Yesterday in Reykjavik, Today in Frankfurt, Tomorrow in Paris!

We are contentedly back on the continent again, having survived Iceland's freezing winds and naked landscapes, enjoying the good German hospitality that. we have come to love. We are staying near Frankfurt with Heiko, our flatmate in Ireland. Our other flatmate, Torsten, drove across from Nürnberg to tour us around the local castles and bring us to their own little irish pub!

Iceland proved to be yet another country simple to hitchhike around, despite everyone' s dubiousness, and our lifts were representative of Iceland itself: the population is comprised of 299 404 Icelanders, and 369 431 tourists visited in 2005. We got 5 lifts from Icelanders and 6 from tourists, and several of our lifts took us 600kms at a time! Thrudur, and Tomek and Ola, our HC hosts in the east of Iceland, sent us marching up and down dozens of waterfalls that appear to be emptying all of the planet's seas in a rush into the centre of the Earth, up and down volcanoes, over cracks where the earth has opened up in a quake (Thrudur's house was split open in a recent earthquake), past glaciers calving into icebergs floating in a lagoon with the sea lions, to hot rivers to bathe in, and to the Geysir from where all the rest get their name, which was a terrifying experience to stand next to alone in the dark as it materialized 15 meters of gushing water every 10 suspenseful minutes or so. Though we were repeatedly told otherwise, we did manage to hitchhike through Iceland's interior, which is crossed only by two gravel roads only recommended for 4x4 vehicles with those enormous wheels and satellite phones. Thrudur warned us about these strange rock formations that were trolls who had been caught out in the sunlight while viewing their land (apparently Tolkein based his trilogy on Icelandic mythology) so we didn't camp the night out there! We still think it is a lovely but bizarre little country: the tiny villages smelt of their main industry: fishing, and after showering our silver wedding rings turned black temporarily from the minerals in the naturally hot water that is piped into houses. Thankfully we managed to avoid Iceland's speciality dishes: burnt sheep's head, rotten shark, foal, puffin, soured ram's testicles (as if ram's testicles wasn't strange enough). I guess in this barren land you had to eat everything you can get your hands on! Here's three new photos of our time in Iceland (last three on the page).

We have a lift to Paris arranged for tomorrow with the great German ride-sharing agency (an institution which the rest of the world is sorely lacking), and HC hosts for the next few weeks so Bon Soir and Tchussiii!

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish and Chips!

We are being blown across the volcanic landscape of Iceland, I know we should have expected it but its quite chilly here! We had an easy flight yesterday from London Stansted to Reykjavik, despite all the intensified security measures (everyone´s shoes being x-rayed, no liquids on the plane, no lighters at all) and are settled cozily with our hospitality club host, Thrudur, just outside the capital. The landscape on the bus ride to her apartment (the buildings and roads look all very Canadian) could almost be seen heaving and waving as the lava formed this island long ago, still devoid of trees and greenery, and great streams of steam shoot up into the sky in several spots on the horizon. And this was all just in our first hour on this bizarre island adorned only by stacks of stones several meters high to mark the ancient roads.

Our last couple of weeks in Britain were memorable, finally attending the Highland Games with Vivien and Dik in Aviemore near Inverness and watching the world´s strongest hurl a variety of enormously heavy objects ridiculous distances, all in various lengths of kilts. Meeting Kathryn and her English boyfriend, Adam, in Pembrokeshire National Park in Wales and exploring the beaches and cliffs. We thought it was hilarious to be one in the long parading line of beach-goers, each person equipped with at least four objects of entertainment: kites, tents, footballs, surfboards, snorkels, cricket sets. Mike finally learned how to play cricket! Although it is doubtful how much of the rules he actually understood. We hitchhiked from where Adam´s failing brakes left us in Bath towards Cornwall, unexpectedly finding ourselves in a campground in Glastonbury, and proceeded to feast happily on vegetarian food in this eccentric little town and visited the Glastonbury Abbey and climbed the Tor in the morning. Carli-Ann played Knots and Crosses (X´s and O´s) with the ten year old girl in the van on our lift to Cornwall where we stayed with our hosts, Sera and banger-racer Ian in Launceston. Sera was just going to drop us off on the highway near the cliff -scaling Tintagel Castle where King Arthur was supposed to be born, but ended up joining us and proceeding to graciously tour us through Boscastle that was destroyed in the flooding a couple years back, onto the Bodmin Moors and for lunch in a moor pub where she used to work (there really are supposed to be released jaguars and a lion roaming the moors since the 1970´s law that made it illegal to own an exotic pet without a permit), through the lovely Cornish towns and along the roads sunken into the fields to protect from the elements which made it feel as if we were on a secret mole-tunnel mission, and all the way to Land´s End! What a day, and it was only a few weeks before on Orkney that we looked south to John O´Groats on the mainland. A farmer dropped us off at his veternarian´s house who was also our next host in Devon, and with Mark´s lovely family we attended a very english community dog show and BBQ, went hiking on Dartmoor, and saw the National Firework Championships in Plymouth! Quite a day!

A few more lifts brought us next to Bristol where we met Carli-Ann´s Grandpa Ken´s family, Steve and Pip, and the bright matriarch of the family, Mrs. Sheila Whitfield who lives in a 400 year old thatched cottage in Wiltshire! They were as enthusiastic to meet more of the family from Canada as we were to meet them, and had a large family dinner and went through old family photos and the family tree (which was quite useful as I wasn´t quite sure how I fit in) and took us up in the hills at the back of their place to see the Uffington White Horse chalk figure. And they have extended their invitation to all the family back in Canada who wants to come and visit!

And as the day finally came that our British visas expired, Iceland´s discount aircarrier took us out of London to this little island where we will explore the geysers and waterfalls and volcanic activity and icebergs until the end of the month before heading back to the continent. Our photos of Iceland should be stunning, so we´ll post them as soon as we´ve got them organized!

Mae'n bwrw glaw

A couple weeks ago we went on a trip to the very north of Scotland and crossed over to the Orkeney Islands. This place is absolutely loaded with ancient ruins, many of them 5000 years old! We climbed inside one mound-tomb which had been vandalized. Not by local antisocials, but by vikings 1000 years ago. One of them carved something like "These runes were carved by Thor, the most skilled rune-carver in the west!".

After a brief but busy six months we have finished up our time in Glasgow. Again it was alot of work to get ourselves and all our gear out of the country. With a bit of ruthless binning we managed to pack up everything into a backpack and bulging bike pannier each, along with our bicycles of course. The journey from Glasgow Central took five trains and seven hours to get down to Cuddington Station in Cheshire where we were greeted by Gren and Beryl once again. After a nice evening with their family they drove us into the heart of Snodonia National Park in Northern Wales where we found a nice camp site at the foot of Wales highest mountain - which amazingly has a special train that ratchets up to the peak. We are very impressed by the amount of Welsh that is actually spoken here. Even young people working in shops are speaking Welsh togther when you walk in. When we first heard it in a cafe, I was sure the waitresses were immigrants speaking Polish, but no, we were the only foreigners in there! We stayed with our first Hospitalityclub host of the trip last night in Carmarthen where he works as a Welsh language promoter. He said it had been a while since he last spoke so much English (his second language). We are now travelling slowly towards the south of Wales where we'll meet some friends for a weekend camping. Traslate the Welsh title of this entry for a clue about how its going :)

After Wales, we'll head for Cornwall, and then to Swindon to visit some of Carli-Ann's relations. After that we fly from London to Iceland for what is gauranteed to be a unique experience!