have to say, I wasn't all that mad crazy keen to jump in. One reason, and a big one, I have a thing about public pools (after a couple bad experiences in Auckland put me right off forever), so there was that. 
And the fact that you're actually floating around in, granted it's all totally natural, run-off from the geothermal power plant. Hrm. Our guide told us that back in the day, when he was young that's where kids used to hang out, drink beer and pick up chicks, it really was basically just a big hot water puddle (pool) that'd bubbled up from holes dug as a result of the geothermal power station. Now, if it were up to me, I'd've muuuuch rather toured the power station than spend an afternoon at the pool. But that's just me. Nevertheless, plucky tourist I am, I donned mah 'suit and made the freezing sprint out of the changing building and into the soft, warm, milky water, where Kerry and I promptly waded over to the swim-up bar for some wine. I have to say, it was neat but I refrained from sticking my head under the water and smearing that mud all over my face. Kerry did and her face
didn't melt off, but I still wasn't at all keen. Besides, we both had been to Rotorua in NZ and knew what we were in for (interesting to see they have something similar, tho more "civilized"). So, we floated around there for about an hour, drinking wine and hanging out with the cooler folks on the tour with us before we got bored and headed for the showers and some hot chocolate. By the way, the gift shop is pretty impressive too if you're into mud. Amazingly I didn't find anything I couldn't live without (I heard a sigh of relief come from my wallet as we boarded the bus one last time bound for our hotel). Soooooooo yes, would I recommend it? Ehhh, it's definitely worth a look because it's pretty, up to you if you actually want to jump in. I know I'll be touring the power plant!
And the fact that you're actually floating around in, granted it's all totally natural, run-off from the geothermal power plant. Hrm. Our guide told us that back in the day, when he was young that's where kids used to hang out, drink beer and pick up chicks, it really was basically just a big hot water puddle (pool) that'd bubbled up from holes dug as a result of the geothermal power station. Now, if it were up to me, I'd've muuuuch rather toured the power station than spend an afternoon at the pool. But that's just me. Nevertheless, plucky tourist I am, I donned mah 'suit and made the freezing sprint out of the changing building and into the soft, warm, milky water, where Kerry and I promptly waded over to the swim-up bar for some wine. I have to say, it was neat but I refrained from sticking my head under the water and smearing that mud all over my face. Kerry did and her face
didn't melt off, but I still wasn't at all keen. Besides, we both had been to Rotorua in NZ and knew what we were in for (interesting to see they have something similar, tho more "civilized"). So, we floated around there for about an hour, drinking wine and hanging out with the cooler folks on the tour with us before we got bored and headed for the showers and some hot chocolate. By the way, the gift shop is pretty impressive too if you're into mud. Amazingly I didn't find anything I couldn't live without (I heard a sigh of relief come from my wallet as we boarded the bus one last time bound for our hotel). Soooooooo yes, would I recommend it? Ehhh, it's definitely worth a look because it's pretty, up to you if you actually want to jump in. I know I'll be touring the power plant!
Otherwise, I hope you're all well up there! I see California is being hammered with rain and the Pacific Northwest has become a part of Canadaland. Stay safe and warm you folks, the end should be neigh! And say, if you need a break from winter, well, you're more than welcome to partake of our hot and muggy summer, which will probably hang around until March at this rate! So, c'mon down!
BYE!
J ~
J ~
P.S. I know I've mentioned it before but just in case, I had maaaaasive problems with my brand-new phone and as a result lost every single one of my photos from Iceland (didn't use my real camera because the phone one was so good). One day, when Kerry mails me a flash drive with all of her photos, I'll share them with you. She did send a few through email (and one of the folks from our tour sent a few, too), so have used those. Until then (because heaven knows when that will be exactly), I highly recommend checking out the links I included, which will give you a great idea of what the places looked like. It's shame because even in winter Iceland was incredibly beautiful in its singularly unique way. I swear I had a ton of amazing photos, honest......! :(
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