Snow and ice and rain?

well teh snow is gone, we had a day of 1cm coating of ice across everything, then the rain came and it is all gone. The street sign said it was +1 c today, but it is blowing and raining fairly hard.

so the weather continues to amaze me with its variance.

SNOW!

We had big fluffy snow flakes falling yesterday and it actually stayed.

Today is a nice white wonderland. but it could melt today, will have to see, but briefly it has felt like winter :)

So hopefully tomorrow I will have a cell phone, probably going to be pay as you go to start. And hopefully buy something for a couple of people for x-mas, will have to see :) The ideas have been light in coming. And i am limited to $300 can that i can bring back tax fre. Which puts a good limit on what I can spend.

I have been thinking of getting Tanya a book in Icelandic, since she got me one in Russian `:)

Daylight keeps slipping away

I have been watching the time of sunset and sunrise on a weather site and have come to a interesting observation.

Daylight is going fast
yesterday sunrise was 10:51 am, an sunset was 3:44 pm.
Today sunrise is 10:53 am and sunset is 3:42 pm

So we are losing 4 min of daylight a day.

aka it is getting dark fast.

Those Darn Sweeds!

Well yesterday I went to that landmark that is every were...

Yes I went to Ikea, you think the names of things are bad when browsing Ikea, try it when you can't read any of the sign age, or sub text of the products.


I got my self a bed side table and a lamp to read by, and a laundry drying rack.

In other new I have a Kennitala (aka SIN number) and now have a bank account, so that means I should have gotten paid yesterday :)

But on the other hand won't have a bank card until Thursday :(


This is Home #42 Freyjugata, share a floor with two room mates.

Freya is one of the norse gods, Gata is street so FreyJuGata is freya's street.

A couple blocks over is Odingata, can you guess which god that street is named for?

Well that is about all the news from Iceland, my computer and The quilt Karen made for me arrived. $500 for a 50 lbs box, sHeeehs... Got the quote from a moving company. To move 10 cubic meters from Edmonton to dock side in Iceland will be $5000. I Don't think i am going to ship much over, can't afford that kind of expense and I am in a furnished apartment.

The quilt has been very nice as it has been blowing something fierce here and the house is kinda drafty. I think there is one window that seals right. So Thank you again for the quilt Karen.


I have a mailing address, so email me if you need it.

Ta for now.

p.s. The photos where taken about 9:00 AM.

The Boon and Bane of heated sidewalks

They are both the greatest thing since sliced bread, and treacherous at the same time.

The snow from yesterday turned into rain, and froze, bet you can see where this is going.

well walking to work this morning, I am merrily walking along the nice heated sidewalk, and you step out onto the street, Pure Ice!

Wow was that slippery, also remember that it is all up hill to my place. so it was icy, going down a fairly steep hill.

I found the best way was to go with it and slide across the street and hope you can stop once you get back to the heated sidewalks :)

Holy Wind batman!

Yesterday it started snowing. And iw as walking home after spending a day playing wow here at the office.

Well I have never run into a wind that stops your forward progress when walking. And it was blowing so hard the noise drowned out my ear bud for my iPod...

Well I got home and am not deaf, the house is fairly old, but seeing as many houses here in Iceland are concrete they would tend to last along time. Anyway there is not good seals around many of the windows, and the wind was whistling thorough the house a good bit.

Really wish Karen's quilt was here already, would have been useful last night.

Well it is monday, and the work doesn't do it self... Ta for now.

Breaking news

Winter is here!
It started snowing just after I got into the office today.

Like the rain the snow is coming in sideways :)

not much else has been happening, been working and a gave a demo of path finding system I wrote on Friday, people seem to be impressed with it :)

Well dad is about to ship stuff from Canada for me, going to be $580 to ship 50 lbs here :(
Oh well it needs to get here.

The saga of the keys

It was a cold and rainy day, our hero was in search of a place to call home. The place to call home had been located, but the keys of access where missing (Ian took them back to the states with him when he flew home). But never fear, the fearless Chantal had keys of access, but our hero could not have hers, but she would let our hero copy them.

Our hero set out to make copies of the keys, the keepers of lore in the HR department said "Go across the street, there is a hardware store there". Rain coat adorned our hero set out. Upon arriving the helpful lady said that they could do that and gave direction to the crafter of keys.

Upon locating the crafter of keys informed our hero that he lacked the blank keys for to make copies of these keys.

So our hero returned to the keepers of lore and informed them of the state of things. They said, oh goto Byko ( "y" is pronounced like "ye" so it is said "bee-ko") just a little further south.

Once again our hero set out into the cold rain. a short 10 min hike into the wind later he arrived at Byko. Again the helpful lady directed him to the crafter of keys. (surprisingly not the same lady). The crafter of keys took our lady Chantal keys into his lair and there was much talk in a strange language. Eventually the crater of keys came back and said he only had a blank for one of the keys. Our hero decided to get that one done, he could now get into the apartment, but not the building....

The crafter of keys also knowing some lore gave direction to another crafter of keys that might be able to do the other key. So our hero turned up his collar and began the 20 min hike to the other crafter of keys located on on Laugavegur (yes it is pronounced, don't ask me how!).

After a bitter cold hike to this crafter of keys our hereo finds a kindly old crafter who has no problems making the last key.

Our hero now begins the 30 min hike back to his place of work, hiking once again into the blowing rain our hero becomes chilled and goes "to heck with this!" and ambushes a idle cab for a ride back.

And that is the tale of our intrepid hero got a place to live.


There

House and info about what i do.

Moved into the apartment last night. Should be interesting, the apartment is basically a 3 bedroom attic suite. We have a large bathroom with a big tub. In the laundry room is the washer (have to line dry everything) and the shower.

Have one bedroom sized space as a living room, the kitchen has a dish washer which I understand is kinda rare in Iceland Chantal . Chantal was nice enough to wash the sheets from the bed i will be using. They are flannel sheets so it was like staying at Grans house :). It seems the preferred bedding here is a comforter with a flannel cover and a bottom sheet. Different, but warm enough.

turns out i was wrong about Chantal she is from Holland not england.

And here is a picture for Karen.


Snædís Perla C. Sigurðardóttir was wearing these on the weekend, I liked the style, and though of Karren


Well on to other things, there was a comment, Thank you Joan nice to know someone is reading my ramblings.

Yes there are cameras on the street, not as much as i here england is like, but they are there, allot of buildings have security cameras, even the small shops. which considering I hear crimes is very very low here is surprising, but maybe that is why. At the moment I am going with the rough number that everything is about 40% more expensive. The cheap Inn room I was staying in was charging ccp about 9k($150) a night for the room, and in the summer he charges about 11k($183) a night. When I was in the hotel it was 10K a night and I can't imagine what they charge in the summer.

Job, I am working as part of a team, not leading it but it is a small team with 2 full time engineers and 3 part time. Björn Swift (pronounced Be-Urn) teaches part time at Reykjavik university, Matti has a chronicle sick child that they are taking care of so he is in only 3 days a week. And Kristján Valur Jónsson( Pronounced Christan) works from home for a couple days a week.

I am working on a project called ambulation for eve-online. Since eve is a space based game you mostly fly around in a ship, but this will allow the player base to get out of there ships and walk around on stations. So as you can imagine there isn't allot of experience here with character based movement and the required systems at CCP.

Anyway I now have a place and i will save the Saga of the apartment keys for another day...

Contracts signed

title says it all.

For a place to call home.

Well it looks like I will be moving in with Chantal and Vilhelm Monday or so, there current room mate was here from Atlanta to learn. Now he is heading back, it shall be interesting living with other people again :)

Vilhelm is Icelandic, and Chantal is from England.

more to come, stopped and took some pictures this morning on the way in, will see if they turn out ok or not. Low light, and long exposure, in the rain ...

Action!, Lights! Camera?!?!?

Icelanders seems to really like there emotion detectors. You find them not only on doors, But also the lights. For a country that has allot of cheap electricity they are very conscious of turning things off.

Like Briton there is a large number of CCD cameras around. so we have Action, that turns on the Lights, which makes you show up on the Camera!

On the living front it looks like i could be rooming with a couple of people here as early as next week. So maybe i will have a place to have dad ship my PC to :)

Other than that life goes on. the rain doesn't stop but the temperature feels allot like early fall. there have been a couple of cold days but nothing really bad, and am starting to see some ice when walking to work in the morning.

The swans and ducks are still in the pond around the city hall.

So write comment so I know that there are people out there.

The Books, Om My! For the love of the books... and other things.

Above is a picture out the office window near where I am sitting.

Well the new terry Praticht book Making Money come out.. And you know how much i love his books, well i picked it and another pocket book up. The Pocket book was $11 Canadian, and the hard cover was $35 Canadian. All told it cost me $70 Canadian for the two.. Book prices are unreal here, I think I might have to beg people to bring books with them when they come from Canada.

Fan Fest went well and the fan's seem to be excited, there was lots of talks about eve, and some of the round tables where very interesting and some good ideas where put forth.

This is a picture of the producer I am working for, Torfi.


Here is another nice picture.


Well that is all for now, off to find some lunch and then back to wow.

Christmas and the fanfest

Well fan fest is here, so i will be off to Laughrdallstloll (last O has two `` over it) wich is the local stadium/ sports location.

And got the tickets for flying home at Christmas this year. will have to do all the packing and storage arrangements the first week while business are open..

anyway off to the fun and festivity's.

The church again

I didn't write about it but I went up to the top of the church, they have BIG LOUD bells up there.

I was taking a photo out of the window when noon came about... So here I am trying to take a steady photo and this bell starts ringing above my head.

After ringing out the time, they played a nice little tune on the bells, it was quite enjoyable with your fingers shoved in your ears. They don't play the bells by hand, they have nematic strikers now but you can see the remnants of the manual system still.

Needless to say I jumped about 5 feet.

But I did get some nice photos of the area around the church.


Well time to head to the room, EVE-Online fan fest is this weekend. So should be a good time.

More to come and photos from the weekend for sure.

Mid week

Well humpday.. I made a major achievement, found a place to do laundry :)

Last night on the way home there was northern lights, and a beautifully clear night, when I got to the park i walk through they where still going strong.

Saw the icelandic version of "are you smarter than a fifth grader" i think they are getting the short end of the franchise. The prizes top out at 2,000,000 isk (about 33,000 can).

It Snowed

well it is monday

And it snowed here this morning, it was interesting walking into work today. you are walking along a snow covered sidewalk and suddenly the snow is gone. Just hit a portion of the heated sidewalks.

it was a very peaceful walk in, takes me about 20 min to walk here.

have some more pictures but they are not up yet.

The Blue Lagoon

Well it is Sunday. I was going to write this last night, but was so
tired all i got done was uploading the new photos.

Started the day by going to the mall (Kringlan) and looking for better
rain gear. Icelands definition of XXL and XXXL are very different from
north American. there XXXL rain jacket was tight in the chest and way
to long. I will have to go back to Canada at some point to clean up
the condo. So i will have to go to MEC and get a good one, need a
hood for sure. And some new hiking boots might be good also, finding
my feet are getting blisters :(

Picked up a book and CD set on learning Icelandic so hopefully it will
make mores sense at some point.

In the after noon I went to the famous blue lagoon, Anne and norman,
mike and heather would lover it there.

The lagoon is basically lava rock, so you have to watch out for rocks
on the bottom. And since the water has so much silicate in the water
you can't see more than a few cm below the surface. The silicate mud
is supost to be good for your skin, they have buckets around that you
can ladle out and apply to your face and arms.

They have spa treatments there also, you can get a massage while in
the pool and other stuff. I mostly just sat in the hot water and
became a prune.

The water is kind of neat, you get waves of hot and cooler water
moving through the lagoon. They pump the water in and mix it with cool
water. This is because the source is about 85c hot, and they mix it
with cold water to get about the 45c temperature.

Today I have the lofty goal of figuring out where I can do laundry.

Then I think I will go into work and play WoW...

If you have questions and comments, please start a new email. I am
trying to keep this one as a trip report and the reply s from people
mess up gmail....

The job

Well i am working but haven't signed the contract yet... so hopefully i am not jumping the gun, but it looks like i have a job. :)

Found out something. Karen is never coming to visit Iceland.... It turns out that they don't use allot of sugar in anything here, there is a big health craze and everyone uses aspertain in everything from sprinkled on donuts to baking and drinks. You have to ask special if you want sugar. So i guess Karen could come visit but i don't think she would remember much of the visit..

So second weekend coming up, planning walking to one of the two malls (Kringland) and buying some better rain gear. except for last night and this moring I have walked in the rain. And want to go to the blue lagoon and go swimming so there should be more picturs on monday...

The Golden Circle

Well end of day 2 , tomorrow is the interview..

So did a bus tour today and saw a bunch of stuff. The first place was a green house village, If you have seen a green house you have seen this one, they grow allot of tropical fruit and flowers there.

the next stop was a volcanic crater, basically a hole in the ground with allot of water in the bottom.

The next stop was the golden falls, they are really cool set of falls and the mist they toss out is something else.

next we went to Geyser It is the geyser that started the name of geysers, according tot he tour guide. There are two geysers there the big one that shoots up 80-90 meters and the smaller one. the guide said the smaller one shoots two times every five min, i wasn't sure what she meant as her English is not good. but the geyser shoots off and then a min or so later goes again, there there is a five to ten min wait for the next eruption.

Next we went to the national park, it is where the two continental shelves are pulling apart. and the ground in fractured and torn apart, there was a cool waterfall falling off of north america and running down the crack to exit in Europe . but there was no path leading up to the falls, and the driver didn't stop where you could get a picture of it.

we did a walk here and walked a path that leads up the crack and out on the other side. it was cool.

well that is pretty much today. i have the day 2 pictures uploaded to flickr now, my little laptop is grinding away and struggling to do this task. so i am going to shut it down and go to sleep, need to wide awake tomorrow.

The Curch on the hill

the first photo is of a church not sure of the name but iceland is famous for it, It has heavy nordic traditions in it. They say you can go up to the top for about 800 isk, but it wasn't open when i was there.

Things tend to shut down on the weekends here, I didn't find much in the way of shops and stores open until about 11:00, and the banks don't open at all on the weekends.

I have started a island flickr photo set and will be adding photos as i take them to there, so keep a eye on it.

Well off to breakfast, and I booked a tour for today that will take me to a bunch of sights. I think it is on a coach bus...

But I should have some interesting photos uploaded tonight, and tomorrow is the big day. Also the water has just a hint of sulfur in it, and they don't have diet coke, they have coke light :)

the picktures

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9369220@N05/sets/72157602561548835/

Yes it was as cold and miserable as it looked, but had fun until the sideways rain..

The Begining

Im here....

It is way to early in the morning... My room wasn't ready when i got in so did some wandering around downtown this morning. not going to send all the photos, but here is one.

The town is small 180k people in the greater area.

qand my laptop is slower than a snail crawling up a crazy glued covered hill!

more to come....