20080713 CE Iceland - part II

We went to the mountains for 2 days camping. Iceland has such a beautiful nature! There are not so many insects, if any. A lot of clear water. We were drinking water from every spring and river which we found. They say if the water is moving, it's safe to drink. We saw geysirs, watched as they burst into the sky and then burble on the ground and then all over again. This hot water mixed with sulphur has beautiful colours, feels like magic.

We were walking around. At some point we got lost. Or some would say we just took a wrong turn so we explored more stuff. Some people were tired and very nervous. Situation was quite unpleasent in few moments, people started fighting and finally seperated into 3 groups. At that moment I was at the end so people already divided leaving in different directions. It was interesting to see people who are friends, volunteering together, improving their social (soft) skills and it all colapses when things get a bit hard. One group was going up-hill and the other was going downhill taking longer route. I decided following the one going up because it seemed better to be on the top and have a better sight over the terrain so I made my group go there. At some point leader of the "upper" team went to the lower team in order to join all of us together at the same spot, while we waited for them. We continued walking.

As we approached final destination, one of the girls fell and hit her head and a knee on the rock making it both bleed. We continued after a short break. Then we saw hot spring of water. It was too good to be true. Everybody put their clothes down and jumped into the river. We relaxed, had fun and forgot about all the stress which happened on the trip. It was around midnight and we were watching the sunset and mountains around us! Sunrise goes around 3 o'clock, if I remember, which means there is no real darkness during the summer time.

Next day we were hitchiking to Reykjavik. It wasn't too hard.

House were we lived wasn't it top condition. Sometimes we couldn't get cold water and sometimes, the toilet was stuck for hours. In the morning can be one hell of the problem. After few days it all got worse. Few of us where in great need to use it so we went out to some trees and bushes and felt call of the wild. Appereanltly one neighbour figured what was happening. She called Einer, the owner, and told him that we were shitting in the garden. He came in few minutes, jumped from the car, put down his sun glasses, said "what the fuck?!", went to the garden, search the whole garden and then returned and asked what was happening. He was relieved that we didn't shit in his garden :) Lady said that she would call the police because children are playing where we did what we did so we went back and picked up our shit in the bag and put it in the trash.

At the city, we ate some food at the super-market and a hot-dog fell from Bero's hands on the floor. When we returned from the city, Kirac figured that he had lost his wallet. We met some Croats who are living here for some years now. They come to work on a project and then they decided to stay for a while.

During the working days, you can see how Icelanders are relaxed and calmn. But when the weekend comes, it all becomes quite different. They start at home by drinking (because alcohol is so expensive in the clubs) and then they go out. When we came to the city at night, we saw a fight at the 1st club which we wanted to enter. I think we saw 3 fights during one night of clubbing. In front of the clubs there are usually queues so it won't be too crowded inside.

We started our journey home. At the airport, we learned that our plane was late. This was so not good because we bought a cheap ticket from London to Zadar with Ryanair which means we could be stuck in Stansted. The plane was late for 2 hours and we managed to get on time. At the baggage reclaim, Dim found jacket for his bag torn apart.

We had a great time there, altough trip was full of some small accidents.

20080713 CE Iceland - part I

After two years I'm looking back to the summer 2008 when I was in Stockholm, Iceland and Ukraine. Here are some notes which I made in that time. Trip to Iceland began in Stockholm which was described here.

20080713 CE Island

At the airport a policeman called me into a special room, took a look at my bags and found excessive amount of alcohol. Ok, it was mostly extremly cheap whiskey which I bought on Stockholm airport so I wasn't too sad about that. I bought it because I've heard how alcohol is precious and expensive here. So, I left some of the boose at the airport but still bringing domestic liquids. In the bus which was driving to Reykjavik we met rest of our team which was to participate on cultural exchange. Culture exchange (CE) is very cool event because you need to pay only for the trip and everything else is arranged by the organisers of the event. Now we were the guests, it was our time to enjoy, just like Icelanders enjoyed their stay in Croatia.

We were accommodated in one of many houses of one of the organisers (Einar). It was huge house with lot of free space and big windows. Perfect party place.

As you all know, Iceland is volcanic island and they use a lot of geo-thermal energy. Houses have 2 pipes of water: cold and hot one, which means they don't need to heat cold water like we do.

In the afternoon we went to public pools and enjoyed hot pool in the open. Now we come to interesting part. When you enter public pools, before going into the pools itself, you should walk naked to the showers and clean yourself. There is even a chart which shows few important spots on the body which require special cleaning :) At the showers there is always some weird looking guy whose job is to check if everybody goes naked to the showers before going to the pools. Which means he's looking at huge amount of dicks for the whole day. Personaly, I didn't feel very comfortable around naked men, but after few days I got used to it. Now I'm still not so stressed about it as before which is something which I always wanted to feel, freedom. Fuck the shame. And when you go back from the pool you can put you pants in a machine which uses centrifugal force to dry it out. Works pretty fast.

In the evening we met more organisers at the party at our house. I can say girls around there were pretty big, aggressive and "open". Well, yeah, it's cultural exchange, it's all very interesting.

Next day we went to the city and walked around. Some parts were full of birds which you could feed. Sometimes when you throw food you can watch air battle between birds fighting for the flying pieces. For the first time I've been to Lutheran church. Minimalism rules there, white colour, big space, no pictures, only few statues.

Did you know that you can enter a house of the Prime Minister whenever you feel like and go and chat with him, if he's available? Well, you can! They really seem open-minded people. You can also sometimes meet him during lunch time at nearby hot dog's. It's kind of special, president Clinton also ate there when he visited Iceland.

Buses in Reykjavik drive on hydrogen. At the time, they were testing it on the cars as well. Resulting product of using hydrogen is water. A guy who was giving us presentation of this technology even started the engine, waited for few seconds in front of exhaust pipe and picked up water which went out from it and drank it. Of course, this isn't the best water to drink, but it is kind of drinkable. At the time in Reykjavik was 1 hydrogen pump operating (without profit, but it's a beginning).

200807 Stockholm

From 20080708 Stockholm (pre-CE)

My trip to Iceland began in Stockholm. There I spent few days with some of my friends.
As the journey began, we encountered some problems. Dim had a air-pump for air-mattress which was broken when his bag arrived at the baggare reclaim. Then we noticed that Ema didn't get her bag at all. When we got to the hostel, Mislav discovered that his bottle of alcohol in the bag was broken, making some clothes wet&stinky. Few days later Ema's bag came to the hostel with the similiar problem. Even before that, Bero lost his booze from duty free in Zagreb. It was taken away from him at transit zone in Copenhagen.

our hostel

Our hostel was pretty cool, very cheap , with kitchen, just what we needed. We talked until late in the night. Drinking was forbidden, but cameras didn't catch us.

Supermarket can be pretty cheap so food expenses weren't an issue.

Around the city we encountered many cultural events. There were few exhibitions in the open. Jazz was playing near the fountains, nice to hear. We really enjoyed a lot walking around the city and experiencing its culture. Guys from the group noticed many beautifull mothers walking around with children. I think that group was actually the most beautifull women we encountered in Stockholm.

...if you'd like to minimse communication in the pub?!?!

One night collegues from BEST Stockholm invited us to the party in student dorm. There weren't Swedes at the party at all, mainly Erasmus students from EU. On one occassion I suggested some guy to be a gentlman and offer his seat for a girl. The suggestion was denied with reply: "In Sweden we threat women as equal. Therefore I don't offer my seat to a girl, since I want to seat here as well as she does. And we are equal." It was very interesting point & I was hoping to hear some reply from the girls, but there wasn't any. During the night we drank alcohol & played some games, like 'I have never-ever'. My conclusion is that games like 'never-ever' & 'bottle of truth' end up pretty soon with themes about sex. This particular session was dominated by Santiago and his many advanterus in various places.

In the hostel I met Japanese guy who was sleeping in the room with us. He didn't feel like joining us on parties & sightseeing but was interesting into talking with me. What was interesting is that he spoke some words of Croatian. The reason he stated was that he wanted to surprise one of his friends from Japan. He's traveling around Scandinavia, doesn't have money (hm..., he picked really cheap region to travel), his mother is giving him financial support. Croatian was a bit easier to learn since he studied Russian in Moscow for years. On the picture, you can find his bags locked. We were not to be trusted, I suppouse.

One thing not to miss is definetly visiting archipelago. We concluded that we should buy a house on day somewhere on that land. It was so picteresque.
Spending some time on the grass in Djurgarden can be nice as well. Not always. Some bird shitted on Dim. Upon leaving the hostel he broke full bottle of beer.

Summer 2008

This summer was again full of traveling. At the beginning of summer I didn't feel like passing exams so I was hanging out with my friends.

In July we visited Iceland. The nature was breath-taking, something very unique. Highlight of the trip was swimming in the hot river around midnight. On the way there, we spend few days in Stockholm. Immediately we decided to come back, some promissed to even continue their studies there :)

After that I went on the seaside to island Pasman & spend some nice time with new friends. Again enjoying the beautiful sea.

In August I visited Ukraine for a voluntary camp. 3 weeks there were really memorable, it was hard to leave all that and return home. Most of the time I was in the villages experiencing real Ukrainian culture. That's something really interesting, moving away from the cities on the trip.

Following posts will tell my advantures & some info about countries I've visited.