View Full Version : My Iceland Diary
Iceland Expedition 2005
My Diary
Prior to reading the events of my expedition there are a few brief things to know about. Explorers is the stage up from scouts and along with 6 other Explorers and 3 Leaders we went to Iceland to complete our Explorer Belt and Duke Of Edinburgh award. Here is a brief description of all who went:
Stef – Typical Yam Yam lad, loves his beer and his women, he’s a pick of a brown noser to the leaders but a really genuine lad.
Paul – Stuck up at times, he is very clever but lacks common sense, can have good conversations with but at times he is annoying.
Pete – Sound lad, always calm and laid back, loves his music and blasted out his I pod tunes for two weeks.
John – Don’t get on too well with him, he lacks any intelligence and is a dumb dumb, but he can be funny.
Sarah – I started off fancying her but soon stopped, she comes from a common area but acts stuck up and is a spoilt and moody little princess who seeks attention and lacks a sense of fun.
Chloe – Sarah’s best mate, but we all get on with Clo’, shes one of the lads really, shes very clever but acts mad and its very funny!
Rich – The main leader, he is very selfish and hippocritical but hes a great fellar, been working for two years to get us to Iceland so hats off to him.
Rose – Rich’s girlfriend, Sarah’s older sister, and the female leader. She is very ditzy and laughs at everything but always lightened the mood.
Rob – Rich’s mate, who drove the second car for us, never knew him before Iceland but he was superb, he was hilarious and his way with words was just amazing!!!
And let me explain the Sarah and Paul fiasco, they are an on and off couple. In a small group like ours something like that can only be annoying, Paul is the love of her life, but Sarah is just convenient and he uses her, hell be close on holidays and camps but when he gets back to normality he wants nothing to do with her. She is so gullible and forgives him and takes him back every time and when they break up she is in a fowl mood and cries buckets. When they are together it is very uncomfortable, all kissy kissy it annoys us all and makes the group dynamics very uncomfortable. They were at it like Ethiopians at an all you can eat buffet throughout the Iceland trip, which was the only bad point of the trip.
A general day would be to travel around the country in car, stopping at tourist destinations then stopping at a youth hostel for the night and moving on the day after etc…
Right then that’s all you need to know really, so let the diary begin…
Day 1
Dad dropped me off at the scout hutt, and me, Paul, Stef, John and Pete were waiting for ages for Rich, Rose, Rob and the two girls. Typical of Rich he arrived after the agreed meeting time, this would be the start of two weeks of him not meeting his deadlines. We loaded the bags and “Uncle Pete” the scout leader drove us down to Digbeth couch station, which is the Birmingham City Centre. We waited around for a long time there, it cost 20p to use the toilets and me and the lads were winding up Sarah about the end of Harry Potter as she was yet to know and didn’t want to know. Stef and Paul attempted to go to the porn magazine shop around the corner, but an angry Rich marched them back.
We finally got onto the coach which took us down to London. We had a female driver, who of course crashed up the curb numerous times as all female bus/coach drivers do. She took the mick out of us by saying “fire safety, don’t go starting any campfires” and “give us a good old gingangoolie then”. The coach drive was long and boring, I managed to read a lot of Harry Potter during this time. I couldn’t help thinking that I didn’t want to go on the holiday as I really wasn’t looking forward to it. However as soon as we reached London city centre I became excited and couldn’t wait for the holiday to start. I thought the coach would stop at Heathrow but we had to get off at London Victoria and take another coach from there to the airport. We waited round for ages there, a station filled with foreigners and immigrants, a café that sold cardboard sausage rolls and deluded pigeons that thought the station was outside so kept flying around. Rob kicked one, the first of many things he’d do in the next two weeks to make us laugh.
We finally did arrive at Heathrow, and that’s when the nerves kicked in, never before had I flown so I was very apprehensive. All the various checks and ques got annoying, but I was easily amused when a woman announced that “all baggage left unattended will be removed and destroyed” she seemed to enjoy saying it, and said it in a mechanically menacing tone of voice. I cheered me up and took my mind off the flight. As I’ve gone around the airport its been filled with oriental people, which I am scared of because of their eyes it freaks me out! AS we were going trough the metal detectors Chloe set the alarms off as she had a large metal studded belt in her bag!
We eneded up waiting longer than expected as the flight had been delayed by 45 minutes. Stef was checking out all of the airhostesses and holidymakers, the good the bad and the goddamn ugly. And for some reason Paul was renamed Betty, but that didn’t seem to continue throughout the holiday. I found out I was sitting next to Sarah on the plane which is a big coincidence because we are the only two in the group that had never flown before, so we could offer each other support which was nice.
The flight went well considering it was my first time flying, it was quite enjoyable, as we were going up in the air we were all dancing to YMCA, and rich and rose who were sitting a few rows back said all they could see was our hands in the air making the letters. The meal was disgusting and the air hostesses had an attitude problem and were minging. We landed okay and fought our way trough the airport getting our bags and the rental cars. Icelandic people have no manors, everywhere we went for two weeks they were rude and unwelcoming. Took time for Rob and Rich to master the cars, kept driving on wrong side of road and crashing into curb, arrived at hostel and fell fast asleep!
Day 2
Pete shouting out, Stef snoring and performing, all in all not a peaceful sleep. The breakfast was awful, £7 breakfast does not consist of one slice of wholemeal toast, without butter, and a bowel of Bonus’s, there form of Aldi, Muselli! We then left the hostel and started out on our first travelling across Iceland. We visited Phingvellier, which is the site of the original Icelandic parliament, it was basically a cliff face looking down onto a beautiful valley, the views were amazing and we taking pictures just like Jap’ tourists. The ruler of Iceland would address his people from the top of the cliff and they were stand or sit on the cliff and listen to him, it was weird but such a beautiful site. We then had a very long and tiresome car journey driving across gravelled dirt-tracks, their idea of A roads, and we drived around numerous fjords, mountains, don’t get we wrong it was a beautiful site but when all you see is grass and mountains and waterfalls for 2 weeks solid you’ll get bored of it.
We finally arrived in a picturesque village in the mountains, the site was brilliant, there were swings at the top so you could look down at the harbour and the fjords. The village looked like the village from Beetle Juice, all wooden houses, there was a church, a school and a shop, and not much else. The hostel we stayed at was small and cozy, we were slagging the place off when the woman walked in, she heard every word, she wasn’t Icelandic, she was actually Irish, but she laughed it off. We went to the shop to buy our tea, and the workers were like them off League Of Gentlemen, stared at us as though we weren’t “local”.
After tea, the lads went and played football by the playground, it soon turned into a full on game with the locals. They are very talented at football, probably because they haven’t got much more to do with their lives. Summer time in Iceland is sunlight 24-7 so they ended up playing football till well after eleven at night. Strange that the only words the Icelandic’s knew were swear words and Pete shouted out Blethig Mig! I cant say what this means on soapboards but I’m sure you could hazard a guess!
Day 3
Day 3 was extremely uneventful, it was an extremely long car journey on that day, over 6 hours Rich said it took in total. The boredom was killing after reading Inside Soap 3 times over I stared at mountain after mountain and ended up asleep!
We stopped for lunch at some random car park and Chloe was pretending to meditate on a picnic table. We accused her of being a witch and started throwing stones and rocks at her. This became a common activity in following days, continuously blaming Chloe’s “magic powers” for any out of the ordinary behaviour or events.
Also on the way we smelt burning rubber and saw a lot of smoke coming from Rich’s car, it turned out that he had tore his trye and Stef was the only one who knew how to change a tyre and ended up getting covered all over in oil, and ended up washing it off with “imported” Icelandic spring water, how that one works I don’t know.
Day 3 and 4 would be the only nights that we actually stopped at a hotel, quiet luxurious according to all guides we’d read. But we found out they had been fully booked. We soon found that the local school was used as part of the hotel in summer months and all ten of us ended up sleeping in a classroom! It sounds mad an unbelievable but it actually happened and it was an experience and something to tell the grandchildren!
As school’s generally lack Self Catering kitchens we decided to go out for a meal that evening. We ended up at a place called Pizza 67, a hippy themed restaurant that sold pizza, pasta, steak etc. I ate Burger and chips and we were all watching Mile High on Iceland 1, all their shows are imported from America or uk. When your eating a meal it isn’t the most appropriate show, two people romping in a plane toilet kind of puts you off your meal!
We went back to the classroom, and so started the card games, for the next two weeks Rich, Rob, Stef and occasionally Rose and Pete would play Poker or 21, sometimes for money and sometimes for fun. If you didn’t like football or card games, like me and the two girls didn’t then you’d be a bit bored.
Day 4
Day 4, the second day sleeping in a classroom, started late as we had all slept in till gone 11, lucky for us we hadnt got to travel anywhere that day as we were stopping here for two nights. It was Stef's birthday today and we decided that we'd have to go and get him a cake for later on.
We went into the town to buy the cake and some breakfast and to see if there was anything we could do that day. We had no luck and returned to the classroom with no ideas of what to do. We went and asked fat Helga, a name we gave to all icelandic women over 40, what there was to do in the area. She told of us a brillaint and good value for money natural history musuem, 10 minutes drive from where we were staying.
We finally gained the energy to go to it. After paying an extorinate amount of money we learnt that there was just one room to this musuem, a room about as big as Pauline Fowler's living room, no exaggeration, with a couple of rocks and stuffed birds, we felt as tough we'd been robbed!
On the car journey back the conversation turned to immigrants in the uk etc, and these kind of ethical and racist disucssions cropped up numerous times in the next few days, some would laugh it off, others would take no stand, some would be really passionate about it and some would go in a dissaproving mood *coffs* Sarah!
As it was Stef's birthday we decided to take him out somewhere special, and ended up going to the fast food retsuraunt we went the night before, lucky him. I experimented with pasta with vegetibles in a pesto sauce, but it was too rich for my liking. We then returned to the classroom where Paul and Sarah had ran off infront and light Stef's birthday cake. We sang him happy birthday and the night turned once more to Poker, yawn.
Day 5
We spent our last morning at the "Hotel" and went into town to buy food and drink before our departure. We had 2 trips planned, the first to a viking ship and the second to a Witchcraft and Wizardy musuem, ideal for chloe. When we reached the locatoion of where the viking ship should be it was nowhere it site, it turned out there were 6 reckyjanes in Iceand, and we were not in the right one. Rich and Rob were not amused!
We then headed for the magic musuem, which was filled with skeletons and the bottom half of a dead wizard, gentilia included! A mad icelandic man started a rituatial, prancing around, chating foreighn prhrases and ringing a bell. This same men later fed his pet raven with a can of pedigree chum! The raven then climbed onto Chloe's arm and started pecking at her. She used a phrase which became common throughpout the trip and became her catchphrase "I wont one".
We later arrived at the hostel, where all the rooms had been taken up by the French, dirty looks all around. So we had our own building to ourselve, it looked like a comunity centre, meets librray, meets school. We had various rooms, and a large kicthen and a big hall with a piano, table football and pool table. Tea ended up in a domestic with Rich, Rose and Sarah arguing over fried eggs!
That night was when i came out of my shell. Until then i had been very quiet and shy but as soon as Queen was wacked on Pete's i pod i was dancing around the hall, sliding around the slippery floor, singing and shouting. Everyone was laughing and enjoying it and said they loved the new me.
Day 6
After a night dancing to Queen and being in the same calibre of insanity as chloe, i woke up ready to move onto Akureyi, Iceland's 2nd city. Expecting a city the size of Birmingham it was about as big as Walford! We stopped in a small Austrian style log Cabin. It is a really comfortbale and cozy little place.
After going shopping at "Bonus" we discovered a defrosted freezer that had dreneched the laminate flooring. Pete and Stef cooked fathetas for teal, they were delicious. The Tv we had in the cabin had BBC1 and BBC2 so i got to watch a bit of the Eastenders omnibus, but not much as Rich turned over to watch the golf.
A mystery in Iceland: how you can come out of a shower smellier than when you went in. All water in iceland smells eggy, due to the high sulpher content in it. Most water is geothermally heated, and ytou can tell if it is because if it is it has an overpowering smell of egg. I had an eggy showe and felt horrible afterwards.
After tea we went into town to explore and see what was to offer, most shops were closed as it was nine at night, we didnt realise this because of the 4-7 lightness we thought it was only 5! On our way back we discovered an Icelandic rock concert.We went to it, as it was free entry, and oh my what an experience it was! Evewryone sat or stood on a rockface, dandincg like maniacs we could have easily fell off. We didnt understand a word of what they were singing but their rock music was what id define tacky pop in our country.
Observation: in the UK about 2/3 in 10 girls are attractive, but in iceland it is like 9/10, and the one tenthe are probably the French, German tourists etc. They beutoiful blonde hair, blue eyes and small pointy noses must make them the most attractive women in the world. Infact it turned out that me and the lads were more interested in the females than the concert. And whats more Iceland has no chavs! Can the country get any better!?
After awful renditions of "Wild Thing" with a double bass and "Final Countdown" with a banjo me Pauill and Chloe couldnt stand it any longer and headed back to the cabin. Along with Rich, Rose and Rob we ended up wathcing the film "Maybe Baby" with HUgh Laurie in it on BBC1.
The others returned with pizzas from dominos pizza, yes they have dominos pizza in iceland, and the convienance!, it was right behind the cabin! Outside their was midnight fireworks for icelandinc independance day. It was a wonderful end to the night, but it wasnt over in the most heated argument of the holiday we turned to racism and illegal immigrants again and Rich and Rose had a big barny that carreied on till about 3 in the morning, with everyone chipping in bits with whats wrong with our country and what should be done.
Day 7
It was quite sad to leave the cabin, wed only spent one day there but wed grown quiet attached to the place, anyways tpoday we were heading to Husavik, the whale watching capital of Iceland. We knew we had to go whale wtahcing, it was very cold, and the boat was very choppy, i've never been good with boats but the excitment of seeing whales took my mind of it. It was very tense waiting for them to emerge, the tensiosn was killing.
It was funny to here the sounds of excitment, and then dissopaintment when people would miss a photo op by seconds. The whales didnt stay up for long, incosiderate buggers. We saw 2 minky whales and 1 humpback whale. On the way back the sailors gave us hot chocolate and cinnaomn buns which were delicious and kept us warm.
As the boat driver announced places of local intrest we were shocked "local church, whale and martimime musme, penis musuem" Penis Musuem!!!??? had our ears deceived us? No there was a musuem for animal penises, we knew we had to go there, its the only one in the world so we could brag we'd be there. There were loads of them from hamster to whale and a contract of an old icelandic man who'd promise to donate his penis to the msusuem when he dies. Chloe and John brought penis knecklaces, with beads for testicles, it was very enjoyable experience and a right old laugh!
We looked around Husvaik, but everywhere was closed as it was a national bank holiday becuase of their independance day, so we just decided to move on to our next hostel. It was meant to be a barn conversion which sounded fun but no it wasnt. In the middle of nowhere was a run-down farm with rusty old trackers and animals running around randomly, it was worse than the Dingles house in Emmerdale!
We lived in the same building as the mad farmer and his wife, who didnt speak a word of Englsih, they stared at us all the time and scared the hell out of us! ON the brightside they had a picture on the wall of their beutiful granduaghter. Rich wasnt happy when they anjnoucned hed have to pay extra for bed linen and breakfast, he vowed not to pay the bill.
Day 8
If you've ever watched the episode of Fools and Horses when the Trotters run away from the hotel without paying the bill then you should have been with us. We woke up really early, \about 6, packed our bags and creeped out of the farm without paying the bill. As the ignition started the man ran oiut shouting, but it was too late we were speeding away on our way to our next stop.
We stopped off at Myvaten National Park which was a place of such beuty! There was a massze lake that we stood bye and had a perfect photo op. Then we climbed a mountain and when we got to the top we saw a big crater and at the bottom people had wrote there names with stones, some dating pack to 1998! We then went to a place where there were some natural springs, and what did i tell you about warm water? Yes the smell was unbearbale, the overpowering smell ogf eggs made Pete be sick and some of us very close to it, we neded up inhaling the lemon car air frshner and Rich's pot of Paprika pringles!
Following lunch I was assigned a mission by Rob, Pete, Rose, John and Clo to annoy the hell out of love birds Sarah and Clo. Stef helped me and we did a good job, singing out of tune to Bohemia Rahposhey, hitting paul with a pop bottle, arguing with sarah, calling paul a pedophile (which he technically is as hes 18 and sarahs 15) singing "amarillio" and then i knicked Paul's blanket and rolled down a hill covering it in grass and pine needles. They later found out my task and forgave me, but it was brillaint fun and made the day pass by easily!
The hostel we'd be staying at tonight, would would be there for 2 nights so we hopped it would be a nice place. It was the worst we had and would be styaing in for the 2 weeks. It was dull and dingy and a timewarp of the 1960's with tastellss decour and furniture, we knicknamed it the "hippy hostel". The woman who owned it was moody on her HRT probably. Paid 5 pound to go on the internet, checked emails and chatted to WQ and Jessiue Wallace on MSN and checked on Big Broither: Kemal Out, Orlaith Walked and Kinga In! OMG! I'm missing Kinga! No!!!!!
After a delicious tea of chicken, chips and peas the lads went to play football, suprise suprise. Well i wasnt going to stay in the roiom wilst the lovebirds had a cozy lovey dovey chat so i went with them, and im so glad i did. They were harmlessly playing then a chubby little Indina boy asked to plauy, he was a right nigfhtmare, he kicked them, spat at them and swore at them! We ran away in fear of the little freak! We then discovered a trampaline in the back garden of the hostel and ended up bouncing on it for an hour or so around midnight, honestly the stuff we got up to is just mental!
Day 9
As we were spending two nights at the hippy hostel, we had a predicament as there was nothing for us to do in the local area. We slept in for as long as possible but then decided we had to get up. Once more i wasted £5 on the net and went onto soapbaords to read the sad news of the axing of Family Affairs, that is a travesty! someone needs to start a petition!
Rob, Rich, Rose and Pete decided to go to the local golfcourse, but returned a few minutes later, it was closed for the summer! where was the logic in that!!?
We discovered a local swimming pool that opened at 2, so after lunch, me, stef, john, pete, rob, chlo, paul and sarah went to the swimming paul, we started playing volleyball with the local children which was fun, but then a scary blast from the past appeared: the indian boy! he swat at us, growled at us, and splashed at us, we ended up throwing the ball at his face and throwing hium underwater various times. He still continued to annoy us so we fled to the hot tubs and the sauana room whiuch was absoultew luxury.
When we returned to the hostel we wished we hadnt, that night was a full house, with a baby and a mentally handicapped woman with terettes, so didnt look like we'd be getting a peaceful nights sleep. The group was split majorily, John had words with sarah telling her to dump Paul and hes no good for her, Paul and sarah took offence by this and the group was torn apart, whcih is why we dispise the whole sarah and paul romance. We played travel cludeo to try and calm the group but it only got into an argument that rich and rose were cheating at it!
Day 10
Woke up at the hippy hostel, and we couldnt wait to leave the place, but before we left Rich had a phone call from the travel company demanding he pay the bill to the Dingle farmers! Let that be a lesson folks the past always comes back to haunt you!
We stopped for a photo-op at a big waterfall near to the hostel, then had a long car journey, which was very boring, i even ended up reading Paul's copy of The Cantebury Tales! We stopped at a museum for rocks and minerals, i could hardly contain my delight, NOT! It was the boringest hour of my life, but Paul was having the time of his life, he wants to be a geolist so this was like sex on toastr for him, weird boy, well he has to be to fancy Sarah!
The hostel was in the "city" of Hofn. Well i hardly think that a hostel, a supermarket and a petrol station contistute for a city. The place was deserted, but the hostel was nice and clean and modern and semi-friendly, a change from the past few nights!
Day 11
Today was very eventful, we left Hofn hostel and found a kitten in our car, it must have crawled in the previosu afternoon and had been locked in since, it was so cute, awwwww.
We visisted the local glacier (ice mountain) musuem, which i really enjoyed becuase there was a james bond section there showing clips from A View To A Kill and Die Another Day, which had scenes filmed in the local area. We were to go to those locations today so as im sure your aware i was very excited!
The first location was a lake with big icebergs floating around, this was used in A View To A KIll, but doiubled as Siberia, where Bond had an iceberg submarine. It took loads of pictures, but it was spoilt as Sarah had a fake panic attack in the back of the car on the way there, so staged to outdo sister Rose who had been travel sick, and to she did it to get a hug of her beloved Paul, yuck!
AS we stop at the top of a hill seeing desrt to one side of us, and iced moutians to the other we debated whether Sarah was faking it or not and came out with a new fairytale Sarah and the Paul, rather than Peter and the Wolf.
Following this we went to the Skatafell National Park which was a massize glacier which is met by a freezing cold lake with floating icebergs, we attempted to pick up ice and smash it. We ended uyp having an icelburg fight and i threw an ibeurg at sytef with cut his hand he started bleeding severly. My once ironic name of "dangerous bryan" was now actually becoming real.
The hostel at Hvall was like the "ells Bells hotel" from carry On Abroad, a massixe hotel that was still under construction, it wa svery big but only had us and a few other french guests. the whole holiday was filled with the word "commondeer" previosu to this sarah and clo had knicked some herbal teabags and paul had knicked some rocks from a beahc, and tonight was just the epitmy of the word, me and paul knciked all the james bond books from the bookshelf and stef knicked a wheel trim form someone's car to replace the one that had fell off rob's car during our mide up the hilly dirt tracks!
12/13/14
sorry im getting bored now basically we ent to reckjavik, and the blue lagoon and went home, i dont like the UK, it has darkness and chavs!
Interesting read, thankyou! :)
di marco
16-08-2005, 19:21
yep i found it rather entertaining :)
thanks guys i was beginning to think id wasted my time, as no-one was going to read it, but at least my two fav posters have done that! thanks guy, wait until the switzerland one when i talk about the bond resturaunt in the alps ill be talking all day long about it!
di marco
16-08-2005, 20:06
thanks guys i was beginning to think id wasted my time, as no-one was going to read it
i read it a few days ago but didnt really know what to say at the time. i liked reading it though for 2 reasons, one cos it was interesting to see what you did, and two cos it was quite funny in places lol i love reading your writing!
but at least my two fav posters have done that!
thanks lol! flattery gets you everywhere! :D
wait until the switzerland one when i talk about the bond resturaunt in the alps ill be talking all day long about it!
cool cant wait (even though i dont really like james bond), have you already been?
i read it a few days ago but didnt really know what to say at the time. i liked reading it though for 2 reasons, one cos it was interesting to see what you did, and two cos it was quite funny in places lol i love reading your writing!
thanks lol! flattery gets you everywhere! :D
cool cant wait (even though i dont really like james bond), have you already been?
no i havent been there before but its going to be soooo exciting!!!!
That was really interesting. Sounds like you had an amazing time.
That was really interesting. Sounds like you had an amazing time.
i had the bestest time imaginable, 2 weeks in a beutiful countryt, having a laugh with ya mates, its so brilliant!
di marco
16-08-2005, 20:38
no i havent been there before but its going to be soooo exciting!!!!
i meant have you already been this holiday or are you going soon, but dont worry cos you answered my question anyway
i meant have you already been this holiday or are you going soon, but dont worry cos you answered my question anyway
oh lol! :D
I found it really interesting BB, especially as its somewhere I haven't been - thanks :D
I found it really interesting BB, especially as its somewhere I haven't been - thanks :D
i seriosuly recommend you go there, rent a car and travel the entire country, it takes a lot of planning and booking etc but is a once in a lifetime oppurtunity, unless you go more than once!
di marco
17-08-2005, 20:14
my mum wants to go there
di marco
17-08-2005, 20:15
but is a once in a lifetime oppurtunity, unless you go more than once!
lol! :D
iceland seems expensive! bet you had a good time though...
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.3 Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.