A Letter to My MP

Mainly for friends' reference, I'm posting below the possibly-too-wordy missive I sent to my MP regarding Motion 312, put forward by the MP one riding over from mine, the thinly veiled goal of which was to re-criminalize the legal and often medically warranted procedure of pregnancy termination. This despite the fact that the current Prime Minister of Canada, of whose party this MP is a member, is on the record multiple times as stating that his government will not re-open any debate on this topic.

I was pleasantly surprised to find my MP on record as having responded to other constituents that he did not support this motion, as logged at RadicalHandmaids.com, along with other responses from MPs.

A commenter pointed out that she thought Mr. Braid's response stopped short of stating he would vote against this, however, I thought his refusal to support implied that. Even so, I wanted to author my own letter to my MP, to indicate that I appreciate his stand on this and to make it clear how I would expect MY parliamentary representative to vote on this.  For reference, here it is. Apologies for the format weirdness.

Dear Mr. Braid;

I am writing you with regard to the current Motion 312 before Parliament, the motion being to form a committee to supposedly study the status of a fetus as a "human being", put forward by your colleague Mr. Woodworth. I appreciate that the internet has publicized some indications that you do not support this motion, however, I am wanting to add my voice to those calling for this idea to be shut down as an ill-thought attempt to bring an individual ideological agenda to some federal legislative recognition. I would also call on you to be even more clear about your intended vote on this issue. I am your constituent, and I and others in Kitchener-Waterloo are not clear that you have indicated how you would vote on this motion before Parliament, only that you "support your government" and refer to Prime Minister Harper's statements of record that he will not re-open "the abortion issue".

I understand that you personally may have views on these questions, as do I, however, I do not believe re-opening a long-studied and settled question, which ultimately can only lead to restrictions on womens' access to medical resources, can be productive. I would prefer my government spend its time on issues truly in federal scope and universally beneficial to all Canadians.

Motion 312 is fundamentally, and possibly deliberately, flawed in its conflagration of the biological status of a human individual and legal personhood in the view of a state. One is not the other and we have many situations in which we do not consider them 100% equivalent.

The motion raises questions long answered by the Supreme Court of Canada, which do not need re-answering. Proceeding from this motion can produce some terrible consequences, not the least of which is a return to days when women in desperate circumstances poisoned, injured, or endangered themselves by either attempting to terminate without medical care, OR by carrying an ill-advised pregnancy for fear of the legal ramifications of not doing so.

The motion also starts down the slippery slope to potential criminal prosecution of not just women for their individual acts and circumstances during pregnancy, but of midwives, doctors, and other medical professionals for their involvement in a pregnancy that does not proceed to plan. Circumstances arise in a significant percentage of pregnancies which may present risk to the fetus, including procedures meant to save a pregnancy, fetus, or woman which may have no guarantee of complete success. It is accepted medical and legal convention that the health and well being of a pregnant woman is paramount. Changing that via legislation moves a large number of medical procedures into a gray area of possibly prosecutable offenses.

Terminating a pregnancy can be a terrible choice but it is occasionally the best outcome for a variety of personal, medical, psycho-social and socio-economic factors. The way to continue to reduce the (already decreasing) incidence of pregnancy termination is to reduce and eliminate the circumstances in which an individual might find it the necessary outcome, which include poverty, lack of education, social pressure within a community, lack of support and resource for all families, abuse of women by partners or families, and poor health resources for women in all circumstances.

Ultimately, however, it needs to be recognized that the body of an individual is sovereign, and a pregnant individual is foremost an individual, though one in a unique state of giving of their own body to support a dependent other. This cannot be forced, required, or legislated of anyone, any more than an individual can be forced into organ or blood donation, even when another's life depends on it. To be giving of one's person to sustain another life requires fully informed consent, and it is a tenet of informed consent that it is revocable as well. These principles could stand to make any proposed debate on fetal personhood moot, but only after wasting a great deal of time and resources on the topic.

I hope you can continue to represent Kitchener-Waterloo in a manner acknowledging the diversity of views in your community and focus your efforts on our collective good through trade, business, infrastructure, and financial matters that best suit the whole of Canada, all its present citizens and their freedoms. Thank you for your consideration.

Day 9. Warm and Woolly! Mostly

Our last full day in Reykjavik, and Iceland, saw us picked up at the door (what luxe service!) by Ragga, proprietress, heart & soul of Knitting Iceland. If you are ever coming here, as a knitter, or want a REASON to come here as a knitter, you need to have a look at her web site. The day tours are just the beginning of the offerings and you can plan an entire trip here just for one of Knitting Iceland's events.

We stopped to pick up a fellow knit tourist, Marcia, and quickly found we were hilariously on a wavelength. Marcia's an old-school IT geek by trade (she and Adam had more to talk about on that front), a spinner and dyer, another Journeywheel owner, of all the hilarious coincidences, and owned by cats.

Our first visit was to Ragga's office, a shared creative workspace full of local designers, to pay our ticket and poke around a bit. Then it was off to the West - as all of us on the tour had spend some time doing the "Golden Circle" route, we elected instead for the Woollen West, slightly up into the fjords north of Reykjavik. This drive included an interesting construct - a 5 km long, 165 m deep tunnel UNDER a fjord. The view may have been better above, but to an engineer, what an infrastructure work. Ragga mentioned it saves about 40 minutes on the drive each way, though there is a toll to use it.

On the next stop we were hosted by Gudrun, a botanist and university teacher who is producing naturally dyed Icelandic wool primarily with Icelandic plants, though she does use some imported materials to get the reds/blues or some overdyes. It was great to see how another dyer works with such things, and the care she takes with her production and experimenting. We were a small group and probably a good thing as she's presently working in a small kitchen, but she also showed us her workshop-in-progress as her garage is being converted to shop and workspace (so she might have her living room back!). I have tons of research to do now to try to translate a lot of the plants she spoke of into English.

Gudrun took us out to the wool collective of which she is a member, a craft collective which produces some incredible quality items, including very jealously guarded sweater patterns made no where else - they are kept in a safe, and knitters may only borrow them. All the offerings in their shop are actually juried in, and they are quite proud of their work. We got an inside peek at the loft full of rovings and fleeces. It was so tempting to load up on pounds of beautiful, washed Icelandic fleece, but I stuck to rovings and a couple of samples - for all of packing space, storage at home, and slight concern about customs reasons (clean fleece SHOULD be fine, but as always, it's up to whomever sniffs the luggage.

From here we went to lunch at a lovely restaurant in an old house, which has been renovated, or possibly joined to other structures, to include a theatre and large gift shop. The food was amazing, Adam and I just had the soup and salad bar and it was substantial. The shop had some nice crafts, and many more of the standard tourist offerings, and we unfortunately had to pass on a couple of guided exhibits/museums for time reasons. The shop itself had a fascinating architecture, though, as it was built between the other buildings and a cliff wall, such that the outer walls of the buildings and the cliff face became the inner walls of the shop, with a minimal roof framed on and all the odd openings filled in with fitted plexiglas. It was probably not terribly efficient to heat, but in a country where geothermal heating is plentiful and inexpensive, this is not a major design concern.

After lunch and a browse there, we were off to the Istex spinning mill, home to the Alafoss yarn lines, known worldwide as "the" Icelandic yarn. I must admit, and if you saw my tweet... there was a little bit of falling off the "no more stashing" wagon here. How could I resist? The yarn was between 280 and 420 kr. per skein ($2.50- $4.00, very roughly), we got an additional 10% discount for traveling with Ragga, AND over a certain amount purchased, we're eligible for tax rebates as we leave. Also, some of what I bought is for sharing back home. I also purchased some buttons, which, I was a little careless, cost more than the yarn! I did not realize the price on the packets was per button, so I selected some lots of handmade sheep horn and reindeer antler 5-6 pc sets. Oh well. Still not a horrid expense and nothing I'll get at home, ever.

The only disappointment was that the goat farm that is often part of this tour wasn't available today, as the owners were out of town. So, no visits to the rare and reportedly cute Icelandic goats, though Ragga has promised me a small sample will be available if we pop by the office before leaving town, which we are off to do shortly.

Our last formal tour ended around dinner hour, and both for the sake of a walk, a little more last minute shopping, and seeking food, we tidied up and the wandered back out to Laugavegur to see what we may have missed (not much) or forgotten to pick up (some books and local candies to head home with). We had probably the priciest meal of our trip at an Icelandic fine-dining restaurant near the town square, where we shared the lobster tails grill and an amazing mushroom barley dish from their veggie menu (like a risotto, but only with barley).

After that it was back to the hotel to pack, get paperwork in order, and get some sleep. As I type this, we're just finishing our last Icelandic breakfast, and will head up to finish packing, take a last-minute picture for a late-breaking Flat Stanley project, check out, and pop by Knitting Iceland's offices for the promised cashmere sample and a last chat before we meet our airport shuttle at 1:30. I leave with mixed feelings - I am ready to be home, with slightly less volatile weather, sleeping on a higher-quality mattress and with my own kitties again, but there is so much of this wonderful place, and I've had the barest glimpse. I certainly hope I can come back some day. Iceland will be added to my subjects of perpetual traveller's angst, those places to which I'd love to return but which are also on the 'been there' list when so many new places are not. Perhaps I can find a way to make it a work destination or a research subject in my future textile endeavors. :-)

A Rather Pedestrian, and again wet, Day 8.

Today was our "down" day in the city, to wander and explore. Which we did! With the bad weather luck that's followed us so far - another day we chose to be largely out-of-doors that turned out to be very windy and rainy.

The morning was not bad at all. We slept in, had breakfast late, cleaned ourselves up, and wandered two streets up to Laugavegur, "the washing street" (translated literally) or "the shopping street" according to guidebooks for us tourists. Full of shops and fancier restaurants, probably overpriced but interesting to look at. We wandered, Adam taking a few snaps, towards the town hall and it's reknown duck pond. When the first little weather tantrum began to spit at us, we ducked into another Kaffitar and shared a quiche while the weather blew by. It seemed it might be lightening up again, so we headed for the pond, only to find the rain pick up. Adam ducked into a bank vestibule to put contacts in, and of course that prompted a break in the weather that allowed us at least to get uphill to an interesting stop we wanted to try - Hallgrimskjirkja, which we stopped at on our first day in town but only after it had closed. Today it was open, and we paid our fare and ascended to the tower from which one can see over all of Reykjavik and most of the surrounding areas, to ocean and mountains beyond. The weather was still worsening, and when we got up to the open part of the tower, the wind was pretty impressive. We took photos from all 4 sides, and stayed through the 3 pm bells which were just over our heads, then headed down to the much less biting weather on the ground (in the church, too). The building was interesting - much less ornamented than famous continental churches one might think of, with all their frescoes and stained glass, but in an elegant, minimalist sort of way. There ARE a few stained glass pieces, but most of the windows are clear, and the vault is just white stone, with simply finished wooden ends on the pews and a few ornamental sculptures around. By far the showpiece of the place is the pipe organ, with over 5200 pipes (plus a few dozen on its "little brother" that sits up near the front). We left around 3:30, as the hall was closing for a recording session with a choir. Adam chatted briefly with someone we presume is the engineer as he was setting up microphones and his Macs to do the recording.

Outside, we crossed the church courtyard and the road in front to Kaffi Loki, a local spot well known enough to have made it to the tourist guides and the Air Iceland "things to do in Iceland" video I watched on the plane. It is a funky, trendy-looking coffeeshop bragging of a traditional Icelanding menu, which indeed includes the (in)famous fermented shark, served here with dried fish and a shot of "black death", the only alcoholic beverage that seems to be made in the country - Icelandic Schnapps. I think with the bite of whale steak and a taste of dried fish earlier in the week, I've decided I've gone native enough, and I'm not brave enough to try rotted shark with a shot, so we stuck to a "pancake plate", a sweet snack with our coffees consisting of crepes with sugar and with jam and whipped cream. Much more tourist-friendly fare.

From there, we made the... ah, misjudgment, weather-wise, to decide to walk to our next destination, Perlan or "The Pearl", a facility boasting a viewing deck, fancy restaurant, less fancy cafeteria, visitor centre, shops and Saga Museum. Two things went unfortunately wrong about this. The weather decided to get worse again just after we started, and we wound up walking uphill against a driving rain to get there. The second thing was that when reading the hours, I neglected to note the second listing of WINTER hours, and we arrived a few minutes after the museum closed. We went up to the viewing deck but the wind and rain was keeping everyone inside, so we looked around, had a seat, and tried to figure out the bus routes to get back. It was quite a hike out of the park just to get to the bus, so we were damp again by the time we got there. The driver almost missed seeing us so we had to run to catch him up as he stopped at the next intersection.

I'd decided from there that a hot pot would be a nice respite so we bussed to a depot and then transferred to the route that went to the Laugardalslaug, reputedly the largest facility in the city and one supposedly with lots of outdoor hot pool space. This turned out to be not quite true just now - it appears that much of the hot pool part is under construction/renovation just now. So, we did relax and soak a bit, in an indoor and outdoor hot pool, but the facility was crowded. It generally looks to be the sports centre for the serious teams, so lots of kids/teens were around really practicing, and the younger kids and older folks were in the hot pool. Luckily the bus stop to get home was not nearly so far as the one from the Pearl, and we were a quick ride and a couple blocks walk from the hotel. We returned to find a sign indicating the northern lights trips WERE running tonight, though we have no idea where they might go to, plus, the company we had a free re-run with had already left and the later tour was a different operator. I don't think we were up for that anyway tonight, as the damp was soaking in again. We dried off, changed clothes, and headed back to the bar, where they serve a soup-and-bread dinner from 5-10. A slightly peppered carrot soup and half a loaf of french bread has done much to set things right. Tomorrow will be another early day as we have our last full day in the country and are spending it with Knitting Iceland on the Woollen West tour up north-west of the city, though I'm not sure how far we go or what exactly we see.. there's a goat farm mentioned, but all destinations are subject to availability. Will update you tomorrow on how that went!

Day 7, Part II (it was a long one)

After lunch, we were off for another drive for a bit. I later asked Valdi about the cave locations, and he explained that they have a different one in the summer very near the Silfra site, but it is not accessible in the winter. So we drove in a vaguely south-westerly direction to the other side of Reykjavik, into lava fields nearer 2000 yrs old than the 10, 000 around the fissure. I have no idea how the guides locate these sites, but driving up a remote gravel road through what looked to us like untouched moonscape again, Valdi stopped, turned, and pulled up near another van. He handed us helmets with headlamps and marched us to a trail that was utterly invisible from the road, heading for a spot where a few steel posts had been driven into the rock, marking the cave mouth for the "Into the Black" part of the "Black and Blue" day.

I am sure as caves go, probably even lava tubes in Iceland, this was a pretty easy walk, but it was still very neat and a little bit spooky. We had to carefully step our way in down what could have been an ice slide, and for the first hundred meters or so, were walking over what looked like wet, coarse sand and larger rocks but was in fact ice-encased coarse cave floor and larger rocks. Luckily, for the most part, the sandy-appearing parts were rough enough that good boots still kept a grip. The cave narrowed and widened several times, and at the first narrowing, again, everything was so slick with crystal-clear ice coating that sitting on our butts and sliding through was the best way.

Valdi had quite a lot of information on this site and the geology of it, and the lava tubes in general. We saw an number of what looked like what we would call stalagmites and stalactites, and he did not have a different word for them, but in these caves they are formed differently. Though it LOOKS like the water dripping through and off them is leaving deposits, they are actually iron-rich rock that was either melted off the roof, or bubbled up from the floor through the molten lava flow and hardened as the flow of lava in the cooling tube re-melted parts of the cooling walls.

The current state of the cave was as interesting as the geology. A man named Arni is a caretaker of sorts, a volunteer though he has received grants for materials and stewardship work. Arni has carefully placed signs and chained-off areas of the cave to protect particularly notable rock forms, and Valdi went over with us the 'take only pictures, leave only footprints' philosophy that applies in much of Iceland's environmentally and culturally significant land. To a Canadian who grew up camping, a very familiar philosophy. Sadly, not everyone has respected it, and one of Arni's works in the cave is a small monument to one of the largest stalagmites, broken off and taken some years ago. A few others have been re-fixed to their pedestals, though it's unclear if they were deliberately or accidentally broken. Unlike true stalagmites/stalactites, these forms are NOT dynamic and will not re-form. Valdi explained that it is believed that the life of a lava tube cave is about 5000 years, after which it will have collapsed into just a fissure, so a relatively short lifespan in geological terms. Already the tube we were in is believed to be about 400 m. shorter than it originally was, as the far end has collapsed.

Valdi took us to a spot where he told us he would stop, and ask us to go on about 15 paces and then see if we could understand why the name of this cave translated roughly to "End of the Road". We did so, and came up on a chained-off area in which a hazy white scattering of.. something... could be seen. It was ghostly-white against all the black and iron-rust rock and took me a moment to parse... my first thought was that it was a grave! It was, of a sort, but not human. A closer look revealed an elongated skull, jawbone, small lower leg bones and the shape of hooves - a sheep. Once I stood back and looked at the whole scene again, the outline could be parsed as a wooly body. Valdi explained that while Arni has marked off the area and no one has touched the remains, they believe this was a stray sheep from ~900 years ago, which fell or ran into the cave mouth to escape earthquake or volcanic activity, and just could not find it's way back out in the pitch blackness. I felt for the poor thing - I certainly wouldn't want to be in there alone, with no light!

Just past the sheep was a step down into the chamber at the end of the passable tunnel. There were flat rocks to sit on, and a few more of the not-properly-called stalagmites to admire, and then Valdi had us turn our lamps off and wait and listen for a bit. The darkness did seem to magnify the dripping of groundwater through the cave. Before we turned the lamps back on, he told us a story of how Iceland has more zombies officially on record than anywhere in the world - and we realized we were getting an actual history lesson, and it struck me as he explained, how sad this really was! He said the legend of the lava fields were that one should never wander off, as there were spirits and demons and trolls, but occasionally someone would be lost. When they were found later, lifeless, out in the fields, custom dictated that they be taken to a churchyard for burial quickly, as otherwise they might rise and "eat your brains" (I'm not sure that wasn't modern embellishment) and hunt your family through all generations. When the churchyard was days away, though, the deceased would have to be sat with and watched at all times, in case they woke from the dead - and if that happened, they were to be beheaded with an axe or clobbered with a hammer or such. Some cultural archeology in our modern time has show that there were hundreds of documented reports of this happening. Well, to a 21st century wilderness guide and a couple of science-educated tourists, we can quickly recall stories of hypothermia - and revival from hypothermia!!!! - which likely explained the "zombie" revivals. Adam then mentioned to Valdi the "saved by the bell" expression and Valdi made a knowing acknowledgment, mentioning that claw marks had been found inside coffins exhumed from a relocated graveyard, and his grandparents' generation had a terrible fear of being buried alive. To the point where one grandmother had a deal with the doctor to slit her wrists after he pronounced her dead - just to be sure. Another had explicitly dictated her remains were not to be disposed of until she had been dead a full 2 weeks. Funny story became a sober commentary on a harsh land.

Valdi then said one more thing - "Before you turn your lights on, let me leave you with this thought - would you rather find that the party had LOST a member in the cave, or gained one?" That actually lightened things up a bit, as he went on to explain how that is something they ask of groups of teens they take through the caves, and he has a colleague who actually bought a pair of glow-in-the-dark skeleton gloves which he will whip out at that point and wave at the kids. He then got Adam going with the legend of a vicious Icelandic cave animal, the Manana, which is very fast and slippery - size of a squirrel, head of a cat, half man and half banana. :-) We had a laugh and carefully made our way back out of the tunnel.

From there it was back to Reykjavik, thanks and goodbye to our guide, and the discovery at the hotel reception that a Northern Lights Hunting tour was on for the evening - so on a whim we bought a pass for that. Ultimately, nothing to tell of that. A couple hours bus ride chasing the little bit of clear sky, a couple hours standing in the cold and a near-casualty for Adam's camera as it got blown over, and no lights. The good news is that the tour company offers a free retry if the lights are not seen on one of their tours, so we can call to claim it if the lights are likely tonight or tomorrow. We're very tired this morning, though, with stiff necks from the bus and from craning up at the skies, so I don't know if we're going to claim this. I'd like to, as it seems a shame to be here and not see the Aurora, but it's not been a brilliant week for that weather-wise and I'm not sure what our chances are again.

Today we've slept in, had a dawdling breakfast, I'm finishing this blog, and then the plan is just to explore the city some more. I'm angling for a swimming pool, Adam's not so sure, but we'll pick a direction when we get going. More later!

By the way, Adam does have the first few days of photos up. in an Iceland section of his gallery.

Day 7 - More Adventures In Water, But Intentionally This Time

Today, we had a pre-planned tour booked, so were up early to meet our guide, Valdi, from Arctic Adventures for the "Black and Blue" tour (which is not nearly as brutal as it sounds). Black and Blue is an all-day adventure tour combining two of the company's popular half-day tours, the "black" being a climb through a lava tube (cave) in one of the volcanic fields, and the "blue" being a snorkel swim through the Silfra Fissure in Thingvellir glacial river. Silfra is a crack in the earth, another part of the mid-Atlantic rift, which has filled with glacial meltwater filtered through kilometers of the porous lava rock that comprises the floor of the rift. The whole valley is a UNESCO heritage site as it also includes Thingveller itself, the original site of the Icelandic parliament dating from 970 and the first settlements. Valdi had told us we WERE to have 3 other trekkers with us but none of them showed up, so we had his services as a guide all to ourselves, and he was good enough to take us to a stop overlooking the valley first, where he pointed out the Law Rock from which the laws were spoken and judgements delivered, and the church, quite old now itself, which stands on the site of an older church and likely older ones before it that go back to the original Althingi or parliament that began there. More reason to read the Sagas now to better understand this.

We had a bio-break at the visitor centre there and then drove down into the valley for our Into the Blue component, wrestling ourselves into "teddy bear suits", the insulated inner suit, then dry suits over those, and loading up with our flippers, masks, and gloves for a short walk to the ladder into the fissure. Dry suits were quite effective, but quite an experience themselves. It's like wearing a giant rubber bag with boots on it, and when it's sealed, you pull the neckline open and hunker down to squish the air out, and then when you stand up it's rather like being in a ziplock with all the air squished out. You have to have a buddy to do this or you'd never get the rest of the gear on. From there we got in line behind another group including some divers to waddle down the ladder into a rift 10 m deep or so of what is in fact INCREDIBLY clear, cold water. It was surreal and gorgeous. We were amazed Valdi hopped in with no hood, gloves or mask, just his wool hat! He was there to bob along ahead of us and show the way, and was very good at preparing us for what to expect (cold hands, for example, and a completely unmanageably buoyancy even with the air squished out). Once in the water, we really just drifted with a light current. After about 20 minutes, we hit a hard left we'd been warned about where you do have to swim against the current a little, or risk getting swept out into the larger, deeper, and not nearly so pristine lake Thingvellervatn. Valdi took the outside to catch anyone who drifted, and it was fine, really ,having been warned, but I had a bit of a struggle as by that time my boots had floated off my feet so other than some imprecise ruddering capability, my fins were pretty pointless. I dog paddled against it, and eventually we popped into a lagoon and had our last 10-15 minutes to explore that. I was, for a change, the only photographer, so will update this post later with whatever I got on the Nikon WP camera. I couldn't see entirely well when shooting, both because I'd popped the seal slightly on my goggles so had a bit of water in them, but the suit buoyancy combined with the float on the camera kept me from looking at the view screen while shooting some of the time. After about 40 minutes total ( I think ) we followed Valdi to a shallow rocky spot to hop out, he helped us get the fins off and get my boot back ON, and we tromped back to the van - really only having travelled a few hundred metres if that, but it was amazing. A very beautiful, surreal experience. I asserted when I got out that I could be talked into learning to SCUBA dive if I had places like that to go.

We changed back out of our drysuits and Teddy bear suits in the relatively mild air, and were happy to find we had truly stayed mostly dry, no leaks or breaks. Valdi had sandwiches, cookies and juice for lunch in the car, and on our winding drive to our afternoon site we stopped for a restroom break and hot drinks as well.

.... more in a bit, as evening is upon us and we're off to a Northern Lights hunting tour tonight!...

Day 6, In Which We Return To Urban Life

After the soggy chaos of Friday, we stuck to things somewhat more mundane for Saturday. We were still drying out, after all. Breakfast at the guesthouse was followed by taking our time laying out still-drying boots and fleece jackets around the little Skoda, and heading to Hveragerdi's "town centre" which looked largely like a big-box discount store combining a no-frills with a bi-way. It turned out actually that the same building contained the main tourist centre, a bakery-cafe, the town library, and a wonderful little handcrafts shop where we found the proprietress to also be the primary knitter of the woolen goods, so we chatted a bit about the work around the shop.

I demanded Adam head back a block or two before we left town to check out a different and less commercial bakkari (bakery- some of the words make sense!) reputed to offer "earth bread", a local bread that is in fact baked while buried in the dirt in the geothermal field. We each had a yummy but very sweet pastry and hot drink for elevenses, and then took a 1/4 block of earth bread to go for later. It's dense and heavy and baked 24 hours in the hot earth in a block that must weigh a couple kilos total.

After heading out of town, we took a long way round back down to the coast, though we stayed a) mostly in the car and b) sensibly away from anything remotely resembling a wave. Maddeningly, today would have been the PERFECT day for a coastal drive, as opposed to during yesterday's cold monsoons, but oh well. We drove through but didn't really stop at the towns of Stokkseyri and Eyrarbakki, both of which are reputed to have museums, historical attractions and good restaurants, but the access to all of those is limited in the winter. On the way we found a couple little lay-bys with information plaques again, one of which marked a historical creamery that still looks to be kept preserved for show. Across the road from that, Adam spotted a herd of the ubiquitous Icelandic horses we had been seeing in every field, but these were close to the fence and seemed curious about the car and travelers stopped at their field, so we wandered closer to say hello. These are small, shaggy horses, used to living wild in the winter, and prone to just curling up on the ground. We have been warned, however, that they are not under any circumstances to be referred to as ponies lest they be insulted - they are after all the Horses of the Vikings. They're very pretty and social, and several clustered by the fence to snuffle at us and pose for pictures.

After that southern loop, we rejoined the road out of the Hveragerdi/Selfoss area which eventually took us northwestward towards Reykjavik. The country for a spell became MUCH more hilly, snowy and windy again, but the weather was generally clear, and I realized we were again crossing the mid-Atlantic rift, just more inland than earlier in the week, and above the less ancient lava fields so it was much more mountainous. About an hour got us in to the city, and navigating to our hotel was relatively simple. We checked in, settled in, and then left again to return the rental car but on the way to search for a power cable for my Nikon camera, the waterproof one I WASN'T carrying when getting clobbered by the North Atlantic because I'd forgotten the charger cable and wanted to save what battery was left for the planned wet part of the trip. This quest took us to a Reykjavik shopping mall - which I found as disturbing an experience as I find Canadian shopping malls, but with less language comprehension. We encountered a unicyclist and stilt walker entertaining patrons in the mall, and I'm completely unclear as to whether that is a normal part of mall life here, or if it was some promotion - Adam got a few shots which will likely appear on his photo site. We were successful in finding the appropriate charging cable, so at least I'm with camera again, and a rather sturdy if lower quality one. We had an easy drive to the city airport for the car return (as our hotel clerk said- everything is small in Iceland - except the prices!) and the Hertz courtesy shuttle dropped us off at Hallgrimskjurki (Hallgrim's church), the cathedral the tower of which can be seen every where in the city centre and on most of the tourist material. From there we wandered the residential streets meandering back to our hotel, sorted ourselves out again, and went back out looking for dinner.

Dinner was found at a mid-pricey "home cooking" restaurant where we shared an Icelandic sampler and traditional "meat soup", which is basically a salty, peppery, lamb and vegetable broth. The sampler included fish stew, grilled lobsters, dried fish, something called haggis which in no way resembles the Scottish variant, and a tiny cut of Minke whale steak. Having tried all of the above, I'm satisfied that we've given Icelandic food a go... I'll stick with grilled seafood from here. The desserts were yummy, however. I guess a culture which developed a cuisine around things sometimes found washed up on beaches needed the antidote of a sweet tooth - sweet pastries are everywhere and seem to be at least considered at every meal and coffee time. A lazy meander back to the hotel down "the shopping street" with a few photos and encounters with somewhat inebriated locals followed, with a stop at the 10-11 (this country's 7-11 shops) for some butter to go with our earth bread. We had the bread for a yummy midnight snack, and I was pretty much lights out as soon as I lay down, didn't even turn on my audiobook tonight.

In Which We Are Taken To Task By The Sea Gods

Today was going to be.. well, it WAS... a bit of a road trip. We had two options on the you-drive-it itinerary, but one seemed to be largely impossible this time of year and without one of the mountain-ready super 4x4s that cost a lot more than our all wheel drive Skoda wagon to rent. So we took the South Coast drive on the main #1 road to a town called Vik, seemingly known for being a coastal town without a harbour or any fishing trade to note.

The weather today was overcast and intermittently rainy, though much warmer than yesterday. After a couple of unremarkable stops for fuel and snacks, we stopped at a suggested venue at about a halfway point, the Saga Museum, which we serendipitously found to be open even though it was posted as only open week-ends in the winter. The proprietor was happy to have us in, he said he was there for a school group but another couple of tourists had come by as well. The main exhibit in the museum was displayed with an English translation, so we got a semi-effective illustrated Coles Notes version of the Saga of Burnt-Njal, which I think I now want to read... but buying a copy of a 1000+ page book did not seem the best use of limited carry-on weight to fly home with.

After the museum, we went on to Vik, driving for about half and hour around the foot of the (in)famous Eyafjallajokull glacier, catching glimpses of notable waterfalls and the occasional steam vent from the still thermally active volcano which is chugging away deep in this mountain. Vik at our first look seemed largely sleepy and unpopulated. We turned into town following directions to a guesthouse with a cafe, which had a few people seated in it but an apparent proprietress told us she was closed and only the service station down the way had food right now. We found what actually seemed to be a somewhat busy highway stop with a burger counter, general store, etc, and nearby was the Vik Woollen company store, selling local wool goods and a variety of souvenirs. I picked up some knit viking helmets, made locally from local wool, for the kids in my life.

We wandered from here out onto the black sand beach, a part of Vik which didn't exist until an earthquake or volcanic eruption (I can't remember which) in 1918 which largely buried the town in meltwater and debris and moved the shoreline 500ft farther out. The surf at this beach was stunning and daunting, and we were a little surprised when we drove out on the beach road to see bathers dashing back in to their cars. It will be seen shortly how they were at least more sensible than I in having stripped to their shorts!

We had decided that we would stop at some of the spots on the itinerary on the way back, if they seemed accessible. Some did not, but we took a side road to a place called Dyrholaey, a peninsula sheltering a wetland and providing bird habitat, though it was largely free of birds at this season. There is a low road and a high road, and by this time the wind was really picking up and we decided to heed the warning in the itinerary about the cliff top being dicey in high winds, and drove around the low road to a lower promontory overlooking the surf, some sea stacks (volcanic rock columns) and a neat (we thought!) little black sand beach between two stacks. We walked down this little beach, thinking we were careful enough to stay above the surf line as it appeared to be at the moment, or just keep toes at the line of the foam.

This is the point in the day where we got a smack upside the head, just a relatively gentle warning one, from the sea spirits. Adam was trying to line up a picture of me standing at the top of the surf line looking out... well, the surf line can change in a big hurry, and from strange directions. I had my eye on the waves to the east, which appeared to be the direction they were washing into this little rock cut, when a breaker crashed into the wall west of us... and went up the wall and in to the sheltered beach from behind me. We saw it coming quick enough to *start* running back uphill, but I'm not that fast. And not that I ever doubted the power of an ocean wave, but holy crap. It was shins-deep on Adam about 10 feet farther up the beach, and really only would have washed up to my knees, except it knocked me right over and washed over top of me from behind.

Well. That ended the rest of the itinerary for the day. I think this scared Adam a lot more than it scared me. It knocked me UP the beach, and there wasn't much drag back out as I think most of the energy was spent crashing up there, thank heavens. Once I got my wet head back up out of the surf I had a brief moment of panicking about where Adam was, but he'd only gotten his legs wet and was still standing. I got back up and sloshed up out of the (new) surf line to take stock of what happened, and other than being soaked and a bit rattled everything was fine... except my Canon G9, which was Adam's next immediate concern after figuring out I was OK. I was wet head-to-squishy boots, and feeling like a stupid tourist, and the camera had been around my neck, but I hadn't lost or damaged anything else. We got back up to the car in the now even more crazy, though thankfully not freezing, wind, and I had to take half my clothes off to wring them out or risk completely soaking the passenger seat of our rental.

Driving back was damp, pantsless (for me) and mostly uneventful, though the wind was completely pummeling our car even when stopped. Adam had asked the museum guide earlier in the day about the wind and weather and was told it was actually an unusual extreme of windy and that yesterday's snow was also unusual. We took our time getting back, and did pull in to the entry drives to a couple of the noted waterfall sights, though with me half-dressed and the rain somewhere between steady and torrential, ventures out on to the trails were not of interest. We got back to the guesthouse in Hveragerdi and managed to sort everything out on to the various radiators in the room. Looking for dinner led us to Cafe Rose, which seems to be a coffeehouse-pub hybrid and had tolerable pubbish food - a "pita" for Adam which turned out to be mainly hamburger on flatbread, and fish and chips for me. A band was setting up as we left, possibly the only Friday nightlife around, but after a good soaking from the North Atlantic and repeatedly from the downpour, we headed home, meandering a bit through the town on the way. The wind and rain was not letting up, and we discovered the bathroom skylight was leaking, but since we're here... we did make a foray out to the hot pot below our balcony, which was actually the pleasantly warmer of the two at the site here, if the more exposed to the still-driving rain and now rather angry Varma river. It was fine as long as you stayed submerged, but quite the sting from the rain in making the dash back to the room.

Thus ends the most adventurous, if unintentionally so, day so far. Tomorrow we check out here and head to Reykjavik proper for a little more urban exploring, though we still have a day of snorkeling and lava cave exploration(this time with guides, who probably have more sense about the local environment!) on Sunday. For now - time to call it a night and get some well-earned sleep.

Golden Circle, or at least the Golden 270 Degrees

Thursday in Iceland. Still have not seen Northern Lights, due to overcast skies, and we woke up to an actual winter day - around freezing, the coldest it's been yet, and a few cm of snow on the ground. After another generous breakfast buffet with our slightly bored-seeming host (we seem to be the only guests, and she's up early to make sure breakfast is out), we headed out on a very typical tourist route suggested by our you-drive-it itinerary - in search of Gullfoss and Geysir, 2 of the 3 big sights of the Golden Circle tour.

Adam was taking care on the roads as there was uncleared snow and sections of it having been compacted to ice, but they still weren't too bad. We took our time, and stopped at the odd lay-by, one of which overlooked a large valley and had a signboard pointing to all sorts of sights including the (in)famous Eyafyallajokull, that I can't spell properly on an English keyboard. I couldn't really see it off in the distance, but that might have been due to the weather still obscuring the distant sights.

From there, we headed all the way up to the limits of the drivable road which apparently in the winder stops at the Gullfoss tourist centre. Gullfoss is a double-level waterfall through a deep, narrow gorge, and from some - most? - angles it's got the impressive appearance of the river just falling away into the earth, as the downstream channel can't really be seen until you are above the falls. Legends and stories about the place abound, but it has apparently been protected from hydro exploitation by an early settler and later his daughter, to whom a memorial is constructed on the site, crediting her as Iceland's first environmentalist. The Visitor Centre at the site looks very like a typical Canadian tourist trap, though in retrospect we should have stopped there for lunch instead of at the Geysir site where we ended up eating.

Heading back on the road from Gullfoss, we stopped at the aforementioned Geysir which we had passed on the way up. This is THE Geysir, the one whose name has made its way into English as the general noun "geyser" applied to any spouting hot spring. Geysir itself is apparently quiet nowadays, only active during earthquakes. It has a fairly impressive "little brother" however, named Strokkur, reputed to erupt every 8-10 minutes and which did not disappoint. Have a look at Adam's gallery for the shots he got of a few eruptions. Wandering the site further also revealed some interesting wonders, such as clear-as-glass steaming pools, in which one could see down the immensely deep thermal vents. Studded all over the place were boiling, bubbling pots as well, right up to the highwayside. Like nothing else I've ever seen. People here are so casual about living next to bits of the earth that just explode out at them - unbelievable.

From Geysir, we headed about halfway towards Thingvellir, which we will visit later in the week, to Laugarvatn and a facility for which we also got a voucher with our tour - the Fontana Steam Baths and thermal pools. This is (yet another!) natural geothermal site on the shores of a small lake, where local opportunism has led to the rise of a lovely spa facility with steam rooms built right over the live steam vents. This leads to a VERY hot and slightly unpredictable steam-sauna experience, but the site includes a series of sculpted outdoor pools, shallow but deep enough to sit in and soak up the warm water at various temperatures slightly lower than the steam baths. The water has a high sulphur content everywhere here, which has led to my silver ring turning first somewhat brassy, and by now, it's actually coppery with a purple-blue sheen. I kinda like it, but it probably won't stay.

We both decided this hot pool/steam bath habit is a great way to end a day out in a damp-ish cold, though the temperature had been rising and snow melting as our day went on. From Fontana we headed back to Hveragerdi, where we stopped at the Kort & Kunst "Earth Cooking" cafe, a restaurant that runs their kitchen entirely from the geothermal fields in the centre of Hveragerdi, right off the back of their property. This was a great meal of actual local cuisine. Adam had breaded lamb chops, and I thought I ordered a meatball plate but wound up with fish cakes - which were quite good, and I didn't mind the miscommunication at all, as I'd really been tossing a coin between the two dishes anyway.

After getting home from dinner, in much warmer temperatures than we started the day with (7-8 degrees, up from -2.5 or so) we were both pretty wiped out and just headed for bed.

DAY 3 - Along the South Coast a tiny bit

As we were moving on to a new locale today, I started with floating around the clinic hotel's small private lagoon, open to guests only and not even all guests at all times. The lovely place we stayed is a small inn AND medical clinic, as the lagoon water has actually been proven in multiple studies to treat psoriasis. I guess there's not enough medical business or it's not lucrative enough, so they fill up the rooms with tourists.

After my paddle - it is so lovely being out in a warm pool while it's snowing - we had breakfast, and while Adam headed out for a couple of last photos I checked out and planned a route for us. I decided to ignore Google maps, which really doesn't know how to get around Iceland too well anyway, and be a little reckless and route us along the very sparsely populated, secondary road that hugs the south coast of the Reykjanes peninsula. I'm not stupid, though, I checked with the hotel desk for advice and they said the road should be fine and clear, and just to slow down if it was icy.

Turns out it wasn't icy at all, and I'm really getting spoiled with Adam doing the driving so I could sight-see all down the coast. We didn't end up with many pictures for that drive, though, for interesting little cultural or touristy spots were nil, and while the stark landscape is still so beautiful, it doesn't translate well in a photo. Oh, at one point early in the drive, though, we saw our first Icelandic sheep! Adam pointed out the field from quite a distance, where there seemed to be a grassier-looking (as opposed to lava-rocky) area dotted with rectangular bales, and he said there must be a farm as he could see hay bales, the first hint we'd had of ANY crop or animal operation in the area. As we got closer, I said "I think some of those bales are moving"... and lo and behold, they were in fact a flock of blocky little sheep, shaggy down to their feet with their winter wool.

The drive was uneventful to the very end when, being led astray by a combination of Google Maps and sketchy directions from the agent, I directed us to some odd locations that were NOT our Frost-and-Fire Guesthouse. This is OK, as we got an Icelanding travel checklist with our car rental that included "get lost in Iceland", so I guess we get that check mark. Eventually Adam made a different assumption at a roundabout which was not well described in our directions, and found the place. We are in a lodge with terrace rooms overlooking a river, with hot steam vents popping out of the steep riverbanks on both sides. Including in the driveway! This seems to be quite a normal thing here, and I'm interested to take some of the walking trails around the area and find more of them - including the two erupting ones reported to be a bit upriver.

Oh, and this town is called Hveragerdi, or properly in the Icelandic tongue, Hveragerði, which as far as I can tell with my very North American English ear, is pronounced Quer-eh-GEhr-dthi. The HV in the language is a Qu sound, and the ð letter, called eth, is a soft th as in "the" but not quite. But it's not quite a regular d, either. Somewhere between a d and a th as an English speaker would say them. It's not an easy language to catch on to here, for sure, though I'm loving the sound of it..

Once we settled in to our room, we had a bit of time so decided to walk to a town health centre where we had (included in the package, I didn't go looking for this) mud baths booked. It's just what it sounds like. Huge sarcophagi full of goopy volcanic mud, heated to roughly a-little-past-body-temp, that you squish into, an attendant being on hand to push you down as you float, and soak in for 15 minutes or so. Follow that with a warm shower, then a blanket wrap with a heated blanket to relax in. I don't know that it's really a proven therapy for anything, but it IS an interesting experience, and I'm quite well exfoliated after that and the 3 days in Blue Lagoon water with the mud masks they have. We ended that adventure with a dip in the hot pots at the centre - they have 3 different ones, outdoors on a pool deck, at different temperatures or with different jet configurations running.

Dinner was a little anti-climatic, as the restaurant we'd spotted, one I'd read about as being very good and cooking local foods in a 100% geothermal powered kitchen, was closed for renos. We wound up stopping at a little variety store that had a burger counter and shared one Icelandic hot dog (Pylsa or Pulsa) and a burger and fries. Both were decent fast food, but just that. I had heard some folks say the food was terrible here, which it is NOT at all, but it is first off a bit different, and second, a little hard to find. One thing I'm noticing is that Icelandic shops, restaurants, or cafes don't advertise the way a North American establishment would, and that seems to make them, to a North American eye, a little invisible. Not knowing the language, and not seeing big blaring logos on billboards all over, I'm finding it hard to know if I'm approaching a cafe, store, or office sometimes. I'm sure I'd get used to it in time.

In the time we were in the health centre, the weather turned from clear-just-getting-cloudy to a moderate wet snowfall, so we walked back uphill to the guesthouse in the snow. There is a small heated swimming pool here as well as a hot pot (hot tub) just under our balcony and right at the riverside, but it looks like we'll be saving those for another time and turning in a bit early tonight. We seem to have the place to ourselves and have some ground to cover tomorrow, so an early night in, now that I have got my hands on some cough medicine and hence half a chance at a full night's sleep, seems like a good idea.

Iceland, Day 2

Something nice about visiting a small country is that you can pack a lot of it into one day.

We took our time over breakfast while I browsed a pocket guidebook for the area and caught up on tweets, and then headed out to meander more of the Reykjanes Peninsula. On a whim I told Adam to take a right rather than left, and started us on a route towards but not into Reykjavik, through which we looped back along a coast road in an area of sparse farmsteads. The roads here are interesting - clear and in good repair, but no shoulders, guardrails, or lights, except a few on the urban stretches of the main highway. The road edge markers are just plastic posts with a bit of reflector tape on them, and the roads are sort of banked up on top of the land, which is mostly lava fields. If you drove off the edge, there's nothing to stop you and you'd totally destroy the car rolling it over into a field of jagged black rock. I don't know if that just doesn't happen here because everyone drives smart, or if it's occasional but they just clean up the mess rather than add huge infrastructure and maintenance costs.

On what I'm now thinking of as the "top" loop of our somewhat wonky figure-8 shaped route today, we found lots of open fields, coast, very utilitarian-looking buildings, a bright yellow lighthouse, and a few ruins of entirely indeterminate age. Adam and I concluded they must actually be newer structures than they appear, as we found both metal wire and what looked like pieces of modern cermic dish ware in the rock and mortar walls of one. The lava rock itself looks very aged and weathered, and I'm guessing in a coastal windswept field on an earthquake-prone island country, things might erode quickly.

At the end of our first loop was the town of Vogar, mostly a small fishing village. We utterly failed to find a potential lunch stop there, so continued back towards Reykjanes town /Keflavik, but on th edge of that I spotted an industrial-looking building with the word "Kaffe..." in its name and lots of cars in the lot, and a smaller sign with the English "cafe" written on it. We ducked up the next exit off the highway and backtracked to it, to find we had landed at the head office and roasting plant for a local coffeeshop chain. Adam laughed and had to tweet that I declared my latte to be my new friend today - it was VERY good, as was my sandwich and the chocolate cake we shared from the littlel lunch counter. I assume Adam's wrap was also good but I left that for him to determine.

After lunch we headed for the west coast of the Reykjanes peninsula, about halfway down, south of the airport where we had left off our wandering the day before. It was about this point that I actually registered a few things I'd read in the guidebook and some markers on our map and realized were also heading for the outermost planet of a scale model of the solar system that is installed all along the southern half of the west coast, ending with the Sun at a large geothermal power plant which has a science exhibition. While we didn't go out of our way to find every one, in fact, since the first was somewhere in another small town that didn't look particularly touristy, we definitely skipped it, but we started with finding Neptune at a roadside stop that was also the entry point to a hike to the shore and a bird sanctuary.

It was at about this time the local weather got fun. We had a pretty stiff wind all morning, making me very grateful for my new windproof jacket AND that I'd brought my Moebius scarf, mainly as I could wrap it double as a hood and keep my hair out of my face. We had a rainstorm that turned into driving slush, though moments before it had been only a bit cloudy and breezy, and moments after we needed sunglasses again. This happened a couple more times! The good news about the weather here is first, we could see it coming, and second - it doesn't hang around long, whatever it is. I've referred to "weather tantrums" back home when we get those too-hard-to-last rainstorms but man, here they're on a 5 minute cycle. It was awesome. And even if you get wet, you don't stay that way long, as the wind comes back. Can't do much about the hypothermia, though, so lots of layers are needed.
The land here is very stark and looks like an otherworldly wilderness. But I noticed something, even shortly after leaving the airport yesterday - there are lots of subtle little signs of humanity, that are probably obvious to the locals, but for us coming from a land of video billboards and lit-up 8 lane highway signage, they're hard to spot. Cairns set up as signposts in the lava fields. The odd structure, low to the land and only intermittently visible from the road, or just some sticks or wood where there are otherwise no plants but moss. I had been looking for a picture to juxtapose these, and the planet marker proved a fun way to do it.

We continued on our way after Neptune and turned into another stop, almost hidden from the road, and walked across "The Bridge Between The Continents". Iceland is the only place the mid-Atlantic ridge is above sea level, and they've marked this remarkable tectonic location with a bridge and small walking area. The bridge crosses a sudden, deep rift in the craggy lava field, and is itself filled with fine black sand, which also makes up the dunes around the bridge.

We missed the Saturn marker somewhere, passed Jupiter on the highwayside, and then turned into the road to the power plant, finding Venus and Mercury in the driveway. Unfortunately, the exhibition "Power Plant Earth" that the trail of planets leads to was closed for the season but we stopped for a snapshot of the Sun, embedded in the lava outside the door. From here, we followed a comparatively treacherous gravel road further towards the coast, following signs labelled "Hot Springs" to find Gunnevar's springs, a natural sulpher hot spring site reputed to be haunted. I was interested to find there had been a homestead there where a farmer ran a flower farm not even a century ago, but the mud has become hotter in that time, and one has to stay on very carefully chosen paths or risk a step into scalding mud. Indeed, it was apparent the paths have had to be re-worked at least ones, as part of a previous boardwalk structure was IN the boiling mud cauldron.

After this last spectacular sight of the day, we drove the last bit of winding highway to Grindavik, the town nearest the resort we're staying at, looking to buy some local groceries for a cold dinner, and for some cough medication due to the fact that I kept BOTH of us unpleasantly awake last night with a choking cough that kept returning every time I fell asleep. Luckily almost everyone speaks English very well, or I'd have had a heck of a time trying to explain. The pharmacist sold me something that smells awful and tastes worse, the active ingredient of which is "difenhydramen" which we usually see as an antihistamine (Benadryl) but which apparently here is used for coughing. After that, we had a little fun exploring an Icelandic grocery and trying to work out what various products were. We came away with a fresh baguette, some flatbreads, fruit, lamb pepperettes and a mild orange cheese. Easy light dinner.

The day ended with another visit to the Blue Lagoon, where we took full advantage and drifted around the warm salt pool network until the closing bell rang. Even this evening, we had clear skies, clouds, and a little rain shower just in the time we were in the lagoon, and we've had a brief rainstorm while I was typing this, though we're now looking at clear skies and a crescent moon over the rock fields.

Tomorrow, we move on to a new location for our adventures, Hverargerdi at the edge of the south coast of the country.

Iceland, Day 1

Wow, I can't believe I'm here.

I guess this started with Day 0, Feb 26th, with our flight out of Toronto. It was a long way here, longer than some other times of the year, as with no direct flights, getting to Iceland's Leif Erikson Int'l Airport at Keflavik takes a hop through Boston or New York. So it's now about 9:20 am Eastern time, and we've been up for 25 hours or so, but just had lunch, I think.

We landed at Keflavik at 6:30 or thereabouts, local time. It's not a huge airport, but it was dark and overcast, so we grabbed luggage, signed for the rental car, and sat in a little cafe and had and excellent latte and croissant mini-breakfast while trying to orient ourselves. Oh, and out in the dark parking lot? As I said, it was overcast, but this eerie green-blue glow could be seen from behind the clouds, a little glimpse of the Aurora to greet us as we got here.

As dawn broke, we left the airport and headed for the nearest town. I'm still trying to suss exactly how places are named, as the map seemed to call this town all of Reykjanes, Reykjanesbaer, and Keflavik. I think it is a case of small villages having grown and melded, and the -baer (I don't have the fonts to mash that a-e together properly) might be like Canadians would call a township or county or something... the greater area around the town proper. Possibly.

Not much seemed to be happening in the early morning, and since we thought we probably could not check in to our hotel before noon or so, we went adventuring around the upper Reykjanes peninsula, which has road completely around its coast. We were somewhere between several meters or several hundred meters from the sea on this route, watching beautiful and terrible waves coming in with the wind. We've already seen calm, overcast, very windy, rain, and just now as I look out the hotel window, snow flurries. The agent at our rental counter had actually made the "Don't like the weather? Just wait a minute!" comment about Iceland's weather, and also said it's a local saying that the gods test all the weather in Iceland before sending it elsewhere. I can see how this might be.

We didn't stop and wander too much on this drive, as we were tired, still in grungy and not very warm travel clothes, and it was windy. There will be a few photos later on @shuttermonster's gallery. We did stop and wander up to a strange ruin covered in a graffiti mural, and snapped some of the land and seascape around it. The views here are dark and stark, but in a very powerful way.

We completed the morning's drive with a cut through back across the middle of the peninsula to Keflavik, where shops and diners now seemed to be open and had interesting and quite tasty "boats" (the local translation equating to "sub" as in "submarine sandwich") for lunch. From there, as @shuttermonster is the sole driver and was turning into a pumpkin, we headed right for our hotel. Very quickly out of the seaside village, we found ourselves in what I called a moldy moonscape of lava fields. Our tour included 2 nights stay at the Blue Lagoon clinic hotel, next to a geothermal spa, The Blue Lagoon, that sits on top of a volcanic rift.

Photos will follow, but at the moment I'm blogging on the ipad and quickly finding some limitations of the Blogger interface on that device. We could both stand to freshen up, take a (short) nap, and then we have massage appts at the Blue Lagoon spa itself with a complementary voucher for the lagoon.

Tea Eggs

The bloggability of my life seems to have been down of late. Most what I have to say fits in a tweet, or a personal conversation, I suppose. In some ways this is good - I tend to blog when things are on my mind, in a more melancholy way, not when I'm happily, if often tiredly, busy as I have been of late. One of the happily-busy things has been my circle of friends, so this is good. A recent potluck gathering was a wonderful way to spend an evening, and I much appreciate those who have the space for it, and the energy to offer it to a diverse and somewhat noisy if amiable crowd.

I thought I'd update my blog to admit I'm still here, and to share the "recipe" such as it is, for my potluck contribution - Spiced Tea Eggs.

I'll start with a disclaimer: I am in no way claiming this is an authentic Chinese Spiced Tea Egg recipe or that it's better or worse than you could do Googling for such. It's just the one I've hit on and it seemed to be appreciated. It's a mash-up of a couple recipes from friends and a couple hints I found online.

Here's what you need:

1 dozen eggs

1/2 cup light soy sauce

1/2 cup dark soy sauce

~ 4 cups water

2 tsp (or to taste) Five Spice powder

2-3 star anise

1/2 tsp citrus zest (orange, lemon, or mix)

1/4 tsp cracked black pepper (or to taste)

1/2 tsp ginger (or to taste... get the idea yet? flexible)

1 tbsp sugar (or to.. you get it.)

1 tbsp (or to taste, natch) of a strong black tea. I've used Scottish Breakfast, but any pekoe-type will do. To have a bit of fun, I used Lapsang Souchong, but don't do this if you don't like smoke flavours. The "tea" flavouring is rather mild in the end, though. Soy and spice come through more.

I should note about the marinade ingredients, pretty much every seasoning here is "to taste". I can't find two recipes/methods that have the same proportions or even the same spices. The essentials seem to be Five Spice Powder (and some recipes use just that, and not all Five Spice blends are the same) and a mix of light&dark soy sauces. Experiment - I do.

Here's what you do:

Put eggs in pot of cold water on stove, turn on element, and bring to boil. Boil 3 minutes or so, then turn off heat and let cool for a bit. The eggs don't have to be hard boiled at this stage, as they will cook quite a lot more in the marinade. You just want the whites to be solid before you hit them with anything.

When eggs are cool, gently crack the shells by tapping with a spoon, spatula, something dull. You want to crack the shell while leaving all the shell bits on the egg, and try not to dent any spots in, though it's not a disaster if you do.

Mix all marinade ingredients either in a pot or a crock pot, mixed with enough water to cover the eggs completely. Gently put the eggs back in. If using a crock-pot, bring up to a medium-ish temperature for ~ 4 hours, or set the crocker on "Warm" and leave overnight. If using a pot, bring back to a low-boil on medium high, then turn down to a very light simmer and leave for 2-3 hrs.

Once they've had a good simmer by either method, enjoy! You can eat warm, cool them and keep in fridge for easy-to-grab snacks, or if you like the flavour or want it stronger, store the eggs IN the marinade, chilled in the fridge. Fish them out, dry and peel one at a time, as needed.

I Got Art! From an Amazing Kid

Don't know how many readers I have anymore, as I am so sporadic on posting, but I actually have a Part Two to a post from earlier this year. Little Jack of JackDrawsAnything.com has finished his ambitious project, and I was one of the last few donors who got my drawing request in before the to-do list had to be cut off to allow the youngster to still have a normal life!

With my life being a little disrupted last month by Mom passing away and the usual kind of busy... I had neglected to check Jack's blog as frequently as I was, and I'd not even realized that I'd borked the forwarding on my blogger-tied email account, so it was almost a month before I realized Ed (Jack's Dad) had sent a little note saying Jack finally finished my request. Here it is:

My Siamese Cats Sudo and Blue (sniffing Sunflowers) by Jack.

I am so charmed by this. I only sent Jack a written description of Siamese cats, thinking they're not completely familiar to all, but guessing Ed may have helped with some Googling if reference pictures were needed. I had not realized Jack took a foray into painting, not just drawing, late in his project. One of his paintings was an adorable interpretation of Van Gogh's Sunflowers, and Ed explained the embellishment to this picture - Jack liked the Sunflowers so much he painted my cats right afterward sniffing their own arrangement of sunflowers.

This picture totally made my week.

I wanted to let everyone know, though, while Jack's project has wrapped up, his hospital is still very busy and in need. Sadly, I heard via Twitter today that Jack's littlest brother Noah is again admitted with terrifyingly severe breathing difficulties. I know that everyone's dollars are stretched and if you're like me you prefer to give locally. That's OK. I encourage you though to take a gander at this little guy's monumental effort, maybe buy his book (?!?!!! yay !), watch the video, and consider, if you can't spare 10 quid for Edinburgh Royal Sick Kids, maybe your own local hospital, regional Children's hospital, or an umbrella organization could use a spare $20 if you have one.

Remembrance and Celebration

I will see if I can sort myself out well enough to write more later.

Below is the official obituary/notification, from Smith's, tidied up to add links.

For those who have us on Facebook, Jenn wrote a heartfelt tribute that I could pretty much just second: https://www.facebook.com/notes/jennifer-botari/bye-mom.

Visitation Location:	Burlington Art Centre
Service Date:	2011-10-15
Service Time:	1-4 p.m.
Service Location:	Burlington Art Centre, 1333 Lakeshore Road, Burlington.
Obituary:	Botari, Dennise M. (nee Edwards) Passed away suddenly on Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at the age of 71 at St. Joseph’s Hospital surrounded by her loving family. Beloved wife of Russell and mother of Johanna (Adam Benjamin), Jeffrey (Laura Boshis), and Jennifer (Chris Howard). Proud grandma to Sarah, Owen and Holly. Dennise is also survived by her brothers, Jack and Michael Edwards. Predeceased by her parents Sophia and John and her sister Frances. Cremation has taken place. The family would like to invite friends to an afternoon of remembrance and celebration of Dennise’s life on Saturday, October 15, 2011 from 1-4 p.m at the Burlington Art Centre, 1333 Lakeshore Road, Burlington. A special thank you to the doctors and nurses from the nephrology department and dialysis unit at St. Joseph’s Healthcare, Hamilton. In lieu of flowers, donations to St. Joseph’s Healthcare Foundation would be appreciated. (Arrangements entrusted to Smith's Funeral Home, Burlington,ON, 905-632-3333).

It's a rare thing to revisit a childhood memory and not find it somehow lacking once one has a middle-aged perspective. So, it's that much sweeter when such a visitation doesn't disappoint.

After a triple snootful of dog fur fibre experimenting today I really needed to clear the fuzz from my allergic head. I decided to do one better than yesterday's brief, grungy swim and head in the general direction of a Provincial Park I remember camping at as a kid.

Silent Lake is in Cardiff, by its mailing address, near Bancroft and according to Google Maps, less than an hour away from where I'm hanging out in Haliburton. One of my few memorable family vacation destinations outside of Algonquin, I remember the lake being deep, black and cold, and I remember abandoning the beach for my preferred launch pads of rocks above steep drop-offs. My favourite swimming lake is one where the view seems to go as far down into the cold black as it does up into the blue sky. The kind of lake where the monsters live, but they are shy and stay down deep, away from something like me lolloping around on the surface. Silent Lake fits this bill.

I started at the day use beach just off the entryway on the large westerly bay - and really, I shouldn't have, but it was still a lovely swim. There were no accessible rocky outcrops over deep water, so I quickly beat it out past the marked swimming line for a floating raft that must've been in at least 20 feet. The lake is forested all around so was already shady by 6 pm, but out far enough it was still lovely and sunny so I could alternate floating, paddling, and lounging on the raft for quite a while. I paddled in to explore outside the beach area among rocks, weeds, deadfalls, etc. and back out again. In total irony, after a few hundred metres of deepwater paddling and stumbling safely through all the treacherous wading, I did this to my foot:

by kicking the damned cinderblock anchor for the buoy line that marks the "safe" swimming area. GAH!

After cleaning my foot up and drying off, I decided to quickly tour the campground area, and only then realized what I should have done for swimming - it wouldn't make any difference that I went to the campground beaches with a day pass, no one would check as many campers are so remote they drive down to the beaches anyway. So I went out the back of Pincer Bay at the northeast extent of the lake, and this started to look a bit familiar. Tiny sheltered beach with just a bit of sand poured over granite bedrock for a comfy wading area, but all around here are rocks jutting out, and water that deepens quickly. Not wanting to find somewhere to change again, I just hiked around the extent of the bay, wading onto the slightly wet rock shelves to look over the drop, to and from the canoe rental and dock. Then I just sat for a while, wishing it weren't so close to sunset. I could have stayed for hours.

It was fun at both main beach and back bay to listen to and watch other people. Kids doing just what I used to do - a little sprout so proud of herself for swimming along with her dad all the way to the raft. A kid smaller than my nephew expertly handling his own mini-kayak along side the family canoe. There are some newer vehicles out there than there were back when I'd steal the old Coleman tugboat at night and float around on my back looking at stars. 6 ft kayaks and paddle boards were everywhere, I may need to try one someday! What a great way to wander in and out of every nook of that craggy shoreline. I saw several fishers out trying to see what they could catch with lure and worm at dusk - the younger ones all excited and grossed out at once, older ones keeping their distance and quiet. I don't think I feel the need to go fishing again, but sliding silently around a lake at dusk isn't unpleasant.

Alas - I have one more day of school and no camping gear, not to mention the bonked-up foot, so taking that little adventure any further will have to wait for another time. Still, it was a well-spent $14 of nostalgic zen to tuck into my busy week. Glad to know some of what I used to love in the world is still out there, enduring.

Finding the Right Fit - Insulin Edition

I've been using a Medtronic Paradigm VEO insulin pump for a bit over 3 months now. There have been ups and downs, but generally, I really like it. My A1C came down a bit, but the big advantage particularly since I sprung for the extra cost of the Continuous Glucose Monitor, is the levelling off of ups and downs, and the 24/7 profiling and feedback to really help with fine-tuning what goes on.

When I got started I just did largely what my nurse/trainer said to do, but it's clear that some individual preferences will come up with insulin pump use, just like with anything diabetes. I wasn't sure I liked the infusion sets I first stocked up on (I'm not sure I don't, either, I just didn't have a range of comparison). I called Medtronic to discuss, and was generously offered a couple each of about 4 different types to try out. I think I'll do so, in turn, and then blog a rundown of what I find.

First off, the "infusion set" is the equipment that goes from the pump to your body. It consists of a reservoir to hold insulin, which is installed in the pump, a tube of some length (can vary) and a needle or cannula that is inserted under the skin. These various components can, sort of, mix and match, in that you can get different sizes of reservoir, different lengths of tubing, and different types, angles, and lengths of needle/cannula.

The one I started with is the Silhouette, which was the one my nurse recommended, and does seem the most flexible. I had a sample QuickSet too, but messed it up experimenting, so I've used the Silhouette for now.

Here's my run-down on my first experience:

PRO:

• can vary insertion angle 20-60 degrees or so - nice for different areas of body (legs don't need to go as deep as belly, for example).
• can insert manually or with an inserter (a spring-loaded pop-gun kinda thing to shoot in the cannula)
• soft cannula (once insertion needle is withdrawn)
• sticks pretty darn well. Entire set is stuck down to adhesive.
• tubing disconnects at site to take off pump for a bit
• 2 cannula lengths and 3 tubing lengths available
• and, this is neat - you can buy "cannula only" if you need to change your insertion more frequently than the reservoir/tubing, saving money and disposable plastic.

CON:

• I don't know if this is the silhouette or any infusion set for me, but I find the site gets irritated after a couple of days. It fees bruisey and swells a bit.
• I'm learning I need to be a bit picky with where and in which direction I insert the cannula as much as what angle of insertion I use. If I put it in, avoiding stretch marks, but then cross a stretch mark under my skin, this is uncomfortable and possibly affects absorption. Similarly, I have "kinked" the cannula while it was in my skin, either because I went too deep (possibly the 17 mm is too long for me) or I inserted in an area where my skin is mobile and rolls and moves.
• The introducer needle is almost an inch long, and you cannot insert this particular set at a 90 degree angle at all.
• The Sil-serter, which is necessary for one-handed use when inserting the set on the back of an arm or on a hip, is a bit awkward in the positioning of the trigger and the fact that you have to push another button to release the set and not pull it back out again. I'm not sure how I could suggest a better design and I'm getting the hang of it, but it seems more difficult than it should.

For now, I have a good stock of this model and find it does the job well and isn't too hard to live with. The "cons" I've noted are either logistical and can be addressed, for example, I will switch to 13mm rather than 17mm, or are things that have to do with me rather than the product (adhesive sensitivities; already messed up skin).

I did just get a chance to try the Sure-T model and in fact am still using the (rather short) tubing from that on my next Silhouette cannula as the connection is the same, so I'll chat about that one next time.

I guess I gotta thank King Steve for something...

The one thing Harper's accomplished for me is driving me to a better education and understanding of our democratic systems in Canada. Mainly by abusing them badly, mind you.

I never was very politically active. I grew up with voting parents, who watched and listened to news, so I knew from childhood that each individual had a role to play in democracy. Admittedly, though, I didn't see a big difference in my world with who sat in the PM's chair. Trudeau in my childhood, Mulroney in my teens, and there was always that third guy somebody on the Air Farce made fun of and an upstart from Quebec from time-to-time. A couple of short-lived designates in between some other names. Life seemed to go on, somehow, though I think during the Mulroney years my family was less secure than before or since, mainly due to some ridiculous mortgage interest rate.

Other than that vague awareness, I've voted in all federal and provincial elections since I was old enough to do so. For various parties. Usually based on info I gleaned from listening and talking to others.

What's really making a difference now, and got me started watching carefully, was the current Prime Minister's antics to derail both democratic processes and common decency, in some ways. American-style attack ads assaulting character and person rather than platform and policy. Partisan and obstructive behaviour aimed at crippling Parliament. The the fixed election dates law passed in 2006, which seemed - well, a stupid and unnecessary thing and one established to make our system look more American than for any real functional purpose. We already had law that an election was to be called no more than 5 years after the last. Reasons for calling one earlier still existed and were not changed by the fixed-date law. The real nudge to pay attention came when, about 2 years after ramming through the fixed-date law, Stephen Harper effectively, if not in exact technically, broke it for no reason than his own partisan advantage, thinking he was polling high enough to turn his minority government into a majority by forcing Canadians into an election nobody wanted. Yes, you see, the 2008 election was the one nobody (except Stephen Harper) wanted. Apparently the result proved that, as the status quo was returned.

Then things got interesting, but not in a good way, and I lost any shred of respect for the Conservative Party of Canada and its leadership, which had clearly buried any notion of the "progressive" side of conservatism which was one of its founding parties, and was clearly on the way to being the Republican Party of Canada. While the lies and contradictions, looking back, were already racking up between 2006 and 2008, the behaviour around and immediately following the 2008 election clinched it, when partisan CPC MPs and their leader began misleading or outright lying to the Canadian public about the nature of our democratic system, Parliament and Constitution. For a rehash of that, to save the typing, I'll refer you back to my posts dated December 1, December 3, and December 5, 2008, during which I discussed exactly why referring to a coalition as any of "illegal", "unconstitutional", "separatist", or in any way inappropriate for Canada.

What has continued in the 2.5 years since has demonstrated the same lack of basic respect for Parliament, elected MPs, the offices and agencies that serve the country, and generally, for Canadians, particularly those who seek progressive consensus, rational adult behaviour and just plain straight answers on what is going on in Government.

... this post to continue later, I do in fact still have a real life to deal with....

Voting for Democracy, not Dollars....

... because, seriously, "The Economy" doesn't give a damn and will go on the way it goes.

But I'm a little worried about basic personal rights and freedoms in my country right now.

I keep writing and deleting blog posts this past week, because I'm practically incoherent with rage over what's been going on. This is my 3rd attempt tonight. Seriously, if you want better writing, follow me on Twitter because I re-tweet much smarter, more in-depth reports and analysis than I can actually write. But here are a few basic things I want to review, as I'm also incoherent over once again, how little seems to be understood by those who are about to send another 308 representatives to the House of Commons of Canada.

1. The Government of Canada was defeated on a non-confidence vote having been found to be in Contempt of Parliament. This had nothing to do with a budget, or some sort of sinister coalition plot, despite the apparently delusional continued assertions of our outgoing Prime Minister and his pals. This is a HUGE unprecedented occurrence in all the history of all the Parliaments of the world. Essentially, the people of Canada, through their elected Members of Parliament, fired their (unelected! look it up) Government for obstructing the country's business. If the Government had been a person, this could have led to criminal charges and being barred from running for office again. Unfortunately the finding against a collective body cannot translate that way.

2. An election is therefore NECESSARY, as it was the conclusion of those we previously elected that they could no longer do their work, as the Government was obstructing it. Effectively, Parliament resigned by firing the Government. There is no "winner" in this scenario. Except possibly the Canadian electorate, who have the opportunity to make better choices (I can dream, right?)

Now, on to what's going on:

3. One of the 19 federal political parties is presently staging a campaign of fear that this election is going to ruin us, our economy, our fragile social fabric, and to avoid the implosion of the entire country our ONLY CHOICE is to return them (the ones who were just fired for obstructing the business of Parliament, remember) to office. Review point 1 above - if a single person had been found in contempt - it could be in jail by now.

4. That party is continuing its pattern of behaviour, telling outright lies (anything with the word "coalition"), covering up that criminals have been working for it, throwing students out of rallies (see also "G20"), keeping journalists muzzled, and still refusing to answer to the Canadian people for its past and intended actions. It seems this is an attempt to keep us scared enough to acquiesce. All the while trying to demonize the other parties with attack ads and US Republican-styled propaganda. (read the fine print at the bottom of that page).

5. Admittedly, and alarmingly, it seems that few if any of the other parties really have the coherent support to make sure this does not happen all over again. There is a bit of hope coming up related to one, but I'm not taking it to the bank yet.

What do we do about this?

6. EDUCATE YOURSELVES about what is really going on. It is not hard in this day and age. All the party platforms are or will soon be available on line. Look at what they are and aren't talking about. Follow several media outlets, and read more than just the party press releases. For many of us, it wouldn't hurt to review the basics of Canadian Parliamentary Democracy. ust a reminder: You don't vote for the PM and actually, you don't vote for the party, either. Return to my 2008 ranting during the so-called "coalition crisis". Or find a 10th grader and borrow their civics text. Get on Twitter. Find some funny pundits to follow, but then read the sources they point you to.

7. A bit of layperson's advice: Tune out ALL the threats of the dire state and fragility of The Economy. Economic analysts of all stripes have made it clear that the economy will do what it will do, no better or worse than it was going to two weeks ago, after May 2nd. The economy won't give a rat's toot who wins this election, and neither will your weekly budget. The parties all want you to THINK it will, to convince you that only they can offer you security and stability. It's all a lie, so don't buy that from anyone.

8. Instead - look at what the parties offer to the citizenship of Canada to help them move forward to become self-actualized individual citizens in a compassionate collective. What's really important - now, next month, 10 years from now, 20 years? Is it tax breaks? Allowing citizens and journalists of all views to assemble and participate in democratic process? Environmental initiatives? Expanding public pensions? Finding local food? Open and transparent governance? You really need to do some reading here, but fortunately it's not hard.

9. Finally - VOTE. On May 2nd, or on April 22, 23 or 25th. Get out there, armed with your information and understanding, and make a difference in where Canada goes next.

Party Web sites: Check 'em out yourselves.

http://www.blocquebecois.org/accueil.aspx

http://www.conservative.ca

http://www.greenparty.ca

http://www.liberal.ca

http://www.ndp.ca