Diary

hFirstly if you have any questions you can EMAIL me using the school system.You can use the link below to take you to the school webpage. [|www.wmyc.vic.edu.au]

We will fly out from Tullamarine to Singapore then on to Munich (Germany) then finally to England (that's just the first 2 days).

We finally left Melbourne at around 4 p.m. on the 10th of July and arrived in Singapore about 8 1/2 hours later. After a 2.5 hour stopover we were on our way again. 12 hours later we finally arrived in Munich where we caught the train to central Munich and from there it was about 10 minute walk to our hotel. From leaving Albury to arriving at our hotel it was approximately 32 hours. We arrived on Saturday morning which is market day in the old town and we indulged in the local etiquette which consisted of sausages sauerkraut huge pretzels rolls and beer. Despite the start we managed to do a bit of sightseeing and finally went to bed around 5 p.m. and woke up around 6 a.m.. We went down for breakfast and headed off for some more sightseeing around Munich. It really is an easy place to get around and is very ordered, neat with beautiful trees and parks. Highly recommended as a place to spend a few days. We made our way back to the airport after lunch and flew from Munich to Birmingham where we picked up our hire car and headed to Corby. We did make a few unexpected detours however we did get to see some of the English countryside. This is where I'll have to leave it for now and will let you know of the next instalment soon. We're feeling rather jetlagged at the moment and a good night's sleep will soon fix that so cheers until next time.

Corby The recession which we are fortunately avoiding for the most part in Australia is having a significant impact on everyone in England. Unemployment is rising rapidly, with many shops advertising recession sales. Corby is situated right in the Midlands and is surrounded by many quaint villages and towns. England is putting on a typical summer where it rains, blows a gale and can be quite cold and then the sun comes out and can be pleasantly warm and this all happens sometimes every 10 minutes. I can't believe that they ever complete a test match here. I am also starting to get used to the idea of having to pay for everything. You go to the supermarket and have to pay to park, you venture into a forest and again you have to pay to park and if you want to take a photo in the church yes you guessed it you have to pay for that as well. Fortunately most of those charges are only a couple of pounds. Despite these inconveniences most of the British are very helpful and seem willing to go out of their way to make sure that you know where you're going and how to get there.

We flew out from England after a tour through the cotswolds(a series of very cute towns in typically picturesque countryside).The towns were like something out of lord of the rings Ill stick some pictures up soon.Anyway we arrived in Barcelona where we caught a taxi to town and are staying in a small but great apartment in the old area near the beach.The place is so alive and restaurants are still doing a roaring trade and it is well after midnight.The atmosphere is fantastic and the temperature is around 25 degrees.

Barcelona This is a very vibrant city...there are people everywhere all the time! Today I saw a man riding a bike with no clothes on and no one seemed to notice. We were having coffee in the square and a person had their bag grabbed and theif ran off down the street...with the owner and others in hot pursuit! Last night while having hot choclates in the square a police car drove up onto the pavement next to us and two officers jumped out screaming something in Spanish and rushed into the metro...they came back later and just drove off. Today we up the mountain to Tibidabo which is an old amusement park from the 1920s. We have included photos of the wonderful old rides such as the red plane which has a working propeller and takes you out over the side of the mountain into fresh air. This must have been such a thrill in 1928 and the inside of the plane is so antique...what a classic. I can't help but think of all the children and parents who would have marvelled at this experience over the last hundred years. We also took a ride on the ferris wheel ( 1890–95; named after G. W. G. //Ferris// (d. 1896), American engineer) which was on top speed I think zooming around quite quickly...again a brethtaking view across Barcelona. To get to Tibidabo we took the metro, the old tram and then the steep electric bus which runs on rails to the peak. Again the weather was wonderful although not as clear as yesterday. We have a lovely little apartmemt and can cook our food from the market and make our own coffee...thank goodness. Our friend Richard will enjoy knowing that we are making it traditionally on the stove top...strong and rich cafe! Barecelona is full of sound...people talking, movememnt and mucicians playing in the street. There are smells of food being prepared by the many restaurants which pull up their doors in the evening when the shops pull theis down....the facade of the street is constantly changing.Coffee first thing and then 2nd breakfast around 11am siesta 2-3 then lunch and finally dinner around 9.30 pm, later on the weekend, this seems to be how Barcelona works.Despite the excitement it does seem safe here with people walking around until the early hours although the streets are well lit which helps the feeling of safety.The city is surrounded by hills and this allows many fantastic views over the city to the sea.There are a number of cable cars which show great views over the town.The cathedral which was designed and started by Gaudi is expected to be finished in 20 years or so taking a hundred years to complete and is an amazing structure. We left the warm and humid climate of Spain behind and flew to Copenhagen where it is decidely cooler!

Copenhagen Yes this is a very pretty city but with a degree more restraint than that edgy place Barcelona. Of course if you wish to see Copenhagen bring plenty of cash as you will need it. There are lovely walks and canal cruises but food is costly and so are most things. An alternative might be to stay in Malmo Sweden and travel to Copenhagen for day trips. Malmo is only a 35 minute train ride, is quaint and cheaper with a better exchange rate too! We spent a day there walking around their lovely garderns and visiting a museum where by chance we explored a very interesting Nelsen Mandela exhibition...perhaps a strange thing to come across in Sweden and we never did find out why it was there. However there was an odd sign at the front of the castle indicating that only wihites could enter so perhaps there is some association to aparthiad.We could recommend a day tirp to Malmo Sweden. Copenhagen is a busy summer city with a relaxed and friendly feel. People are out and about riding their bikes and taking their coffee with blankets around their shoulders just to ensure they can enjoy their mild summer.There are many young families and we have noticed how many fathers are caring for their young children. Apprently they have very good social policy to support fahers leave to do this and it translates into very engaged, active and attentive dads. Taking the canal cruise and using the canal buses is a worthwhile day activity as you can see and learn quite a lot of useful information about the city and the location of key buildings etc. Riding a bike around is great fun especially avoiding those cars that seem to come from the wrong direction! But don't believe the tales of cheap accessible city bikes as we spent three days looking out for them and only found ones jammed up with euros and others chained together. We hired some from our hotel (of course at a great cost) but it was worth it to explore parts of the city this way which was not possible on our very tired feet. Nyhaven is a canal street and a must to see and experience. Our hotel was just around the corner so we were frequent visitors eating sausages and drinking beer on the canal edge while watching canal boast do amazing manouvers in small spaces. We visited Christiania is somewhat of an oxymoron in a city as reserved as Copenhagen but quite a delight....I am reminicing about our days in Brogo I think! This is an alternative community living on an old military site close to town full of interesting things to eat, smoke and see.Actually Juani was right there is no need to buy it when you can inhale it all for free by just walking around! We also got involved in the international Out Games....well we had lunch there anyway. This involves a olympic style do as well as a conference and carnival for the gay community. It was quite fun and we loved the food and beer after all our bike riding! Another fun thing to do is take a ride ont The Wheel of Excellence...yes the Danish version of the London Eye. It is suprisingly cheap and we were in it for half an hour enjoying the comprehensive views of the city. There is also a great free art gallery with a wonderful wall of glass out into the park...worth spending the big bucks on a quite coffee here in the funky cafe to extend the enjoyment. Bring your umberella and your scarfe as you will need them both everyday...the wearther is more changable than Melbourne or perhaps just more predictably changable. We didn't catch up with Princess Mary but then we have been very busy. We popped past the castle today but she wasn't home. That is a all for Denmark and tomorrow we are off to the wilds of Iceland :)

=Welcome to Iceland=

On Tuesday we flew Icelandic Air into Reykjavik the capital of Iceland. The drive from Keflivic airport is amazing as the landscape is overwhelmingly barren. The earth looks as if it has had everything extracted from it and is split and devoid of trees and even grass. Yet the whole impression is majestic in its starkness. And so we ventured to the bus terminus where my colleague Arna kindly collected us and deposited us at our apartment for the coming month. We have a very comfortable place with all we need (except very poor internet connection so Steve is very frustrated!) on the second floor of the teachers union house strangely enough right opposite the bus terminus. As you can see from our introductory paragraph we are adopting the Icelandic passion for creative writing and will probably shortly break into poetic verse. People here love to read and write and keep their proud history alive through reference to their rich saga heritage. These accounts are a blend of historical facts and creative embellishments recounting the early settlement of the island and the trials and tribulations through the years. We walked to the Pearl yesterday afternoon and visited the museum there which provides a vivid display and audio account of the sagas I think suitably abbreviated for the short term tourist! The Pearl is a dome perched above four enormous water towers which hold the hot volcanic water for the city. There is a revolving restaurant there and café as well as an observation deck all the way around…so you can image how many photos were taken from here by us as the day was as clear as a bell. One Icelandic krona equals one cent so this makes converting currency while shopping very easy. Food is comparable to Australia in cost but more limited in choice and quality. Wine is nearly twice the price but otherwise things are quite reasonable and certainly there are many similarities between our two geographically distant countries. Icelanders have a strong national identity and “…proud that their unique. Nowhere else are there lava deserts, active volcanoes and icecaps. At the same time they recognise that as a nation they are tiny and of limited standing in the world” (Xenephobes Guide to the Icelanders, 2007, p. 1)…ah yes we Australian’s are not that dissimilar. As you can see we are engaging in the literary heritage reading about the locals who are in fact nearly all able to speak English fluently and quite happy to do so. This of course is very helpful to those of us linguistically limited like us so we are very appreciative. Icelandic is not an easy language to learn and the pronunciation has me baffled as does the length of words which can be 15 characters long. Last night we were welcomed into my colleague’s home for dinner and we were asked to try the local favourite-shark meat putrefied by being buried in the ground for 6 months. We were encouraged to wash this down with Brennivin (a strong liquor made from potatoes) and yes it is strong but that was nothing compared to the taste of the shark meat and the smell was incredible! Luckily we were able to partake of a couple of pieces each before we decided that we could not risk any more and it was certainly being wasted on us when the locals genuinely enjoy this sort of thing. These people are a hardy crew and anyone who can eat that will survive anywhere! The weather has been quite a delight with us riding around on our borrowed bikes for 30 kilometres today in T shirts….around 20 degrees. The most amazing thing today was the beach day where families go to the small but popular sandy patch to enjoy the sand and surf. It is amazing to see people frolicking in the water in this temperature and again it demonstrates their stoicism and thrill seeking attitude. Given we are here until late August we shall provide more literary instalments reflecting our experiences in this majestic and wild land.

The First Travelling SAGA in southern Iceland

The new saga…. This saga will intimately recreate key moments in modern history, moments that have determined the fate of two naive Australian travellers and gives a compelling view into how these two Australian’s have lived for more than one week in Iceland! Iceland is a proud country and this in no more evident than in their saga tradition. We visited the Saga Museum and in our travels into the countryside have noted many references to the places that hold saga history. Apparently this is the longest surviving uninterrupted written history from before medieval times. While there is a strong sense of Viking heritage in fact most settlers were Scandinavia farmers, merchants and opportunists fleeing monarchical troubles in their own countries and consequently fiercely anti royalist (Iceland, Lonely Planet Guide, 2004, thanks for lending us this Lyndal!). In 930AD Pingvellir became the assembly plane where all the laws were administered. This continued as the home of national unity until 1800 which is a very long time! We visited this place which is now just a few rocks but is held in very high regard by locals. Nearby, in fact within a lave stones throw, is where the American and European tectonic plates collide…see the photos! These are slowly separating but thankfully there was not much action on the day we were there. This is an awesome sight and visited by many tourists. The Saga history is infused with stories of violence and other unpleasant activities from these tough Viking times and they continue to permeate current day culture and national identity. Most Icelanders can read original Viking texts as modern Icelandic is so close to the original…and that is some major linguistic achievement! Interestingly and quite refreshingly Iceland is not obsessed by OHS issues as we in Australia have become over recent years. Consequently tourists walk on near cliff edges, have but thin low ropes to mark out the edge of 50 metre high waterfalls and meander aimlessly around significant natural wonders. But this is nothing compared to the plethora of backpackers in Iceland…they are everywhere and most of them staying in the hostel next to us. Honestly every time I look out our window I see at least one backpacker…where do they all come from? They are not only backpackers but front packers as well as many of them have enormous packs on their chests also…probably containing woolly jumpers. In fact I caught sight of one man who had an enormous backpack leaning to one side with a big front pack carrying another smaller back pack and a Bonus shopping bag (Bonus to be explained later in this Saga). And the only ones outdoing the backpackers (who mostly seem to travel in 4x4 buses anyway) are the bicycle riders. These mad committed individuals are seen on the road in all kinds of weather, actually the colder, windier, wetter and steeper the better it seems. In fact we were barely able to keep our little car on the road due to the wild winds (80km) while these hardy souls were pushing their bikes into the wid with the glacial dust boring into their skin…that is a saga in itself! Watching them barely able to keep their bikes upright as they pushed then along the lave flows (as the road is not wide enough to stay on the side of the road) was almost too much for us…but we did wave our encouragement as we drove past! Of course we had some adventures of our own. After the tectonic plates we visited Geysir. This is the original geysir which all others are named after. Now the original and the best geyser was awesome but after too many tourist visitors (probably backpackers) who threw lava rocks and rubbish into the geyser it blocked up and gave up now only spouting forth when there is an eruption or earthquake. We liked the approach though that saw the government fill it with detergent on special occasions to ensure it provided a spectacular display! There should be more of that kind of thinking by governments. The back up geyser (50m away) called Strokkur…..is still quite impressive but so too are all the tourists waiting around with their enormous Cannon lens poised to capture the special moment of eruption. This is quite spectacular and I think Steve’s movie (no. 87) captures this quite well. You do need to watch out for the many 100 degree thermal pools which dot the area as they are unfenced of course and would not be pleasant to step into. After this our saga continued at Gullfoss falls. This is truly an amazing sight and it tumbles 32 metres into a canyon making a shower of spray which looks fantastic with the sun on it as it shimmers into rainbows. Again just take a little care not to trip over the small rope indicating you are nearing the edge but again this wonderful natural phenomenon is free and easily accessible. About this stage in the day I began to realise that there were going to be many significant moments that would require Steve to abruptly stop the car, pull out both the camera and the movie camera and take many photos and movie. You can just imagine what happened when we neared the Langjokull glacier. This required photos from every angle plus a few extra for good measure. Then the sun came out and more varied angles were required. Anyway you will see some of those shots and it is again an amazing sight. There were waterfalls everywhere from then on…melting glaciers pouring water over rocks and many of them not even noted in the tourist guide. You could walk in front, behind, climb over under and around. Finally we decided to stay the night and settled on Skogar Hotel which is pleasant enough but the most expensive hotel we have ever been in (we are too embarrassed to tell you how much) and obviously the backpackers had this part right. Obviously we had gullible tourists tattooed on our forehead and even the price in euros didn’t deter us although it should have…be we were desperate! After recovering from the price we decided to make the most of our stay and head out to admire the Skogafoss waterfalls. Another photo opportunity and then we walked up the side of the falls to appreciate the falls from above only to discover another walking track which we thought might take us to a view of the glacier. After a steep (well it was for us) walk of 30 minutes we reached the summit only to discover mountain after mountain but no glacier in sight. Disappointed we descended and advised other hopeful climbers on the way that it was not worth the effort. Sitting at breakfast the next day we casually looked out of the window (after eating as much breakfast as we could) to be struck by the awesome sight of the glacier in all its glory. Obviously the glacier was to be seen from the hill we climbed but covered in cloud the previous day and obscured from our view. Oh well at least the hotel gave us something! Steve was then keen to see the floating icebergs so we drove to Jokulsarlon and it was this part where the weather was wild and woolly. By the way most Icelandic people wear fairisle (sp?) jumpers and look very good in them too. They may be out of fashion in oz but plenty of them here as jumpers, vests, dresses and hats. Jokulsarlon is the bay where the Breidamerkurjokull glacier meets the sea. This is where we saw a bay of floating icebergs and seals were swimming amongst them. You can just image the photos we had to take there! Other things we love about Iceland are the Bonus grocery stores. You will see everyone walking around with Bonus shopping bags which you have to buy, full of imported vegetables, frozen shark and some of the nicest biscuits we have ever had called softcakes, dark chocolate coating with fruit filling and a soft little base. We think we might import them into Australia so we can all enjoy them at home. The weather was good while we were travelling and brilliant in our first days but since then things have become overcast, rainy and then very wet. Still we have our rain coats (yes thanks again Lyndal for that advice) and can get around town with these quite comfortably. Tomorrow is the Gay Pride march and we will head into town to watch that, eat a special Icelandic brunch and ride our bikes around a bit more…probably another saga in the making.

Way out West The trip down the western peninsula was great as this is not a highly tourist developed part of Iceland. This becomes quickly obvious because there are hardly any buses travelling around and only a few backpackers. The scenery was spectacular and the towns felt more natural less tainted by the tourist dollar. We were surprised by the lack of tourist development particularly as this part of Iceland is only a day trip from Reykjavik (albeit a long day). Apparently the weather here is not usually good however for us it was indistinguishable from the rest of Iceland. Many times the road runs along the water's edge with steep cliffs on one side and snow visible on the higher peaks. The small coastal port of Stykkisholmur was very picturesque and had we had more time the ferry to flatey Island and then onto the north-west peninsula would be something I would do in the future. Every hire car in Reykjavik was booked out because of the Gay pride events weekend and there were 80,000 people at the parade. We were impressed by how well supported the local general community were and many things show how inclusive and open the Icelandic people are. We waited for our sunny day to go across to Videy Island which is just half a kilometre from the mainland in Reykjavik harbour. It is only a few kilometres long but is very picturesque and gave many different perspectives looking back over Reykjavik. As our time draws near here we will have one more session on Iceland including my visit to a Reykjavik hospital but you will have to wait for that so cheers till next time.