What Not To Wear, Europe 2006

At last, the long promised photo essay.

The essay is simply photos of some horrendous fashion witnessed on the trip. I know Vice magazine does something similar, so there is no need to point that out. However, unlike Vice the person writing the witty captions actually took the photos, at great personal risk I might add.

The idea for the photos came to us while walking past a father and son who were wearing matching superman t-shirts. The father barely fit into his XXL shirt and the skinny son was swimming in his. We chuckled and wished we had taken a picture. From that moment on we tried to photograph every piece of awful fashion we saw to dispel the rumour that all Europeans dress fashionably. Granted, one can't determine from the photo alone that these people are European, but I assure you most of them are.We did see many more candidates for our essay but sometimes found it impossible to capture these individuals in a photo without looking like stalkers. We saw many more "supermen" and several instances of camel toe happening. In Florence we saw a woman wearing a shirt that said, ironically enough:"no pictures please". In Brugge we saw a rather large woman videotaping the windows of chocolate shops, but we were unable to inconspicuously photograph her. But alas, here is the proof that ill fashion sense does exist even in Europe.

First, the ground rules that were followed:
-No photographing anyone who is wearing clothes because they could afford no better. Basically, not making fun of homeless people who picked up clothes at a church because they had nothing else. The people photographed here have these clothes on because they like them.
-No discrimination based on sex.
-Photos taken without subject's knowledge or consent.

On to the photos.......

Aye, the hot pants

Taken in the Stockholm old city. Admittedly she is probably a tourist, we guessed from somewhere in eastern Europe. Yes, those are knee highs, and yes, that is her butt sticking out the bottom of her hot pants. The shoes were those light weight canvas flats that women in Canada used to wear in the nineties (M disagrees, believing them to be white leather penny loafers). Estimated age of this woman is late thirties early forties. It is also conceded that she probably could have pulled off the hot pants about ten years ago, but the addition of knee highs is baffling. The light was failing when this picture was taken and the flash was turned off to avoid raising suspicion. It must also be mentioned that we were forced to loiter outside a souvenir shop for almost 10 minutes waiting for her to reappear on the sidewalk.

Nothing like a day out with your androgynous grand parent

Taken in Berlin, museum island. This poor little girl is doomed to a confusing adolescence. While the matching sandals are acceptable you know that she is going to dread Christmas time when Grand(m/p)a arrives with those soft to the touch Christmas presents you just know are clothes.


Truly Your's is a Butt That Won't Quit

Prague, in the Czech Republic, boasts many beautiful sights....this girl's ass is not one of them. The capture of this fashion travesty on film was an undertaking of extreme risk. What if her friend caught us photographing this shameful display of flesh? Were we violating some Czech pornography law by photographing a teenage girl's butt? These questions flashed through Ross' mind as he brazenly snapped this shot. We are not exactly clear on what kind of a revealing garment she is wearing, but it most definitely incorporates a thong......and some ruffles. Weird.......................

FBI, European Detachment

Taken in Krakow, Poland main square. First, note the complete lack of female bodies being inspected, he must be on a break. Second, I doubt the combat boots and Crypt gang bandanna soothe the females that are being subjected to an inspection. Unfortunately, a frontal photo was not possible, but rest assured the scowl on his face indicated it had been a slow inspection day.


This spring break warrior was spotted in Salzburg, Austria at Salzburg Castle. This fellow is an American. An FBI agent would deduce from the shirt that he picked it up on a previous trip to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. One could imagine this shirt actually flying during American Spring Break in Mexico. It also serves as evidence that Female Body Inspectors are not just a nuisance in continental Europe but are, in fact, a worldwide nuisance.

Editor's note: We actually saw a few F>B>I t-shirts in Europe, but they did not all signify a Female Body Inspector. For example, we did see a teenage girl, estimated at 13 years of age, wearing a "Fabulous Body Inside" shirt at Disneyland Paris.

Pink, the new black

Somehow the combination of leather and pink doesn't make one look tough, unless you are Pinky Tuscadero. Glowing white sport socks and sneakers don't help his "image" either.

Fanny packs live on in Europe

Salzburg, Austria. You would not believe the number of fanny packs witnessed in Europe, both on tourists and locals. Perhaps it is the perception of security of having all your valuables so close to your other "valuables" is what appeals to people. It must be noted that keeping your stuff safe is never uncool, as Europe is teeming with pickpockets, so the travel guides say. However, the author's of this essay would never be caught dead in one, dignity is priceless.

FUN

Venice, Italy. You'd think the perm was already screaming fun, but she didn't want anyone to have doubts about what she was here for, what her personality was like and what you could expect hanging out with her. Note the way her breasts stretch the word FUN, it's like her level of fun can barely be contained...is there more fun inside?

Welcome to Goth Talk

Roman Forum, Rome, Italy. This little sweetheart was not amused. One would assume standing in the Roman Forum surrounded by over two thousand years of human civilization, mere blocks from the Coliseum and the Arch of Constantine that quiet reflection would be in order. She was annoyed by something or someone and was taking it out on her friends. Maybe it was the heat, it was about 35°C in the sun and the Roman Forum does not offer the best shade. Perhaps more appropriate footwear would have helped, hot feet can make anyone grumpy. Unfortunately, all the self inflicted cuts that ran up and down her arms do not show up in the photo.

European punks in the flesh

Utrecht, Netherlands. It was something about the leopard print hair that says something about anarchy and the plague of capitalistic consumerism. His choice of seat is a bold statement of how society keeps him down and him having to constantly take it from behind while getting nothing in return.

Ruthies Chicks

Paris, France, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. These Americans were blessing Paris with matching t-shirts letting everyone know one of them was getting married. The shirts say "Ruthies Chicks Paris '06", guessing that Ruthie is the one in the white shirt with the boa and magic wand. Having a stagette in Paris is quite impressive, since it's Ruthies wedding there was no way she was not going to humiliate her bridal party all over Paris and force them into matching shirts. One must assume she's a virgin, her t-shirt is white after all. I'm sure the wedding was a real treat.

La Piece de Resistance









Vienna, Austria. This family was incredibly hard to capture but well worth it; a white whale if you will. We found ourselves following them and couldn't believe our luck. The only problem was we needed to get in front, a frontal photo was the only way to capture their essence. We knew right away it was going to be dangerous. The boy said something, or maybe stepped too close to his Neanderthal of a father. The father then raised his hand to backhand the boy, the boy cowered away trying to get out of striking distance. Neither of the women seemed to notice this threat of child abuse. We quickly realized that there was not a way to slyly get in front of them so we gave up and went to wait for the street car. However, something told us not to give up. I went to the far end of the train platform to look towards where they were walking to see if I could spot them. Low and behold, I could see them in the distance walking towards me. I was able to snap these three photos as a homage to poor fashion sense.

The two women with him are reasonably well dressed, God only knows what their relationship to him is. I like to think Austrian pimp and his harem, but that is pure speculation. His outfit is over the top. First, the hair, a better mullet would be harder to find in the American Midwest; and here is one of the greatest ones we have ever seen walking in the same city Mozart did. His jeans have those fashionable tears up and down each leg. His watch is so big at first I thought it was actually a sun dial. He is wearing no socks on his feet in those strange shoes. There are rings on most of his fingers. The big gold chain screams pimp and the tattoos scream, "I've been to prison and don't like to talk about it." The utterly useless and ridiculous green pockets on his shirt were what attracted M's eye. She cannot look at the photos without cracking up about them: it is as though he stole his shirt from a 6 year old. I think the big bracelet is to incur maximum damage to someone's body but leave the authorities confused as to what could have inflicted such odd shaped bruises. He has at least three things attached to his belt and one of them was most certainly a knife, so I had no interest in tangling with him. All in all, this is why I went to Europe.

Video

A video we took while driving out of a fjord in Iceland. The audio cracks me up.

Homme, At Last

It all started to sink on the flight to Calgary. The moment I have been dreading has arrived, the time when I have to think about the future. All that can atleast be put off until I finish putting up photos on this blog.

How cars are towed in the Czech republic. Feel free to chime in if they do this in Canada, because I've never seen it.

The Cloth Hall in Iepers (Ypres) Belgium. Destroyed in WWI, rebuilt.

My favourite fountains in Europe involved water coming out of various orifaces, in this case the lion's mouth. This in Budapest.

The great Dettifoss, Europe's most powerful waterfall. In Iceland, where else.

Swimming in a pool on the edge of the Earth in Iceland. On the beach there is drift wood from Siberia. The North Pole is the next stop if sailing north from this point.

Me skinny dipping in Iceland, yes the water was unbelievably cold. Think that Seinfeld eppisode that is set in the Hamptons.

Standing on a glacier in southern Iceland, yes it is as cold as it looks. I am wearing mitts and my hat.

C'est Fin

Home, finally. Well back in Canada atleast. Staying in Ottawa for a week or so to recupperate, process photos and relax. Returning to Calgary September 21, 2006. Faced with unemployment and living with my parents probably until I find another job which is very saddening. Enough about my problems. I have more stuff to post so keep coming to look, it will mostly be pictures with captions. Including disgusting hostel pictures and the photo essay, entitled "What Not To Wear, Europe 2006". Here are some pictures I wanted to post earlier but never had the time.

A view from behind a waterfall in Iceland, the lava plains in the background.

A hike in Iceland.

Typical Iceland budget accomodations, they convert schools in to hotels in the summer and the gymnasiums act as hostels. It was actually quite comfortable.

A rock on the cost of Iceland that was home to a large puffin colony. Unfortunately, it's too far away to see any of the puffins and my camera lacks a powerful zoom lens.

This is a typical view in southern Iceland. You can see hay bails wrapped in plastic, they do that there for some reason. I asked the kids that took us horseback riding why but they just said thats the way they do it. You also see some farms scattered in the low lands. That is a glacier in the background. You can see why they raise so many sheep in Iceland, sheep like climbing that kind of terrain. Also no trees, there are almost no trees in Iceland.

The great Skogarfoss, I think. You can see small people in the foreground to imply the scale.

A delicious sandwich I got from a nice shop called Paul in London, there are other Paul's in Europe too. Look at all that Camembert, it's hard to believe I lost as much weight as I did when I was eating stuff like this.

Itinerary

In Luxembourg, the weather is finally beautiful. No pictures, blasted Internet cafe. Whent to Iepers (Ypres) the scene of many critical WWI battles. The museum there was facinating. Saw many beautiful pieces of art by Dutch and Flemish masters in Belgium.

The trip is winding down so this not that interesting, but for posterity and the remaining week here is where we have been and where we are going.
London, England 4 days
Iceland 13 days
Copenhagen, Denmark 3 days
Stockholm, Sweden 2 days
Berlin, Germany 3 days
Prague, Czech Republic 2 days
Krakow, Poland 3 days
Vienna, Austria 2 days
Budapest, Hungary 2 days
Salzburg, Austria 2 days
Venice, Italy 2 days
Rome, Italy 3 days
Florence, Italy 2 days
Lucerne, Switzerland 3 days
Strasbourg, France 2 days
Ultrecht, Netherlands 3 days
Brugge, Belgium 3 days
Brussels, Belgium 2 days
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg 2 days


Still to come

Arras, France 3 days
Paris, France 4 days

Photos

You can buy these crazy russian military hats in eastern europe. I'm not sure if it is a replica or not, it seemed authentic. This was in Krakow.

The view from the fotress in Salzburg Austria. Fortress is perched on top of this hill and has never been conquered, but it was handed over willingly to Napoleon when he rolled through.

*sigh* camera not straight yet again.

Over exposed picture of the colosseum in Rome. Note the rebuild floor section.

I had a photo of M at McDonald's after she finished scarfing down a Royale with cheese. She wouldn't let me post it though



View from the top of a old fortification tower in Lucerne Switzerland, you can see the lake in the background.

Some Swiss alpine horn players outside the cathedral in Strasbourg, France.

Part of the canal in Strasbourg, France.

Internet Cafes

Currently in Florence, saw Michaelangelo's "David" yesterday. Went to Budapest, Salzburg, Venice and Rome since my last post.

Finally get a chance to use an Internet cafe and of course the computer's locked up so I can't post photos *sigh*. It's too bad because I had a few good ones, I'll get them up soon. I took a recent comment into account and have one documenting poor hostel accomodations. However, most of the problems with hostels are unphotographical. I am working on another photo essay for this trip unrelated to hostels but it won't be ready until after I get back, I have to write a bunch of captions for the photos.

To give you a taste, examples of bad accomodations: hostel rooms being at the top of four flights of stairs with no elevator, hostels located in red light districts with aggresive bouncers trying to lure you in, general noise at night in the hostels. In Prague, the hostel room at the top of four flights of stairs, was probably the worst. We had no less than four keys for the place. One key to open the door from the street shared with a restaurant, one key to open the entrace to the stairs, after climbing four flights of stairs you used a key to open the hostel apartment. You then used another key to open the door to the room where the beds were, we also had another key for lockers they supplied us with. Not only that, the hostel was littered with warning signs about not letting in strangers who might knock. Our first night there we were sitting decided what to do about supper when there is a knock at the door to the apartment. M and I gave each other a puzzled look as we had both commented on the numerous signs saying not to let anyone in who knocks. Our American hostel mate who had been milling around the room immediately goes to the apartment door and lets the stranger in, walking by numerous signs telling him not to let strangers in. The stranger comes in, doesn't say anything just sits at the table with M and I. The American who let him in then immediately leaves, leaving just M the stranger and I in the room looking at each other. We did manage to determine that he was actually staying in the an ajacent bed room and his friends had a key, but it took about twenty minutes of talking to him to determine that. The only way to capture that in a picture would me punching the American who let him in in the face, but then I would still need this long winded story to explain why there is a photo of me punching someone in the face.

Some Pictures

Belvedere Palace, Vienna. Houses a museum that includes Klimt's "The Kiss". The palace doesn't lean, that's me not holding the camera straight.

A small part of Berkenau (Aushwitz II) from the tower above the railway tracks. Located one hour from Krakow, Poland.

View of Prague Castle at sunset from our hostel window, the only good thing about that hostel.

Copenhagen

I haven't finished the Iceland wrapup yet, but I am going to briefly move on and talk about places we went to afterwards when it is relatively fresh in my mind.

Flew in to Copenhagen from Keflavik Iceland on July 25. Plane was a small Boeing jet, an MD-90 I think, have never been on one of those before. We got to our hostel at about 9pm to find that we didn't have a reservation. Being a summer weekend the hostel was full. They were nice enough to give us a phone list of about ten other copenhagen hostels to see if they had room, five of which the hostel told us were also full. I set to trying to decipher a Danish pay phone in the lobby, not even four years of computer science helped with that, I found out later the phone was actually broken. In the mean time two beds in different rooms opened up and it being late and us being tired we took them. The hostel, the biggest one in Europe and maybe the world, was nice enough but the stress of not being sure where we were going to sleep and staying in different rooms was annoying to say the least. We also had the prospect of trying to find somewhere else to stay for the next two nights as the hostel was booked solid for weeks. The next morning we through in the towel quite early and stayed at an actual hotel. We still had to share a bathroom but we got our own room and a TV. Interestingly enough a channel on the television showed nothing but pornograhpy all day. Not the soft stuff played latenight on TQS in Quebec, full on hardcore porn, shocking. Once the novelty of that wore off we ventured outside. By luck the Glyptotek was free that day, it is an art gallery in a beautiful building donated by the guy who ran the Carlsberg beer factory. We also went to the Danish history museum and took a tour of the old Carlsberg beef factory, which is a masterpiece of 19th century industrial architecture. Our hotel was nice enough, but happened to be located in the red light district so we got lulled to sleep every night by arguments of prostifutes and police sirens. It really wasn't that bad, red light districts in Scandanavia are nothing to be afraid of. The amount of bicycles in Copenhagen is astonishing, I would say there was 5000 bikes locked up outside the train station at any one time. They even have this program where you can "borrow" a bike by putting in a coin and unlocking a bike, kind of like how you unlock a shopping cart at the super market, you get the coin back when you return the bike. The bike are kind of rickety but work well enough, especially in a city as flat as Copenhagen, probably the number one reason why so many people ride bikes there.

Iceland Wrap-Up

In Berlin at the moment. Have finished visting Scandanavia, went to Copenhagen and Stockholm in the past week. Just wanted to post a few final thoughts about Iceland and some logistical details.

Food

Food in Iceland is expensive. When you factor in the quality of the food at the price you are paying it is heinous. When on the road the only place to eat in a hurry is cafes in gas stations. They normally serve hamburgers, hot dogs and such. If the place is really small only hot dogs. A hot dog that has been sitting in hot water all day with a half stale bun costs about $5 CDN. Anything with meat in a sit down restaurant will cost you atleast $50 CDN. Grocery stores are the way to eat cheap, and most of the places we stayed in had kitchens so we did that to keep costs down. Fresh bread was almost impossible to find outside of the major cities, it made toasting the bread necessary to make it edible. For a country that is surrounded by water and whose main industry if fishing they seem to care little for fresh fish. I think there is cod in the oceans and salmon in the rivers but this doesn´t seem to make it to the grocery stores. Every grocery store does sell dried foul smelling cod. I can understand this preservation technique in antiquity but this should have been phased out with the advent of reliable refridgeration. One good thing is they have this cheese product that is soft and packaged like yorgurt that is really good, it is called skyr and is available through most of scandanavia.

Accomodation

We stayed in Hostelling International hostels, guest houses, gymnasiums and the Salvation Army in Reykjavik. The guest houses and Hostelling International places were the best. Always shared facilities. The guest houses and Hostelling International places always had a kitchen to use and often extras like laundry and Internet access. The gymnasiums were nothing special but were pretty much deserted so it was like having your own gigantic room. Some places servered a cold breakfast for about $10, never had it. I hated the Salvation Army in Reykjavik and would never stay there again. We were paying between $25 and $35 a night for accomodation.

Museums

Museums in Iceland are understandably small. They are however very well organized and surprisingly quiet. When we were there we seemed to have the museums to ourselves. We really only went to museums while in Reykjavik, where the major are located: National Gallery, History Museum etc. We bought a Reyjavik tourist card for forty-eight hours for about $12 CDN that got you in to all of them and included swimming pools and public transportation so you could get out to the museums. One thing of note about the museums is the bathrooms. I have never been is such exquisite bathrooms in public institutions in my life. Everyone seemed better than the last: goose neck faucets, marble floors, marble basins, entirely enclosed stalls etc. One museum that shared a building with a nice restaurant even had real linen hand towels. I was seriously expecting to see a string quartet in the corner had we gone in another one.

Buildings

Iceland buildings are somewhat odd. They are big fans of corrugated iron, both for the rooves and for siding material. There are no trees in Iceland suitable for using as building materials so timber construction is very rare. The buildings that are timber are generally old and the timber was orginally imported from Norway. Concrete construction is popular, which leads to dull looking buildings. Although, there a few spectacular concrete churches around. There are very few buildings made out of stone. My guess is that Iceland contains very little quarriable rock that is suitable for building. Most lava rock to me seems unsutiable for building materials, I'm not mason though so take that with a grain of salt. I also wonder if there is a lack of skilled masons in the country as a result of no stone materials because the few buildings you do see made of stone are of poor quality.

Transportation

If you live in Iceand and have coin you own a turbo diesel 4x4 most often a Toyota Land Cruiser. Never have I seen so many land cruisers. It is really a blessing to have a 4x4 because roads in Iceland are treacherous. Gravel roads with switchbacks going up the sides of fjords are quite normal and many interior roads in Iceland are 4x4 only. If going to Iceland you have two options when leaving the capital city the bus or renting a car. Renting a car in Iceland is expensive. However, getting the unlimited bus ticket is also expensive. When travelling with two or more people having a car turns out to become cheaper than purchasing bus tickets. It is also way more convenient to have a car because you can reach places of a accomodation where being on the bus would require a long hike. We only had a small two wheel drive Toyota Yaris that was fine. If I was to do it all over again and unlimited cash I would get some sort of 4x4 that you could sleep in and had maybe primitive cooking facities. Something like a VW Eurovan that was four wheel drive and had a turbo diesel motor. Then you could go on the interior roads and camp because some of those drives are long and not having to turn around and come back the same day would be a huge benefit.

Landscape

I´ll finish this section later.

Iceland Pictures

Margaret and I on a hike in eastern Iceland near Seydisfjordur. The ferry from Europe comes in here.

Margaret and I riding horses in western Iceland just outside a place called Grundarfjordur. Icelandic horses are a unique breed and are small. It was hard to get mine to keep its head up when we stopped because it must have been hungry.

This is a lake at the foot of a glacier where pieces of the glacier break off and float out to sea. The lake is called Jokulsarlon. Scenes from two James Bond films were filmed here. I remember one where Roger Moore is on skies getting away from bad guys. When he gets near the lagoon a hatch for a submarine opens up with the union jack on it, the submarine appears to be an iceberg. He escapes in the submarine, of course there is a beautiful woman waiting for him in the submarine. It was cold and drizzling this day. There is also a briliantly blue iceberg in the background that the picture doesn´t do justice.

This is near the black sand beach below. This is just some odd lava formation. There are all sorts of odd formations of lava around.

This is near the southern most point of the main island of Iceland. Near the town of Vik. The beach is black volcanic sand. When you go to touch it you think your hand is going to get dirty but it is just sand. There was a puffin colony near here and a lighthouse on the top of that ridge in the background.


On the same hike near Seydisfjordur mentioned above.


Me standing in front of Seljalanfoss in southern Iceland near another larger waterfall, Skokarfoss. This waterfall was cool because you could walk right around it. Of course, doing so resulted in you getting soaked, but it was still fun. Along the ridge behind the falls there were many other falls, none quite as spectacular.

Seljalanfoss, you can sort of make out the path around the back of the waterfall. It was around 40m tall I think.

Iceland Smells Like sulfur

Well not the whole country but most of the water does. Luckily it doesn't taste like sulfur. I am afraid no pictures yet. I am in an internet cafe in Reykjavik and the computer is all locked up so I can't use my USB cable to get some photos off it.

Our little odyssey in rural Iceland is over. It was really fun while it lasted. It would be nice to have a rental car for the entire trip, but the cost of the car and gasoline starts to catch up with you. Also, it is almost impossible to get lost on the roads in Iceland, only highway 1 actually goes anywhere, the other roads generally go to a dead end or loop back to highway 1. Getting lost in Europe would be must easier I would assume.

We were running late on returning the rental car two days ago and unfortunately ran into Friday afternoon Reykjavik traffic. We also had one of those terrible free tourist maps that are ok if you are on foot but when driving you sort of need it to be accurate. Anyway when we finally arrived at the rental return centre I took the map from Margaret and promptly crumpled it up, much to her anger as that was our only city map. I felt quite silly and apologized when I had calmed down, I also had to go find another city map so we could figure out where we were going. We are staying at the Salvation Army guest house in downtown Reykjavik. Mostly because the Hostelling International hostel we full when we tried to book it over a month and a half ago. The Salvation Army is quite crafty and puts together this slick little website that tricks you into thinking that it won't be full of weirdos, http://www.guesthouse.is/. It is pretty much how I would imagine staying at the YMCA would be like. Anyway, I will be glad to leave it.

Before getting to Reykjavik we saw humpback whales and dolphins whale watching. Drove on the road to hades, hades being a place called Nordorfjordor. Was actually a beautiful place it was just the road that was horrific, our poor little Toyota Yaris took quite a beating, it took two hours to drive 70 km. Went horse back riding with a bunch of Icelandic teenagers who were our guides and managed not to fall off. Have been going to museums in Reykjavik, museums that we mostly have to ourselves as no one else is really in them for some unknown reason. Off to Copenhagen in two days time.

Send My Regards to the British Museum

Arrived in London and was gratiously picked up by a good friendAnthony at Gatwich Airport. Stayed with Anthony for three nights inthe south London, around Bromfield I think. We were completelyknackered (british for tired) when we arrived and promptly slept. Wespend the next two and a half days touring around London: BuckinghamPalace, Tower of London, British Museum etc. The crown jewels at theTower were very impressive, but they had the aduacity to place adonation box at the end, needless to say they don't need the money soI put nothing in it. On the whole I found London and littleoverwhelming, extremely large and extremely busy. Would have liked tostay longer to see the museums we missed and to see a play (Anthony'swife insisted we see a play and was quite devastated when we didn'thave time).
We flew to Iceland on July 12. The pilot aborted the landing once. Iam a very good flyer when everything goes well, but when we circledthe airport over the ocean I was sure he was dumping fuel inanticipation of a rough landing. The captain indicated something overthe loud speaker about something wrong with the landing gear, all waswell and Margie was much braver than I ( I had to ask her to hold myhand, I'm such a suck).


We picked up the car with no hassles, a little two door Toyota Yaristhat has served us well so far. The roads here are quite rough inplaces and you would be amazed with some of the mountain passes thatthe road travels through. We have hiked on a glacier and seen so manybeautiful waterfalls I lost count long ago. You could use rolls offilm simply photographing waterfalls. I am currently in a placecalled Seydisfjodour, that you reach by driving over a pass and downinto a fjord. It is where the ferry docks coming from Norway.Although, the ferry doesn't arrive until Wednesday so the town isquiet and sleepy. We went swimming in the town pool last night,haven't been in any natural hot springs yet, hopefully soon. Whendriving in Iceland you notice the lack of mammals, you see some sheep,icelandic horses and the odd cow, but there is nothing else. Iespecially miss trying to hit gophers with the car. Margie hasinsisted on stopping and photographing sheep, she is quite sweet aboutasking so I usually stop if I can.
The food in Iceland has been quite bland, there are cafe's in thetowns but they often sell hot dogs and hamburgers, nothing excitinglike pickeled herring or anything like that. The accomodation so farhas been quite good, we are generally the youngest people at thehostel, lots of older people travelling.


Only halfway around Iceland, should have more stories to come. Idon't have my cable for my digital camera handy right now so I can'tpost any pictures.

Itinerary

Here's the part of the itinerary that is set in stone because flights are booked, anything missing is up in the air still.

July 9, Arrive London, England
July 12, Fly to Reykjavik, Iceland
July 25, Fly to Copenhagen, Denmark
July 28, Train to Stolkholm, Sweden
July 28 to September 12, Taking the train around Europe
September 12, Fly to Montreal from Paris, France

Right now I am in Ottawa on a brief stop over to pick up my travelling companion, stay tuned for updates.

Stuff I am Taking

Necessities
-Passport
-Photocopy of passport
-Credit cards
-Debit card
-Hosteling International card
-Driver's license
-Travel insurance information
Clothing
-Five t-shirts
-One collared golf shirt
-One long sleeved cotton shirt
-Seven pairs of underwear
-Seven pairs of socks
-One pair sleeping pants
-Two pairs of shorts
-Two pairs of cotton pants
-One pair swim trunks
-One zip up kangaroo jacket
-One lightweight fleece jacket
-One rain jacket
-One pair fleece mittens
-One wool touque
-One belt
-One mesh bag (for dirty clothes)
Miscellaneous
-Digital camera
-Analog camera with flash
-Coil notebook with pen
-Lightweight sleeping bag (for hostels in Iceland)
-Sleep sheet for hostels
-Travel wallet
-Regular wallet
-European wall outlet converter
-Ipod with wall plugin
-Sunglasses
Shoes
-Merrell lightweight hikers
-Birkenstocks
-Shower shoes
Bathroom Stuff
-Travel bathroom towel

Prologue

This is supposed to be a log regarding a trip to Europe in Summer 2006. Hopefully I will be able to post during my travels. Up until my trip I will be posting trip related stuff for myself, like packing list etc. It might be boring for awhile. If you have any suggestions leave a comment, they automatically get emailed to me.