"england's oldest pub"

ciao ciao a tutti!

its been probably one of the most varied week and a half of the trip so far. after leaving iceland with my brother i went to manchester, england (near manchester) to hang out with pauline. unfortunately it was only five days but we did fill the short time nicely. after checking out manchester we went to the "lake district" which is an area north of manchester.

we had a good time there with long hikes around farms, hills, mountains, and lakes. it felt a lot like being back in new zealand; there is a really good nature feel there. the strange part was seeing every single person, from babies to old people, wearing only outdoor clothing (north face, columbia, 66° north, and every other brand). wearing jeans makes you stand out there. waterproof hiking pants are all that can be seen.

manchester is high on my list of possible places to move to. the only bad point is that it isn't on the beach--and, that they drive on the other side of the road. but both of this are alright by me (for a short period of time). but, we'll see. i change my mind a lot about these things.

after leaving pauline, i went to see dani in nottingham to hang out for a day and to return his jacket. it was a good time checking out the place where robin hood came from. i had to leave so quickly that we couldn't do much, but we did stop by "england's oldest pub" -- at least thats what they say. i guess its a few hundred years old and the inside was very cave like.

the next day i was in rome for a night before going to florence for ashley's birthday. ashley is a friend from university that is studying art here for a year. her friends are rad and we all had a giant dinner at il latini (my favorite restaurant) and then saw Finding Neverland in a really cool italian theater.

for the weekend i went to an organic farm conference near siena. it was mostly just spending time with other wwoofers while all the italians talked and voted on official things. the location was really cool and i'll be going back there to farm for a week. they have horses and i would really like to spend a lot of my free time with them so i can be more comfortable around them.

after that i think i will visit a wwoofer i met at the convention who lives in balogna, and then maybe find a farm somewhere near there. i think after my month of italia i may go to slovenia and croatia. i still have to look to find the cheapest way to get there, but they are pretty close to italy so it should be easy.

this month my entries may be a bit more spread out, but i'll fill you in whenever i get a chance.

thanks to pauline, dani, and ashley for letting me stay at their places. it means a lot to me.

have a good day
ciao ciao
your friend

chad

hotdogs

Hello,

So, i'm feeling pretty low after leaving iceland. i thought i was getting used to saying goodbye to people and places, but iceland really was something special. last night at the hostel in england with my brother, we didn't know what to do because our new family wasn't with us. although, in a way its a good thing--it means we had a great time.

If you ever go to iceland (and you should), try to plan it so you are in reykjavik on the first weekend of the month. every weekend of the year there is a pub crawl called "runtur" (i'm not actually sure on spelling), but the first weekend is special because everyone in iceland gets paid once a month at the beginning of the month and they go out with their new money. on friday we went out with a big group from the hostel and watched an iclandic regae band play at a university bar and then spent the rest of the evening at prikid, a more relaxed bar where you could talk with people. we called it a night at 3am but all the icelanders were just starting...crazy people. saturday night was more of the same with some local bands and many other bars/pubs/clubs/cafes. we got back in time to say goodmorning to a lady who was catching the 5am bus to the airport. one sign of how late things usually go is that the hotdog stand stays open until 7am.

Maybe my idea of spring is wrong, but when i think of spring i don't think of cold, wind, ice, rain (ok, this one can be in spring...but cold rain, no), hail, sleet, and snow. I think winter returned after that tour guide said it was spring; but, it made for some great times. i've never swam outdoors in the snow before. my brother and i went to the geothermally heated pool next to the hostel and while we were playing on the kid's slide, which was good fun, it was snowing a pretty good amount. the locker room was a bit tramatizing but maybe i'm just not used to having 15 minute conversations with my friends while in the nude (it seemed like this was normal for everyone else from age 6 to over 60).

Being from las vegas, my brother and i decided it would be better to put the driving of icy roads into someone else's hands and took tours to all the sights. Iceland is an amazingly beautiful place that could easily compete with the natural beauty of new zealand. i could list out the things we saw but it just wouldn't be enough. "waterfall" can't really describe what we saw in gulfoss and the "black beach" in vi'k is more than a beach with black sand. so, i'm going to have to leave that list out--sorry.

The best thing by far was the people. we spent so much time together doing random things, like ice skating, movie nights, or watching the superbowl--all filled with laughing. everyone knew everyone else. it felt so good to be there and so wrong to leave. and now i'm back in england. my brothers on a bus to the airport and thankfully my bus leaves tomorrow morning for my visit to pauline near manchester. it will be nice to be with a good friend instead of trying to make new friends at a new hostel. i'm not quite ready for that yet.

Also, big thanks to Dani (my italian friend from sardegna that is living in england). Thanks for the use of your jacket. i truly don't know what i would have done without it.

Have a good day
your friend

chad

Burned his butt

Hello from Iceland!

first of all, iceland isn't at all what my mind was making me think. there is a bit of ice here and there, and it can be a bit funny if you don't see it. but, it isn't a below freezing snowy wastland. i guess there was a lot of snow two weeks ago, but our tour guide yesterday said that its spring now in iceland! good news!

me with the brother (his name is steve)

we spent a few days in reykjavik. its the capital (the northern most capital in the world) where you fly into. it kind of has a ski town feel to it because it isn't that huge of a place and people enjoy having fun. iceland is on a geothermal bed(volcanoes and other hot things) so heating is basically free and i have never seen so many radiator heaters ever in my life, but places are all warm and toasty. also, it doesn't have that nasty sulfer smell like rotorua (in new zealand) had.

after reykjavik we decided to go to hafnarfjordur for a day and night. its a "suberb" about 20 km from reykjavik. really, its just a cool small town. we kind of just showed up without reservations anywhere and found that every hostel was closed or not taking anyone. but luckily the last place was open and turned out to be really cool. it was in a home that had a guest apartment on the bottom floor (they like having three floors here). Axle was the name of the guy who lived there and he was very...tranquil. the town has a lot of old lava flow that is hard to explain, except that it makes you feel like a giant. theres a thing about little people living there (elves and other mystical little people), so the people have built tiny houses all around the town. you even have to get clearance to build something on your land by an official person that checks for residences of little people.

yesterday was an odd experience of the blue lagoon. i would imagine that nearly every girl in the world would like to go to there, which made it funny being there with my brother. first, what it is (its better than it sounds): its a power plant about 40 minutes outside reykjavik. it uses steam and hot water from deep in the earth to create power for iceland. the water is then poured into a lagoon that...people swim in. the place is super high tech and fancy pants and it really does make you feel important. the water is the craziest color blue and in some places incredibly hot (incredibly). it was strange mix of deciding to be cold standing outside of the water or slowly boiled inside the water--i chose a half and half mix. i guess there are a lot of minerals and blue-green algae in the water that make your skin better somehow. the whole place is like a super huge day spa, with hot waterfalls for massages and silica mud masks (but no cucumbers). the geothermal steam room was a little much; i would consider it torture after about two minutes. my brother, steve, burned his butt (even through his swimtrunks) on one of the seats in the steam room.

crazy blue water



So after that we had a sedate movie night in the hostel in reykjavik with some cool norweigens. we still have a few days here so will be going to a town called vik tomorrow, where they have black beaches and some cool rock formations near the ocean. the weather is supposed to be clearing up soon so we'll also go to see a waterfall and geyser. the geyser is in a town called "geyser" and its where the name geyser comes from...i think thats kind of cool.

have a good day
your friend (and his brother)

chad (and steve)