Iceland - day 3 - part 1

The third day a lot of stuff was happening therefor I split the report in two parts.

We spent the night in this little shelter in the middle of nowhere. Close to Hagavatn and Langjökulls. One of the huge glaciers on Iceland.

I climbed a small mountain/hill/volcano to get this view of Langjökull early in the morning while the others were still sleeping.

Later we started our expedition to the glacier were we passed a rather big waterfall that looks pretty small on this picture... But believe me, it was BIIG!

There is really not much vegetation in this area, actually on the whole island...

After the glacier trip we drove back into civilization where we had a stop at Gullfoss. Another really big waterfall - one that even looks big on a picture :)

Desert

What do these horses eat on an island where nothing grows?

Unfortunately not our car...

Icland day two

On the second day we got our nice little car. A Honda CRV. Maybe not the best offroad truck but perfect for us!





This day we followed the tourist tracks. The first stop was Þingvellir. The place where the European and the American continental plates meet. That's the valley you see...





The next stop was the Geysir. It erupts every 8 minutes or so. Very impressive. In the whole area you find wholes in the ground with boiling water and it smells intensely - sulfur.









This is not another view from the airplane down on Iceland. It's one of the water holes next to the Geysir. By the way, the blue color comes from some sort of algae in there...





On the way to the Geysir we stopped at this strange thing. From the distance we just saw a lot of smoke and thought there must be some factory that blows it's dirt in the air. When we came closer we realized it was a geothermal powerplant. Completely green energy!







This guy wasn't so lucky with the car :(
Well, didn't have a Honda CRV ;-)

Iceland - day1

I managed to get a week off for a trip to Iceland. While other people fly to a place where it's nice and warm my friends and I decided to do a trip to where it's cold, wet and windy.

It all started quite stressful. The day before my flight I got tonsillitis and had to take antibiotics. I was not sure if I should go at all. But I did and that was good!

The flight was already amazing. Such a great view. If you ever fly to Iceland try to get a window seat on the right side of the plane (if you come from Europe).
I was sitting on the left side though, so I didn't see much :-)

The first night we spend couch-surfing with a very nice Icelandic guy. He had 9 couch-surfers in is small apartment for the night. That was cosy.

But before we went to bed we had to explore the legendary nightlife of Reykjavik.
First of all - if there is not much going on on the streets and bars only some sad girls sitting in the streets - you are to early!
The party does not starts before midnight.

But when it starts it's really wild! You'll find real vikings, girls in super-hero dresses shooting you with laser guns, guy who drop their pants to show what they got (I didn't upload that picture)...
Reykjavik nightlife is great!

A new job

For one week I'm now in my new job at www.symena.com

Small company with big customers! Not bad at all. And the best - they say there will be lot's of traveling.

Apple and quality - not so sure anymore

Ok, I know nobody really wants to read this kind of stuff but I have to let my frustration out.

Two years ago I bought a Macbook pro for almost 2000€. Everyone told me what high quality standards Apple has and that it would be completly worth paying a bit more.

When I got this nice machine I finished school and had to do a presentation of my master theses. I thought nice, now I can do these nice presentations with keynote. Well actually I had to use my professors PC with a pdf version of the presntation. My Mac first didn't want to start up and had strange video errors and then didn't recognice the projector, no matter how many times I tried. GREAT first impression!

Some months later the keybord backlight stoped working the way it should. It turned on, started flickering, turned off just randomly.

Well I got it fixed during warranty. The technicians decided to replace the whole case. That's when I found out that it's much nice to have the touchpad installed straight and not leaning to one side as it was from the day I got this machine.

Well, everything fixed within warranty time. That's good. How high are the odds that something else would happes?

But then the battery started to die. After 200 cycles it had energy for maybe 5 minutes. And no, my battery is not part of the defect batteries that Apple changes for free.

Now, almost exactly two years after I bought my Macbook pro I took the machine from sleep but nothing happened. The screen stayed black, I could hear the fans, harddisc and CD drive spin up but nothing else. I tried all the key combinations there are, no luck.

The technicians at the store then told me the mainboard broke down and a new one would cost 1000€. GREAT!!!

When I got it back I thought now everything has to be ok - I mean all that's left form the original faulty machine is the screen, CD and hard drive. Well, no. There is also the airport card which now decided to not work with 5GHz networks anymore. I hope they fix this at the store for free since this issue came up after I got it back from the mainboard switch...

If I hadn't put so much money into this crap I would really like to do this:

(And no, I don't mean grow my hair like his)

By the way, my Acer notebook I am writing this on has been working for 8 years without any problems (even the battery is as new).

Flo and the vikings

Another story from last month is my trip to the last Vikings. I went to Oslo, the last place on earth where you can find real vikings.

We went out to the sea, stealing and plundering just as their ancestors did.

And it was a good day for vikings!

We had a good night sleep between all the

treasures we

brought together on a small island.

The next day when we left our prisoners on the island.

A storm came up and we almost capsized but due to the instincts of our captain Kay and his chief mate Knut we ma

naged to return save to the harbour of Oslo.

We even got a video of the gloriose sea maneuvers

When we returned the Oslo the people were cheering and waving flags.

The whole town was decorated and people dressed up in their best cloth.

Even the king was waving us for us being so good vikings.

We like :)

Midnight at the farm

Now that I started I can't stop :-)

Of course it wasn't all bad the last months. E.g. I worked on my own little time laps project. Check out this nice movie I did from 9pm till 2am.

I'm back

Hej there,

probably there are not many visiting this place anymore...

I had a rather tough time which wasn't so nice to write on my blog.

If you still wonder what this 80+1 post is all about, well it's kind of what got me into this in the first place: http://www.80plus1.org/

I'm not gonna post what was going on but it wasn't nice. But now this chapter is over and I hope I can post about some nicer things soon!

80 + 1

Can't say more yet...

test of a livestream

Today I've attended a lecture on live streaming so I thought I test this a little bit on my blog. So whenever I have my streaming server running (probably won't happen so often) you can see me here on the web :-)

Swedish television

ok sorry, I didn't feel like writing any more about my Turkey trip. Such things should be done when you are there or never I guess.

But now to new frontiers...

Now that Lovisa moved to Oslo (she got a job there) I have a lot of time feeling bored and watching TV. But watching TV can sometime be nice especially when they show "stor i Japan" (big in Japan). An experiment where two freaky Swedish guys try to become famous in Japan with their music within one month. I think...
And one of their songs (they only have two) feels a bit like written for me :=)

Listen for yourself: (hit the small blue button)

Seraye

James Bond has been there, Mozart has written an opera about it and now I have also been there. The Topkapi palace. If I remember it right it was until around 1930 that a sultan lived in that palace with all his servants, a harem and incredible treasures. And this place is big!!!

One of the three gardens each as big as maybe 10 football fields, maybe more

That's inside the harem which is an incredibly rich decorated place although now there is no furniture or carpets or anything. I guess it must have been completely stunning place.

Hamam

The third day in Istanbul I was very tired from all the sightseeing. I thought I have to see as many things s possible in minimum time and was just running around the city without any breaks until I just couldn't take any more.

So I went to a Hamam - a Turkish bath and that was really nice! In the beginning I felt a bit lost because I didn't know how it works there but they kind of take you on the hand and show you (these tourists really don't know anything...)

This is the main room in the Hamam. Really nic

e, everything is made of marble.

And that's the best part - it starts with some kind of peeling and then washing and massage at the end. All performed by a fat sweating Turk. Sweat :-)

And that's how they dress you up at the end. Almost looks like a bedouin

 

fresh again after the Hamam

after the Hamam visit I was fresh again for more Bazaars and sights. Some cats found a cozy place on the pillows of that store.

Later that night I saw a swirling dervish in a Cafe. This dance is a way for them to come close to god. I can imagine that you feel a bit out of this world after swirling for 15 minutes.

This is Aya Sophia again this time at night on the way back to the hotel

Rain is falling on my head

The second day I didn't believe my eyes. It was raining cats and dogs! I thought it would never rain in that part of the world (at least not in summer) but I was completely wrong.


The whole day I thought it would just be a short shower until it got night and I was cold and very wet. At that point I realized that it wasn't just a short shower but a rainy day in Istanbul.

Anyway I managed to see the Blue Mosque (there are many smaller mosques that are much nicer!)

and Aya Sofia which is also a bit overrated. Though it's interesting to have a former church and a mosque in one building.

I almost forgot to mention, I also visited Instanbul's Grand Bazaar which has not so much of an Bazaar as I would imagine it. It's a big souvenier market. Of course you can find some nice things but it feels very un-authentic!


The night life in Istanbul is completely crazy! The streets are stuffed with people, everywhere are bars, restaurants, discos. Every day of the week.

Now that I read that post again I feel there's a bit of a neative vibe. That's how strong rain can influence your mood (no wonder when you're wet and cold).

Turkey, Istanbul

Finally it's holiday and I take the plane to Istanbul/Turkey.
The flight via Paris went very well - was the softest touch down of a plane I ever experienced. Air France becomes more and more my favorite airline. The food they serve is just unbeatable!
Arrived at Istanbul around 00:00 and thought it's better to spend the night at the airport. That was not the best night I had in Turkey (but maybe also not the worst).

The first day I was lucky to meet two Turkish guys from Sweden and a Turkish guy who lived in Germany and works for an Austrian company. That was really a good start for the trip. They showed me (and the two Swedish guys) a bit around and told me what to look out for etc. Felt very nice!

But now some pictures of the first day:

On the boat tour I met the guys. Here the Bosporus bridge that connects the European and Asian part of Istanbul

Of course we had to take a picture of the Swedish guys in front of the Swedish consulate.

Heja Sverige!!!

When the Swedish national team is playing whole Sweden is gathering to cheer for their team. Everybody is dressing up in yellow and blue and the main street in Gothenburg is closed down for the football fans.


Highly concentrated they are following the game, some are even connected with their mobile phone to the friends in the stadium to coordinate the cheering in a better way.

Sometimes it was very close that Spain got a goal.
But two times it actually happened. Spain scored. That hurts!
Their faces fell

And the few Spaniards that were here were celebrating their victory