Iceland Megatrip 2005 – Day 1

Well just a little over a year ago, the four members of the Palsson family “stranded” in Brisbane, Australia started off on a trip bigger than Ben Hur to go to the quinquennial clan gathering in Reykir and to see the land. I didn’t blog as much as I wanted to whilst on the trip as I was to busy living it up, so I have decided to blog about it a year on 🙂

Day 1

Sean drove us to the airport (BNE) and by the time we got to the check-in desk for Singapore Airlines we were already bickering overs omething – who had the frequent flyer numbers, who should go first etc etc, which gave the desk attendant a good laugh. After checking in we broke up to have a look round the duty free shops and we then met back up with Mum and Pabbi to grab a bite to eat. After sitting round for a while we finally able to go through Customs/security and down to the gate. So we bid farewell to Sean and made our way down stairs. Where we were greeted by this fantastic fountain.

Fountain at BNE


Once we were all through Customs/security we looked at even more duty free shops, mainly just marvelling at all the different types of alcohol which we do not see in our regular bottleos and of course at the price (cheap), after a while though this of course got boring so we made the short trip to our gate and broke out our entertainment.

the family awaits

As we made our way onto the plane we were greeted by our delightful stewards and stewardesses and the complimentary newspapers which I grabbed to have a read of the news from the SE Asia perspective, it was quite nice to read the Straits Times and some others which I can’t recall.

Air travel with Singapore Airlines is very, very nice, just after take off the warm face washers came round which would then again come round just before we landed and before the meals. Very, very nice. We also had quite a range of entertainment with Movies and TV shows on demand, Nintendo games, puzzles, radio stations and a wide range of albums which meant that you could program your own radio station.

Flying north over Australia was amazing and I spent a fair bit of time at the back of the plane looking out the window at the land below, it was just great to see the landscape.

After about 8 hours of flying we landed at Changi Airport Singapore (SIN).

One of the first things we had to do here was to make a hurried call to Sean to get him to pick up Mum’s notebook that she had left behind with all the plans and addresses in and post it to Aunty Margaret in Tasmania who would be joining us a week into our trip.

showing how it is

No one could say that Matthew is an average person, he rocked his way around SIN in the above get-up and the toothpick in his mouth was there almost the entire time. Matthew and I split off from Mum and Pabbi and browsed the duty free shops, looked in the 7-11 to see if they had slurpees (no :)), had a blast on the free internet access and I ended up buying a bottle of Lemoncino.

When we got on the plane again, we had the same service as before, so no need to go in to that. I loved watching our plane make its way over Eurasia and again spending more time looking out the window to see the land below, though since we were flying through the night it was just limited to the lights which were still amazing. Flying over India we could see the long strait highways which were covered with trucks making their way across the land.

Eventually we saw this on our screen and that meant that the first leg of our trip was almost over, we were almost at London Heathrow Airport (LHR).

almost there

Hello Holiday

So the Socceroos didn’t get up, we only lost by two against Brazil and Japan-Croatia tied with no goals, which means that we still look good for the next round.

I did my last exam for the semester yesterday, now I just have to wait for the results to come rolling in, even though grades are not announced until July 5, I already know that I have gotten two distinctions (6) and I think I might get another two yet and one credit (5) if I manage to pull this off, it will be my best semester at uni ever. One of those distinctions would have been a high distinction if I had not done miserably (11/20) on the mid-semester. Bring on next semester (which is my last semester of my undergraduate Bachelors degree)!

I watched three DVDs yesterday. The first was with Mum – Hope Springs, quite a nice romantic comedy and the character played by Minnie Driver was just a total piece of work. The second was with Mum and Matthew – Do You Remember?: Fifteen Years of the Bouncing Souls, which was a really great doco about The ‘Souls which made me think I really should have gone with Matthew and his friends to see them when the played the other month. The last one I watched was Speak, this was an incredible movie, I didn’t think it would be anywhere near as dark as it was but it was just incredibly moving.
Bring on five weeks of holidays and try to forget that this time last year we were busy preparing for the Palsson Grand Iceland Tour of 2005, I guess though in four years times we will all do our best to make our way back as a family for the quinquennial clan gathering.

I have plans of grandeur to fill my holidays with, which include the following.

  • Make this top – Simplicity 4589, view A
  • Make pasta
  • Finish the final testing of a new blog template
  • Attack the ever increasing pile of recipes to try and make a good number of them
  • Learn how to knit – Continental style (Mum was taught English style like most Australian’s but thinks it would be better for me to learn Continental style as it is so more efficient, she talks of when she was in Iceland and like most of the other women spent a lot of time knitting by hand or with their machines and how the Icelandic women were just powerhouses with their knitting, maybe I can talk her into paying for me to go to Iceland these holidays to learn how to knit?)
  • Get a fair stack of scrapbooking done
  • Make a couple of bags
  • Get my bike serviced so I can start riding again
  • Go on a couple of mini photographic expeditions
  • Go see Trivia at the Metro Arts
  • Go see Death Cab for Cutie at the Arena
  • The Brisbane Flickr meet up on Sunday
  • Get a couple of photos printed and mounted for a long overdue birthday present
  • Have fun
  • Work a heap
  • Organise some sort of filing system for the clippings I collect
  • Hit up the shops/life with Andrea
  • Party hard(ish) with Sam
  • Play copious amounts of Gamecube with Matthew
  • Organise something with The Girls from school
  • Read all the books in this monstrous stack I have – five different trips to the library and the four I need to finish beside my bed (if you click on the photo you can see it full size so you can have a “browse” of my library shelf)

books to be read

The real question is how much of this list will I actually get through and how much I won’t finish.

as young as we act

only as young as you actI handed in my last essay yesterday. Now I just have classes today and tomorrow, swotvac (study week) next week and then four exams in the two week exam block that follows.So between catching up on some TV (McLeod’s Daughters, ER and The Glass House) and working on a little surprise I did a page which ended up been so much simpler than I had planned. As you can probably tell it is only 1 photo, 1 piece of “paper”, a font and a little dose of Helen.

These are two of my sweet nieces, like every day I spent in Iceland I can play this day out on the TV in my head but this day something very special happened. Birta, Silja and I were waiting in the car whilst my brother went to get something, which meant we were just going crazy singing along to Icelandic Pop. Then my brother came back and said a few sentences, which left the girls in shock. They had just made the connection between me been their father’s sister and that meaning I was their aunt. It was classic.

We then met up with my sister-in-law and then spent the rest of the day at the Reykjavik Children’s Zoo and Park. This meant that big kids and little kids alike got to have fun watching animals and playing in one big and very cool adventure playground. 🙂

If someone came up to me tomorrow and said “here is a ticket to Iceland”, I would take it and run!

I have four nieces, five nephews, two sisters, four brothers and a scores and scores of aunts, uncles, cousins and the like in Iceland. Who are all in my mind each and every day.

If I was magical I would pick Iceland up and move it to just off the coast from Brisbane and then I would put a magical dome over it so it would retain all its Icelandic weather and stuff. Then Iceland would just be a short trip from Brisbane. How much would that rock?

round up, round up, round up

Another day and another birthday in the Pálsson troop 🙂

Today my third eldest brother, Hafþór Ingi turns the big 38! Out of my half-siblings, Hafþór is the only one I actually grew up around, as he moved to Australia with my parents in 1980 and moved back to Iceland in 1993 so for the first eight years of my life he was a big part of it.

This photo is of me when I was a wee little Snuffleupagus of just 4 weeks been held by the aforementioned brother who in this photo is 17! Don’t you just love the flags of the world outfit? Perhaps I was destined to be doing International Studies?

hafthor and helen
But this isn’t my birthday so bringing the attention back to the birthday boy. I don’t really have any funny moments but I am sure he does of me. There are some things that I do know, this man is a musical genius in all aspects from singing, to playing to writing, he is a wonderful father with two gorgeous kids, an incredible wealth of knowledge and an all round super cool person and big brother 🙂 Here is a more recent photo – taken last July at the family moot in Iceland, in his entire element with his guitar and perhaps it is the ever adoring younger sister in me, but I reckon he looks like Chris Martin of Coldplay and has a better voice too 🙂

hafthor-at-the-moot

Ok, that was a little longer than I planned on it been so back to the topic as the title of this post suggested – round up.

The Commonwealth Games are on at the moment and Australia of course is on fire! I always enjoy the Commonwealth Games more than the Olympics; they just seem a whole lot more friendlier, because they are the “Friendly Games” 🙂 It’s just great to see things like this, and many other countries getting their first Gold, Silver or Bronze medals, just great stuff! and Ben Lee is going to be playing at the closing ceremony, top stuff!

But to put some family spin on the Commonwealth Games, big kudos to my second cousin Nathan Eglington who is on fire in the Kookaburras (Australian Men’s Hockey team) with a hat-trick in a 5-1 win against England. Should be another Gold Medal for Australia there.

Uni is still uni, but I have now done my first piece of assessment so it really feels like the semester is underway now – it is week 4 of 13 after all.

Go check out some of the designs Tracy is pumping out at the moment, that girl is on fire I tell you.

Big Cheers for EK Success and Jacob getting engaged – so happy 🙂

The Parcel man brought me five (5) new crafty books from Amazon.co.jp the other day – will post more about them soon 🙂

I made the most yummy blueberry muffins last night – total heaven. I used this recipe – Blueberry Muffins from Elsie.com all I changed was that I used buttermilk instead of plain yoghurt and didn’t add the lemon zest because I had no lemons and WHOA total heaven, very, very nice muffins!

I think that was all I wanted to round up for the moment but I leave you with this note, something “big” and “special” is coming a few days time 😀

Jökull

Remember the quilt I made for one of my nephews? Well it arrived in Iceland the other day and my sister sent me a photo of Jökull with his quilt 🙂 Glacier boy now has his magic powers 🙂

Jökull and quilt

one album

The first in a series of music related posts.

If the music police came to your house and told you that for the rest of your life, you could only listen to one album for the rest of time, what would you choose? My choice always surprises me. I don’t think I could pick a single artist so it has to be a compilation or a soundtrack and I have so many to pick from but the winner?

Icelandic Pop Favourites – you can listen to previews from this link.

Toti, Anna and the kids sent this home with Pabbi after his 2000 trip to Iceland if I recall correctly, Matthew was sent one of the companion CD’s – Icelandic Rock Favourites. Without a doubt, this CD is the one that I have played the most, it was one for the first I ripped to MP3 format and again one of the first to be uploaded to my MP3 player.

The thing is though, I remember opening up the wrapping paper, seeing the CD and thought uggh Pop, why couldn’t I have got rock or something like Matthew, how wrong was I. Icelandic pop and music in general is so different to anything else I have heard. I am not a big pop fan but nothing could replace this CD in my collection.

I see the CD as having two styles in it, the first the tracks with a dance anthem theme; repetitive lyrics, lots of beats, the second style are the tracks with a focus on the vocals, less beats more guitar and piano but still very upbeat, these are songs that you can clean to. Some songs are in English, some are in Icelandic, sure I only understand some words in the Icelandic songs but I still love them.

Track Listing
Selma Björnsdóttir – All out of luck
Ég elska alla – Stjórnin
Síðan hittumst við aftur – SSSól
Gus Gus – Ladyshave
Móa – Joy and Pain
Sálin hans Jóns míns – Okkar nótt
Todmobile – Stúlkan
Maryland – Dreaming
Bubbi – Sumar konur
Sóldögg – Friður
Nýdönsk – Horfðu til himins
Stuðmenn – Komdu með
URL – Song in A
Tweety – Gott mál
Greifarnir – Skiptir engu máli
Ã? móti sól – Ã? þig

My favourite track on the CD is without a doubt Stuðmenn’s Komdu með, I can’t really tell you why, other than the fact that each time I find myself singing away. My name on MSN and ICQ many, many times in my younger days was Komdu með or Helen – Komdu með.

So thanks to Toti and family for putting an irreplaceable album in my collection and opening my ears to a whole new world of music.

You can buy single songs from Tonlist for USD$0.99, bargain! Go explore Icelandic music 🙂 and if you could only have one album from your collection, what would it be?