A day trip for the ages – Iceland’s Golden Circle

/ Greg / 5 Comments

Normally toward the end of a two week trip, my energy is starting to fade just a bit.  Not so on the second to last day of this trip.  I’m awake early, and among the first to grab breakfast in the dining room of our Reykjavik hotel.  I can’t get to the car rental place fast enough.  Today we’re doing a driving tour of Iceland’s “Golden Circle”

Leaving Reykjavik, there are clouds in the sky with a forecast promising a sunny day a few hours ahead.  With no trouble at all, we find our way out of the city and onto highway 36 to make our way to Þingvellir National Park.   We decided on the self-tour/rental car approach so we could do this trip at our own pace.  About 10-15 minutes after turning onto highway 36, we’re glad we did.  We pull off the highway for the first of what would be a few stops like this.  There is an open vista and a field of balanced rock sculptures done by visitors:

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The Blue Lagoon and Reykjavik hotdogs

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A month and a half after returning home, I still get goosebumps thinking back on arriving in Reykjavik for the start of two days in Iceland.   In planning our itinerary, we figured a good first taste of this country after a four hour flight was a stop at the Blue Lagoon.  It was a perfect day for a visit here: sunny, 13°C.  My slightly weary travel body melted as I entered the lagoon:

Blue LagoonIn no time, the hot water took out the kinks of four hours spent in economy class. Noticing a bar just off to one side of the lagoon, I had my first Gull beer which really put me at ease.  It may have been the best tasting beer ever – the location definitely had something to do with that. Continue reading →

Eagles and NFL in review – Week 3

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There really isn’t much positive to say about the Eagles loss to Arizona.  As a fan, all you can hope for is that it’s just “one of those games”.  Now three games into the year, I’m not so sure this is a one-off performance, especially on the offensive side of the ball.  There were a number of worrying signs:

  1. Michael Vick – I said at the start of the season that I expected this year to be a referendum on his future tenure as QB and so far it’s not going well.  The two 4th quarter comebacks notwithstanding, he’s still making the same poor reads, he’s holding onto the ball far too long and he’s a turnover machine.  Vick will always be a high risk / high reward type QB.  Those tend not to be the guys you win championships with.   His durability also has to be called into question.  He was hit more than 15 times against Arizona and more than half of those were his own fault.  His performance vs. the blitz was awful.  Top QBs welcome the blitz and make big plays.  Vick was 5/21 and sacked twice when blizted.
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Arriving in Iceland

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Expectations can be a funny thing. Grounded in fear or excitement of something unknown or somewhat unpredictable, they can cloud or enhance the experience to which you’ve attached them. Getting on the plane from Bergen to Reykjavik, I’m terribly excited.  Kid at Christmas excited. My expectations for this last leg of the trip are sky high. While the Scandinavian trip has been outstanding so far, for me, one of the things that sealed the choice for this year’s big trip was the two days we would be spending in Iceland.

When I was much younger, during the Christmas season you would see flocks of Icelanders wandering through Mic Mac Mall. They came to my hometown to do their Christmas shopping because of the purchasing power they had compared to the inflated costs at the time in their country. As a kid, I was struck by how different the people looked – so elegant, so well dressed – and how cool their accents sounded. At that time in my mind, Iceland was an almost mythical place.

Fast forward to me sitting on a plane to Reykjavik, and Iceland is still mythical to me. My Icelandair plane is named after one of their volcanoes (Katla).  I have a bottle of Icelandic glacier water. I’m listening to the in flight Icelandic music channel and the ethereal quality to the music is igniting my excitement.   I’m hours away from landing, and yet I feel like I’ve already arrived.

All of the reading I’ve done and photos I’ve seen can’t capture what I’ll experience in the two days that lay ahead of me. I’ll try to express in a few posts coming up the beauty and the magic that so deeply touched me in Iceland.

The expectations were high.

Wandering through Bergen

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Bergen is a great town through which to wander.  Over the course of our three days there, we took a slower pace than earlier in our trip to take in the sights of this quaint town.  Here are some of the more notable things we saw on our stay.

Bryggen – A UNESCO world culture heritage site, this area of Bergen is its oldest, dating back to around the mid 1300s.  Due to many fires, there’s a mix of newer and older buildings with some cellars here dating back to the 15th century.  Even the reconstructed buildings are faithful to the originals.   They are beautiful buildings whose angles (few of which are perfect 90 degrees as you can see) add to the charm:

Bryggen Continue reading →

The price of eating in Norway

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I’ve been to a few expensive places in which to travel over the past couple of years (Zurich, I’m looking at you), but nothing really prepared me for the cost of eating in Norway.  In other costly cities – Paris, New York, Milan, I’ve had no trouble finding great economical places to eat where I felt I got a taste of the location.  Not so in Norway.  Seth Kugel, the New York Times “Frugal Traveler” put it best when he recently wrote:

Norway is the extreme Scandinavian case, though — the only country I’ve ever been in where I suffered from constant, low-grade budget anxiety. On the opposite end is Sweden, which, if you come directly from Norway, feels like you’ve entered a 173,300-square-mile Costco.

Traveling is about the memories – being a couple of accountants, we budget for trips so we’re not thinking about money while away.  With that planning we saved our travel dollars for the cuisine of Iceland laying ahead in our travels and quickly labeled Norway as a place where we’d live off of grocery store food for a few days.  This was our first supper in Bergen, and still clocked in at around $20:

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Eagles and NFL in review – Week 2

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Two weeks. Nine turnovers. 2-0.

It doesn’t really compute, but after the 24-23 win over the Ravens, the resolve of this year’s Eagles is impressive in the early going. That resolve is going to be tested even more in the coming weeks with the season ending injury to their best offensive lineman. Here’s what I saw in Sunday’s dramatic win:

4th quarter comeback #2: Vick hasn’t been a clutch late game performer in his career with the Eagles, but led a long game-winning TD drive for the second week in a row. Very encouraging.

Balance returns to offensive play calling: The Eagles called more runs than passes, and although the run game statistically didn’t deliver exceptional results, the threat of the run opened up large areas in the middle of the field for Vick/Celek to take advantage of. The Ravens pass rush was relentless and Vick took a number of big hits, but the threat of the run game (and Vick’s scrambling) kept the rush just enough at bay to allow for bigger plays down field.

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A day trip to remember – Norway’s fjords

/ Greg / 5 Comments

The 11th day of our Scandinavian trip had us waking up in quaint Bergen.  We selected Bergen as a home base for the ease of a spectacular day trip to explore Norway’s famous fjords – in particular the Nærøyfjord and Aurlandsfjord arms of the Sognefjord.

Despite ominous weather forecasts, as we leave Bergen on a train en route for Voss, the weather is holding and looking positive.  Here’s a view out of the train window about 20 minutes outside Bergen:

From the train just after leaving Bergen Continue reading →

Bergen. First stop: Fløyen

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A little over a week into our Scandinavian adventure, we board a quick flight from Stockholm to Bergen, Norway.  It’s a very clear day (something that apparently is a bit of a rarity for Bergen), so we have a wonderful view of the town as we land at the airport about 30 minutes outside the centre.  The clear day (and an ominous weather forecast for the rest of our stay in this coastal town) and the view from the plane inspired us to make a beeline to the top of Fløyen mountain.  A short funicular ride from virtually the centre of Bergen puts this panoramic view on display:

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Eagles and NFL in review – Week 1

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That was an ugly win. The Eagles did just about everything in their power to give away a week 1 game against a very inferior opponent, but pulled out a last minute TD drive to start out on the positive side of the ledger. Here’s what I saw, moving from bad to good:

Vick: Four interceptions, three of which were of the “cover your eyes bad” variety. He looked rusty, and my hope is that this was a week of him shaking off the lack of pre-season preparation and not a sign of a continuation of his turnover prone ways. Perhaps more troubling is his decision making tendency of always looking for a big play. Many times against the Browns there was at least one check-down receiver wide open who he ignored. He’s got to start taking the easy yardage that defences are giving him.

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