6 weeks and 3 days

It has been six weeks and three days since I came to Scotland again, and during that time I have gone to the cinema six times. Lets start at the beginning;

20/9/2006 - Snakes on a Plane. Not what you would normally think to go see. But turned out to be stupidly entertaining, not least in watching the audience reaction to it. Yes, there were other people there than just Árdís and me.

27/9/2006 - The Sentinel. Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland ... oh, and don't forget Eva Longaria. Oh, sorry, already forgotten. Don't know what she was doing there, taking a vacation I think, at least there was no acting involved here. The movie itself, quite forgettable.

4/10/2006 - World Trade Center. Never in my life would I have thought to go see this one in a cinema. Strange what you do when you can go to a cinema cheaply. It was actually very good ... in a bad sort of way, since this was based on real life accounts of people who survived 9/11 at the towers. A sweet film and not what you would expect with Oliver Stone at the helm.

11/10/2006 - The Devil Wears Prada. Never liked Meryl Streep, so it was ok to see this film. You are sort of supposed to hate her. Worked for me. Liked the film, the casting was good. Wouldn't mind seeing again. But a very conventional and the ending forseeable as always in films such as this.

18/10/2006 - The History Boys. A film based on a play by Alan Bennett. All right, it was very funny in the beginning, and the end was quite interesting but it is sort of what I call a pointless thing. Doesn't really have a purpose, not in the beginning, the middle or the end. It just is.

25/10/2006 - Marie Antoinette. A very grand film, and for a lack of a better word 'flott!'. Entertaining, but on some instances it just seemed endless, but that was done on purpose and you figured out what the purpose of it was, so it wasn't very annoying. The only thing to remember here is that it is a film and not a documentary. I liked it.

This is turning out to be the Grandest Movie Year of all four.

Ikea

A new Ikea store is opening back home in Iceland, huge monstrosity of a building in the middle of the lavafield between Hafnarfjörður and Garðabæ. Said to be around 20.600 square metres and the largest in Iceland at the moment. Now, since I went to Ikea here in Glasgow, I felt that I should in honour of the opening of the store at home, put a picture of the store here on the web, although I must say, I didn't quite manage to fit it all in on the photo, so there is something missing from both sides. And it is has a ground floor and a first floor as well, so take that into account.

Continued online tests rant

Well, I have to admit it, I just can't get enough of these fun online web test.  Now I have discovered a new one, highly entertaining and quite interesting as well.  This site calculates how well you are matched to someone according to name, I must say the outcome is just interesting to say the least.

http://www.crushcalculator.com/content/love/585878527

Try it just for gags.

Nerd tests

I don't know why, I always fall for these tests.  I like taking them, but I hardly ever publish the results.  Why!  Well, I think of myself as quite nerdy but when I take these tests I never come out nerdy enough for me to want to publish it.  It is obviously not enough to by all the Star Trek series except the Original one or study Gaelic and finding it fun.  Well, I probably broke the record for nerdyness on Saturday.  Or even if it wasn't nerdyness it was lazyness that promted me to buy this contrivance (ísl: apparat).  This is just brilliant and it is a Can Cooler.  It actually cools for you one can at a time, takes some time but it still works perfectly well.  Perfect for coke or beer cans and the perfect epitome of lazyness on my behalf of not wanting to bother with getting up and going to the kitchen to get a cool can of coke.  Now instead, I need to wait for at least an hour for the can to have cooled sufficiently for me to drink the beverage.  Still, I couldn't help myself when I saw it in the shop, sitting there at a lousy 10 pounds.  Who knows, maybe this will be the Christmas Present this year?

In other news, apparently Glasgow is again mentioned on the news as being the most dangerous city in Britain and that's where all the drunks are as well.  Sort of understandable the latter one, it's Monday and I am back at Uni after the weekend and where was I most likely to be found during that time, yes at class.  No, really, last week I spent 2 and a half hours at Uni and 4 hours at the pub.  Today it was, 2 and a half hours at Uni and 2 hours at the pub, see, it's balancing itself out.  And makes Welsh so much more fun.

Life on campus

My fourth year is beginning at Uni and that means that I have been staying in halls for as long.  Through these three years and now for the fourth year beginning I have lived with many interesting and strange people.  Unforgettable peopel really, like first year flatmates,  Hamza, which is not his real name, but the name he gave us in case he didn't like any of us.  Laura, my friend and future doctor.  Lewis my friend who invited me to his wedding this summer and Dinesh.  I lived with Dinesh the longest, he had the room next to me for three years.  He just moved out this summer and I don't really know where he moved to, he is a bit tricky to keep taps on.  Must find out though.  But well, since he moved out and him not being a person for cleaning much, has left more than three years of accumulative stuff in the kitchen that has not been cleared out by the professional cleaners gotten in during the summer, even though they say they will throw anything left out.  Two more years, and seven more different occupants mean that they left things as well.  Well, finally something was done about it.  The new Senior Resident in the flat is Gemma and she got boxes for all the stuff to take out.  Now we just needed to get dirty and sort out what we were going to ship to Dinesh and what we were going to throw out.  We dug in one Saturday afternoon and boy was there a lot that was thrown out yuk.  We even went through the fridge, since we had been finding stuff in the cupboards that had expired a few ... well I was going to say months but I can just as easily say years.  The fridge was a frightening place to visit.  We threw out eggs since May 2006 and an undated half opened can of tuna in a box, we threw the box out as well.  Not to leave out the ham from 2005 and some interesting stuff from 2004 that we didn't even recognize any longer.  But finally we were done, and now we can actually use the kitchen without being afraid of creepy crawlies and other much scarier things. 

First day at school

This must be the strangest first day of school I have ever had.  I had my first class at ten in the morning, where I met my good pals, Jo and Claire.  The class was Advanced Early Gaelic Texts, which as you can assume involves old Irish stories, much fun.  Especially since all our old irish knowledge went flying out the window, which was not easy since we were sitting in a windowless room.  After class we headed over to the QM Union where we had light lunch.  Then an hour later Jo left us to go to class.  Claire and I, decided to move and went over to Jim's bar where we sat for the next hour chatting away about all or nothing, waiting for Jo to return.  She finally found us and we continued to sit there drinking and making merry for another hour, before Claire and I had to face our next challenge of the day.  Introduction to Medieval Welsh, sounds as exciting as the title of the course.  I think I actually got a wee cultur shock while listening to my teacher reading up a few sentences.  How in the world am I going to be able to lisp like that without sounding like drunk.  Well, after we staggered out of our first introduction of medieval welsh, me and Claire met up with Anne and went directly to the next pub.  We kind of needed it then, and there we sat for two hours just talking about everything and strange things, some stranger than others.  So the day ends with me having been to class for two hours and to the pub for four hours.  Productive day, wouldn't you say.  A good beginning of the year ahead.

This is one brilliant ad

Good girls go to heaven, Bad girls go to Govan, and Breahead and IKEA

I just have to blog about my day, even though it is almost 2am in the morning.  Árdís had obviously seen my blog since last night because she texted me this morning, asking if she couldn't come with me to Breahead.  Of course she could, it is always fun to have someone to shop with.  So we decided to take a taxi to Breahead, but when we saw how many were waiting for a taxi, we decided to go on to Byres Road and hail a taxi from there instead.  When we came out of the Botanic Gardens we saw this huge line of people waiting for taxis, so there went our brilliant plan for the day.  I finally realized what was going on, a game between Celtic and Glasgow Rangers, not a good day to rely on taxis.  We ended up outside the subway station and Árdís was clever enough to go and ask them how they thought we might have the best chance of getting to Breahead.  She told us to go to Govan and take a bus from there, there were frequent bus trips to Breahead.  Both Árdís and I weren't quite sure if we wanted to go to Govan, not really the best place to be in, but since it was daylight we said what the hell and got on the subway.  Thankfully the bus station was just right outside the subway entrace so now we only had to find the right bus to take us the rest of the way to Breahead.  It worked, we went even past IKEA superstore, which I must say, is quite bigger than the IKEA store back home.  Finally, we were at Breahead, and we could begin shopping.  We had lunch and then we did some massive shopping, .... well, Árdís did so a bit more than I did, although not by much, for now anyway.  Well, we had finished going through all the interesting stores in Breahead and were heading home, when Árdís wanted to stop by in IKEA as well and buy some much needed items for ther room.  So we took a little walk over to IKEA, and entered a huge, massive building on two floors.  We had to take a number of turns around the store for her to find what she needed and some of the stuff wasn't even in stock, that's frustrating, especially when you are unlikely to come here again (at least not right away).  But in the end everything worked out for her, and I even bought myself a new lamp for my desk, much smaller and lighter than the monstrocity that I had before it, ... and it is pink.  And finally we found our way out.  Took a taxi home and got home just after 7pm.  Which means we were walking and shopping for almost eight hours.  Not bad, you might say I have lost a few (quite a few) pounds today ;) It truly was a brilliant day, and I was so proud of us with our bags scattered over the floor of tha taxi on our way home.  This is what I call shopping.

Collision course

"Ég fékk flugu í höfuðið í dag"  I got a fly in my head today.  Doesn't mean that I got a bright idea, but that I actually got a big waspy buzzing fly in my head.  Collision course with a big black noisy thing.  Luckily it didn't stick to my head and flew away afterwards ... I think.  But damn I nearly got a concussion from it.  Flies, are remarkably noticeable when they fly into you.  And the feeling is quite revolting and disgusting, almost felt like I had to go home and take a bath.  Creeepy.  Luckily I didn't meet up with my neighbour "the squirrel" in the garden on my way into city center.  Lord knows what he might have done since a fly was bugging me.  Probably he would have eaten my shoe.  Scots ... strange beings.

I must say I haven't been doing much since I came to Glasgow.  Been a real cow really, because I haven't even gotten in contact with any of my friends yet.  I am just sooo lazy, I can not be bothered.  Right now I just feel like I need my space before the hassle of school and essays starts.  It's sort of like one of the headlines in one of the newspapers today "I have the spirit of a lie-in", brilliant quote.  But I have been spending like crazy, although I do feel the prizes here have been going up.  Scotlands economy is obviously doing so well since I came here, they think people can actually afford to spend now, so they have increased prizes to line their pockets.  Are they in for a surprise next year, I think.  Actually it is quite disturbing what I saw on the news last night, apparently if you are a Scot and want to buy your own home, it's not going to be that easy.  A home (not necessarily a house, could be a flat) today in Scotland costs more than 4 - 6 times more than the average wage in Scotland.  (4 - 6 sinnum meira en meaðllaun Skota yfir árið er).  Shocking!

Tomorrow I am thinking of breaking out of habit and actually do something I haven't done since my first year of studying here.  And that is to go to Breahead.  It is a huge shopping center just out of city center, near the airport, which means the taxi fare is going to be steap, but I really want to go there.  I sort of decided that I would go there this year, sometime this summer and I feel like I should go before school starts for real, so that I don't feel like I am slagging off.

Well, now I am off to watch the telly. 

It pays to be early

Well, I am back in Glasgow now.  Left home very early this morning and got to the airport among the first travellers.  It truly does pay to be early.  Mom and I spent last night trying to fit everything I was going to take with me into one suitcase, but in the end we decided to distrubte things rather evenly in two suitcases.  And it turned out that I was fifteen kilos over in luggage, and at any other time it would have cost me a fortune but thankfully the office was closed so she let me through without paying for the excess weight.  She was also very understanding when I said to her that I was going abroad as a student.

I arrived at my room around 11:30 and sort of managed to plug the computer in and let mom know that everything went as it should have.  I also saw Árdísi for a few minutes before I crashed.  Now, usually I don't have a problem with the time zone difference, but somehow today I was totally out of it.  I put the alarm for two o'clock so I wouldn't sleep through the day and wake up tomorrow.  But of course I hadn't thought of the time difference, which meant that I would be waking up at three o'clock instead of two.  Fortunately Árdís woke me up half past two with a message.  So I managed to drag myself out of bed and into town with her to shop for the most necessary things until tomorrow.  I really hope that I will be more lucid tomorrow.  There is still so much that I have to do.

I have glimpsed one of the new guys that will be staying with us.  He doesn't seem to be very ... social.  But that might change, once we get to know each other ... maybe.  Also, I think the French guy is still here, not to pleased, because he seems to be hogging the fridge and many of the cabinets in the kitchen, the problem when you are left alone here for the summer you tend to spread out.  And Dinesh is gone, he has moved out and a girl has replaced him in his room.  I don't know yet, who or where from or anything or if she is a Senior Resident like Dee was.  So, all in all, this seems to be the start of a quite interesting summer.

This is going to be it for now, the food just arrived.  I am going to see how much I can manage, my stomach hasn't quite landed yet, and I am sort of queasy right now, but I think it might be because of lack of food.  Write you later...

I love comments

I just love reading the comments about Rockstar:Supernova.  It has the most hilarious spelling of words ever.  I know people are in a hurry to get their points of view across the message board and some are not as good in english as others, but it is still funny.  I have three comments here that I read sometime last night and tonight about the show and especially about Magni's performance.

This one obviously from Iceland ,,I watched the Vake"  which is just brilliant, and thankfully not written with a w because that would mean Magni was dead and we were watching his coffin on live television (wake = líkvaka).  But this is actually a reference to the tv channel Skjár 1 who had a "Support Magni" theme episode before the episode was aired.

I have no idea where this one came from, but funny none the less; "the hole of Iceland", and some fellow commentator asked if that was anything like the black holes found in the galaxy.  Could be a spelling mistake (the whole of Iceland) or something more.  A classic!

And now, last but not least. ,,He was just as grate as ever"  well... I truly hope his voice doesn't grate, I think he sings great!  He is after all Magni-ficent!

Saying goodbye to old friends

I don't know what to do anymore, last night I finished watching all seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  I was watching the final minutes of the last episode and the tears just came and came, I cried a whole river.  It's just one of those shows you wish you could still be able to watch, like, what came next, how does this turn out and so on and so forth.  It just doesn't stop after seven years.  But I must confess, due to my watching Star Trek, I sort of missed watching Rockstar:Supernova ... but I still managed to vote.  I voted for an hour and managed to vote 150 times.  I know, I truly am that weird, that I would actually count how many times I voted.  But it will be curious to know if the power of Iceland has reached America again.  Iceland might not be big but it is powerful, go by a geyser and we will blow you away! 

But the funny thing is, I have heard it from more than one, that they won't vote for Magni in the final episode (if we even can) because, they don't want Magni to win and leave Iceland.  Rock on!

My croissants ... beautiful aren't they

 

Half-baked

Oh'boy, what a day this has been. It started early, to say the least, well at least it started early on my scale. Some idiot had ordered a telephone wakeup call that was put through to our telephone instead of his, so I truly hope the (adjective too foul to write down) slept in. Then I got barely an hour or so more of sleep before I had to get up and get ready for the first appointment of the day. A documentary about genealogy and I was in it. There are some German guys here making a documentary about Icelandic genealogy and family gatherings. I was only there for about two hours where I was in the background while they were filming and photographing the genealogist I work with, Oddur. Just before I arrived at Odd, I got a phone call from the location of my next appointment ... THE DENTIST! Dreaded word in my vocabulary. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing my dentist, he is a wonderful man, I just hate going to see him in the official capacity, although that is the only time I see him. He's been my dentist since forever, has seen my best and my worst, well ... mostly my worst. I am quite skittish around dentists, or the drill, actually. Yes, well, back to the phone call. I had to reschedule today so I was quite pressed for time, so I had to run from Odd, back home, have some lunch, brush my teeth and then get to the dentist. I spent nearly an hour at his office, thankfully most of the time in the waiting lounge and only about ten minutes with him. He had to remove some tartar that had gathered around my teeth, it was so much I felt like he had removed my teeth and not just the tartar. Took some pictures of my teeth and said that I was getting away for now, I just have to be a good girl and keep my teeth happy and healthy until the next time he sees me.
After the dentist I hurried back home, and then later took mom to the doctor, because she was feeling very poorly as a tendon had knotted or clamped together in her lower back and it led straight down her leg so it was very difficult for her to sit or walk or do anything really. The doctor fixed her, or at least he stuck her with a needle a few times with a muscle relaxant and a small amount of local anaesthesia so she is feeling better.
When we arrived home I got the very bright idea to save todays dinner and bake. I baked croissants with beikon-cheese, ham, and chive filling. Just brilliant.

Ps. Now the plan is to stay awake ... AGAIN and watch Magni on Rockstar: Supernova. I am also going to do my part and vote for the guy. Then we will see what happens tomorrow night. This is getting quite exciting.

Something to blog about

Just came hom from the cinemas and now I have something to blog about.  Last night I stayed awake until 3 am to vote for Magni on Rockstar, like any true Icelander should have been doing last night.  And then, of course, it was buisness as usual ... work! at ten in the morning so I was not sleeping beauty this morning when mom woke me up.  Shortly after coming home from work the sms messages started pouring in.  My friend Árdís had two tickets for the opening film for the Icelandic Film Festival, it was to be a gala event.  Two big Hollywood movie stars were going to be there along with two guys responsible for the movie being made.  So, now I can say have rubbed elbows with some pretty big names, or more like been back to back with one of them.  The film was Factotum starring Matt Dillon ... and Marissa Tomei (although she is only about five minutes in the whole of the film) they were the ones that showed up ... nice PR job.  Lily Tomlin was also in the film, a much bigger part than Marissas but she wasn't there.  A few of the Icelandic film and acting elite were there as well, Friðrik Þór director and producer and then Randver Þorláksson from Spaugstofan was in the row in front of us.  For me that's like meeting Robin Williams so I was more impressed with him than the big Hollywood names. Now my friend loved the film, couldn't find a fault, loved it to pieces and noticed every little detail.  Me! I am not so deep thinking about films .. and can sum up critisism in three words IT IS CRAP, and a good way to prove that I should never ever go to anything that is labeled as a film festival, it just doesn't agree with me.  But Árdís my friend, thank you for the invitation, I always enjoy going to the cinemas with you even though it is sometimes not really my cup of tea we are viewing.  You can drag me along anytime, and this evening was a good start to what is to come this winter.

 

For now I am staying awake to find out how the voting went and see if we (the whole population of Iceland) managed to keep Magni from the bottom three and see who is really going to be sent home.  This is getting interesting people1

Strange dreams

I don't know what to think anymore. Last night I had the weirdest dream of all. I was going camping! Yup, it just doesn't get any stranger than that. That is something anyone who knows me will know that will never ever happen. And it didn't happen in this dream either. I had the camping equipment ready... I thought. Went to the spot with the people I was camping with, but as it turned out some parts of the tent was missing and all sort of stupid idiotic thing that could go wrong when camping. So I was in some strange way always rushing back and forth trying to get all the right things for this durn camping, with not so much luck. I was getting frustrated as hell and was mumbling all through my dream, that I was never ever going through this again. I think I was almost home, having forsaken going camping that I finally woke up from this nightmarish dream. Me ... camping, not until hell freezes over.
I like to think of myself as one of the few humans that evolved from sleeping on the cave floor to sleeping in a bed. It's like ... progress! The of survival of the smartest.
And if ever I go camping, I will not accept anything less than this sort of thing:

Suraj hua maddham

I fell in love with Bollywood films, about three years ago, when a good friend of mine Hamza, introduced me to Kabhie Kushie Kabhie Gham. A truly spectacular movie that I have watched so often, or listened to the music so often that I have lost count. So I wanted to invite you to get a sneak peak into the Bollywood world I have been sucked into. This is a very slow, compelling romantic song, that I just find wonderful.

Windows Live Writer beta

I always have to try out new things, especially when it is something tech or computer related.  So I was browsing through www.cnet.com when I saw an article about a new software from Windows.  I liked the idea and so now I am trying out the product.  It's the Windows Live Writer beta version.  Where, in a similar Word application you write your blog, can also insert pictures and maps (at least from Windows Live Local) and then upload them to your webblog.  I am quite curious about how this will work out.  I am just too easy when something new pops up on the technological horizon. 

Damn I wish Start Trek wasn't just a brilliant show.

The hi and goodbye weekend

Last night was fabulous although a bit strange. I went out to dinner with my friend Árdísi, whom I have barely seen this summer. Quite a change, from seeing her almost every single day of the week while we are in Glasgow. We went to Friday's, had nice dinner, although the service and the food are both drastically different from Glasgow. Then we went to the cinema which is in the same complex as the restaurant. I allowed my friend to select the movie and she chose Miami Vice. The movie theatre almost killed the movie off before it began, they played such a lullaby music before it began that it was amazing I wasn't snoring before the film began. The movie itself was ok, although I felt it was more like a lengthy televisionmovie rather than an action film. But all in all it was a wonderful evening.

Tonight was a bit different. I got a call from my friend Margréti, who is leaving tomorrow for Sweden, and she came over for a wee last visit. Oh, I miss her already. Her sister left last Sunday, so it has been quite strange, these last few weeks. On top of that, they are selling their childhood home, and won't be coming home to it at Christmas, for the first time. They are kind of homeless now. And I find this so strange to think about as well, since I trace my childhood roots to this home as well, so it is kind of saying goodbye to a whole era. And it is kind of hard, because when I moved, I didn't loose contact with my old home, because my grandmother moved into our old place and my friends were just across the road. Now the memories are no longer fixed within the confines of walls and windows and rooms, but only locked in our memories. Margrét and I spent quite a few moments remembering so much about our childhood and our antics, and how things can bring forth memories again. It is strange how things can make the memories more vivid and more tangible when holding them and how easy it is to loose them.
I just look forward to seeing my friends again at Christmas, they help to remind me that Christmas is about being with friends and family and not to worry about the future because I am blessed that I have them.

Good advice for the Verslunarmannahelgi