2009 Retrospective

Well ladies and gents, this is the final Tuesday, and hence the final blog post of 2009.  Blogspot is kind enough to keep track of how many posts you make, broken down by year and month.  This will be my 40th post of 2009. Compare that to the 4 I made in 2008 and I'd say that I'm making serious progress towards my goal of making this a regular publication.  A big thanks to everyone who's been reading, and a huge thanks to everyone who's left comments.

This year saw some of my usual camping shenanigans, but I also covered some new territory... quite literally in a few cases, most notably Iceland.  That particular voyage marked my first solo vacation, and proved to be quite the experience!  Shortly after that 2009 played host to my first stay in the fine Province of Quebec... sad that it took me so long to make that short trip.  You have my assurance that I'll be back there, if only for the food.  Motivated by the number of you who were reading up on those two trips it also saw the rise of The Weekly Post, which I certainly hope has become a regular source of Internet amusement for you all.  We can't forget Jamaica either, way back in January.  It was that trip that kick-started the serendipitous chain of events that led to me taking up Scuba diving as a hobby.  Over the course of the year I've gone from someone who didn't know a BCD from an Octopus into a certified Advanced and Deep Diver.  In that time I've also learned how to ride a motorcycle, planned some new trips, and made some new friends.  It's pretty hard to say anything aside from - "It's been a good year."

Coming up for 2010, the new year will start with a trip down to the Dominican Republic just for some sun and sand.  I know that Gray, Jay, and myself will be going down to the Smokey Mountains and the epic driving roads contained therein for a roadtrip adventure in late April.  Beyond that?  Well, I get a whole new batch of vacation days starting in July, at which point you can expect a whole new batch of crazy adventures to start up.

So, in closing, I hope that you all had a spectacular 2009, and I hope that 2010 is a fantastic year for all of you.  Keep reading, and keep commenting, it's the fact that I can count on you all to read these posts that keeps me motivated.  Also, you know how to get a hold of me, so be sure to let me know if there are any topics you'd like to see covered in the coming months.  Whatever celebrations you have planned for New Year's Eve have fun and be safe.  I'll see you all in 2010.  Adventure awaits!

Who's Dream Exactly?

Boeing has been making the headlines recently with the maiden flight of it's new plane, the 787 Dreamliner.  In following the stories I'm still a bit unclear on why people are so interested in this aircraft; is it really going to be a great plane, or are we just amused by any development cycle that is so fraught with delays (search Wikipedia for "Duke Nukem Forever" if you'd like to see another case of public fascination with a doomed project.)

For those of you unfamiliar with the harrowing saga of the Dreamliner, here's the synopsis.  The plane just had it's maiden flight on December 15, 2009.  That flight was scheduled for September of 2007.  Yup, that's a seven at the end of that year.  Ooops.  While an often-stated delay did come in the form of a machinist's strike, that lasted less than two months, which seems insufficient to delay a project by two years.  From the reading I've done here it seems like the problem was a combination of difficulties obtain materials for the plane, and an excess of work being outsourced.  At one point Boeing was forced to buy some of the companies that they were outsourcing to just to exert enough control over the supply chain.

So we have in our midst now a plane that had, to say the least, a strained birth.  However, it's here now, so why should we be excited?  The two biggest talking points that I've read so far are that this is the company's most fuel-efficient airliner, and uses more composite materials than any other airliner currently in production.  The composite material in question is a carbon fiber reinforced plastic that will make up 80% of the aircraft by volume.  This make the aircraft lighter, while maintaining the necessary strength, hence the vaunted fuel efficiency.

This brings me to my next point.  The aircraft is, by all reports, going to be quite fuel-efficient.  Do I give a damn?  I've heard a lot about the fuel-efficiency, but I haven't heard (nor do I really expect to) about the enormous cost savings that will be passed on to the traveller.  Nothing about it being any quicker either.  Thus missing the two greatest improvements to airline travel that I want: Cheaper and Faster.

Ah, but now I feel the need to follow in the footsteps of the Great Jeremy Clarkson, and after putting down this poor airliner for past four paragraphs, here's what I like about our poor maligned plane.  That carbon fiber plastic body that I glossed over earlier isn't just lighter and as strong as traditional materials; it's lighter and stronger.  That means that it can handle a greater internal pressure.  Most commercial airliners pressurize the cabin to be approximately equivalent to being outdoors at 2,400m above sea level, but the Dreamliner will be able to handle a pressure which will give the feeling of being at a mere 1,800m altitude.  Add in the fact that the composite materials won't corrode like their metal counterparts and you can now safely increase cabin humidity.  The increase in pressure and humidity should result in a cabin that feels much more natural than your typical aircraft.

Something that I thought may be fun is that they've increased the size of the windows and raised them to a more natural eye level.  As someone who loves watching the take off and landing I'm actually a bit excited about this feature.

Apparently they've also been playing around with a variety of technologies, including placing sound absorbing materials in the engine air inlets, to reduce the total noise, which should be nice for passenger comfort as well.

So there you have it, a new plane that fails to address my big concerns of speed, cost, seat comfort, banning children and fat people, and improved cuisine.  However, it still sounds like a step in the right direction.  Now for the internet's most dangerous question: what do you think?

My Pack

My cousin recently asked me for advice on a backpack to buy for travelling.  Of course, I don't have a great wealth of experience in this area, so I can only really discuss the pros and cons of my current pack.  That said, I've been wanting to do a review of my current pack for awhile now, so this is a good opportunity to post some pics so you can all see what I've been lugging around.

I've been using a Pangea 75 from MEC.

The "75" refers to the pack's capacity, in this case 75 litres.  Here's a couple pictures showing the front and back of this bad boy:

You'll notice from the back shot that the suspension system is quite rugged, which is something you're really going to want.  Pay special attention to the "belt" on this pack.  The straps are very wide and well padded, and it allows you to comfortably shift a lot of the weight of the pack off of your shoulders and on to your hips.  The back pad is adjustable top to bottom, which is why I highly recommend actually going into MEC if you're planning on getting a pack.  The pros there can help you to adjust the pack to fit you perfectly before you leave the store.  It's also important to note that we're all built differently, and it may not be possible to adjust a pack to fit your specific body type.  For that reason it's a good idea to have a few packs in mind when going into a store.  Your favorite pack on paper might not turn out to be your favorite pack on your back.

A feature of this backpack that I'm really keen on is the fold-away suspension system, illustrated here:

I can just fold up the suspension system, cover it with this zippered flap, and voila, my backpack is now a duffel bag:

This is particularly nice when you're planning on flying with your backpack as you don't have to worry about loose straps getting caught in things and damaged after you've checked your luggage.  Checking your backpack at the airport segues nicely into the next nice feature of this pack, the removable day pack.

That nice part on the front with the awesome flag on it just happens to zip off.

That's handy for camping when you want to bring a few things on a day hike without having to bring your whole pack with you.  It's also nice when flying because you can use it as your carry-on luggage.

So those were the key points that I was looking at when I got this pack.  Something to consider when looking at a pack like this is that it's not perfect for all travel situations.  For a serious expedition this pack is actually quite small; you can get packs in excess of 90L at MEC.  Also, for the kind of vacation where you're checking into a hotel upon arrival and staying there for the duration of your visit a backpack is a bit unnecessary.  The pack was great in Japan since we were constantly on the move, but for a more stationary trip you can get a LOT more gear in a regular suitcase.

Well folks, that's all I can offer in terms of backpack advice.  It's been awhile since I've talked about travel gear, I hope you all enjoyed the read.  Sorry it's so late getting up, I was playing around with the photos and didn't get it all uploaded in time before I had to leave for work this morning.  See you next week!

Damajagua

Well my friends, we've got our trip to the Dominican Republic booked, and so commences our more in-depth research of what we'll do while we're there.  Of course snorkeling and sitting on the beach top that list, but we're trying to find other forms of entertainment as well.  It was while hunting around for activities being offered outside of our resort that Graydyn came across tales of Damajagua.  This is a river outside of Puerto Plata with a series of waterfalls that people like to hike up and then swim down.  Many tour companies will take you to this area so that you can enjoy the adventure of jumping off waterfalls.  However, they also do their best to downplay the danger in this activity, and I feel that it's my civic duty as someone with a public forum to pass on the warnings that we were coming across in our search for information on Damajagua.  I need not repeat the details, but will simply direct you all to a page created by the bereaved parents of an 11-year old boy who died at these falls in 2005:

http://www.adamvitaterna.com

   That page lists another, more recent death, and the Trip Advisor forums are filled with tales of struggles, injuries, and terrifying close calls.

   So, what's the point of all this, aside from giving fair warning to any of you that may find yourselves in the Dominican Republic?  I think that there are two very strong lessons we can take away from here.  The first is the value of research.  This exactly the kind of activity that appeals to people like me, and had I found myself at my resort looking at a brochure of smiling people leaping from waterfalls into the turquoise waters below I would have signed up in a heartbeat!  It's always a good idea to know the area you're visiting, and if at all possible have a good grasp on the activities you want to do before you ever leave home.

   The second point that I see here is to keep in mind the economic situation of where you are going.  We've become very accustomed to the fact that we live in a sanitized, bubble-wrapped world where attempts are constantly made to mitigate the smallest risk.  Some might say that this has made us safe, but I think that it has also made us complacent.  We have to remember that as we travel to areas hit hard by poverty that we can't count on local governments to monitor and regulate all dangerous activities.  We also have to remember that in a 3rd world country our tour guides are probably desperate for the money, and that's never a safe situation.  In the case of Damajagua I've notice a trend amongst people who have run into trouble; it was raining heavily for days before they went.  An easy trend to spot, and so you would think that the tour operators would simply not allow people to go if the river was running at dangerously high levels, but that will not be the case if you're in a part of the world where those tour operators are relying on you going on this tour in order to feed their families that evening.

   So where does that put us?  In a dangerous situation to be sure.  That's not to say though that we need to remain in our safe little Canadian bubble, it just means that we have to adjust our thinking a little bit.  Learn from the tragedies of others that we can't always count on guides and tour operators to watch out for our safety, and remember that if you don't watch out for #1 nobody else will.  If you find yourself half way through a tour staring at a raging torrent of a river, don't be afraid to say "No, this is as far as I go."  You may be chided for turning back, but it's safety first, and you are always responsible for your own safety.

   I know that was a bit of a grim post today folks, and I'll try to be a little more upbeat next week, but the lessons of others hit me hard this week and I felt the need to pass on those experiences.  Have a good week everyone, and be safe.

Faster Than Expected

Just last week I posted my plans to book a last-minute vacation for late January.  The intention was to wait, possibly even in to early January, to see what kind of deals I could manage.  That particular aspect of the plan has actually gone out the window.  A week of research yielded some interesting travel options, and already some pretty good deals.  As Graydyn began to do more research he found some likely prospects and began to worry that by waiting until the last-minute all of the good resorts would be scooped up and we would be left with a very cheap trip to somewhere sub-par.  So, given his concerns, and the fact that we were able to find a 5-star for under a thousand, we booked our vacation this weekend.

We're going to be heading to the Riu Bachata in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic:

http://www.riu.com/en-ca/Paises/dominican-republic/puerto-plata/clubhotel-riu-bachata/index.jsp

That resort consistently came up at the top of lists of good deals in the 5-star range at various travel websites. I also have a certain amount of faith in the Riu chain of resorts, having spent a lovely week at one in Jamaica, and also having heard glowing reviews from co-workers about the Riu in Aruba.  Getting a place with good food was a critical requirement for me, and reviews of this and other Riu resorts seems to indicate that food is something they do consistently well.

So, there you have it.  We didn't really operate according to the original game plan, but as with all good plans, you've got to be willing to throw them out the window at the first sign that they aren't working for you.  Our next step will be figuring out what to do when we get there.  At this point I'm not entirely opposed to sitting in a beach chair with a drink for a week, but I have a feeling that I'll get restless as soon as I attempt that particular activity.  With that in mind I've already started putting out my feelers for scuba diving, Graydyn's found a good snorkeling day trip, and I've got a bit of information on an interesting sounding hike.  More on all of that as details become available.  For now I'm just happy to know for sure that I'm going south this winter!

That's all for now.  I'm sure that you'll hear more about this vacation as the date draws near.  Have a good week everyone.

I'm Going... Somewhere

Well, Graydyn and I decided to try our luck at last-minute vacationing.  We've booked off the last week of January, but haven't actually booked a vacation yet.  We're just going to keep our eyes on the websites of a few travel companies and see what pops up for that timeline.  Right now I'm seeing a lot of really good deals for 2-3 weeks from now, so I'm hoping that's the general trend and that we'll start seeing some cheap vacations once we get into early January.

Right now I'm making good use of Travelzoo.  For those of you who aren't familiar, www.travelzoo.ca just scours the Interwebs looking for travel deals and then compiles them into a list which they send out once a week.  I've been finding it useful already as a means of seeing what's out there in terms of other travel companies that I can keep a close eye on myself.

There's a certain amount of stress to the whole thing.  I know I need to book the vacation, but I can't yet.  I hate knowing that I need to do something, it drives me nuts.  However, shopping around for vacations can be fun in its own right, so I'm enjoying that aspect of this plan.  I've even done some more in-depth research into a few places; not with any real intent to book a trip this early, but just to get a feeling for what kind of research tools are out there.  So far I've made good use of Trip Advisor (www.tripadvisor.com) which lets people post comments about a resort that they've been to.  Seeing the comments of people who have visited your target resort can be very useful, although as with any internet-based review, you have to take some comments with a grain of salt.  I've heard tales of people giving resorts a 1 out of 5 because the weather was bad while they were there.  I'm not entirely sure how the resort is supposed to fix that.

If anyone has a particular favorite resource for trip planning please sound-off in the comments of this post.  The more tools I have for my research the happier I'll be!  I've still got at least a month before I'm likely to be booking anything, so I'm sure that you'll all hear a lot more about this in the next couple of months.  Enjoy your week everyone!

Into the Wild Blue Yonder... Just Not Very Far Into It

I was reminded this weekend of a very important fact: not all great adventure need to be one thousand miles from your home.  Not all time in the great outdoors needs to be found at the end of a plane ride, a mountain pass, or a glacial peak.  Sometimes there are great times to be had right outside your doorstep, in places you've walked thousands of times before.

I returned to my parents' home this weekend to spend some time with friends and family, with no particular plan as to how we would spend that time.  A bonfire at one friend's house led to making some new friends; friends that I would end up kayaking with the very next day.  It's been awhile since I navigated the mighty Bear Creek, and it was a really pleasure to jump behind the wheel of a kayak and race through that raging torrent.  (For those of you not familiar with the Bear Creek, it is a delightfully wide, calm stretch of water that makes for some very relaxing kayaking.) Despite being the middle of November the weather was so nice that I found myself paddling in a T-shirt, with no need of a jacket.  When the weather starts to get foul and we start getting our first taste of winter warm sunny days such as that are an unbelievable treat.

Not content with having a bit of fresh air and sunshine on Saturday another group of us went for a mountain bike ride on Sunday.  Petrolia actually offers up a wealth of backwoods trails for biking on.  Nothing of the caliber to find in mountainous regions such as B.C. or Tennessee, but fun for a novice all the same.  The ride ended up turning into an exploratory run as we started attempting to find little-accessed trails in deeper stretches of the woods.  It's been a long time since I've found myself pounding through the bush on the back of a bicycle and I found the entire experience quite refreshing.

So, a normal, non-holiday weekend.  Not doing anything exciting.  Just going home to visit the folks.  And yet, somehow I manage to spend the better part of a November weekend on the water or in the woods.  Active, adventuring, and smiling the whole time.  I've kayaked that creek dozens of times, and walked those trails more times than I'd care to count, yet it's all new and refreshing every time.  So I'll finish today with Travel Tip #327: Never forget about those great adventure destinations that you have in your own backyard.

Another Suggestion for a Driving Vacation

After I mentioned my plans to visit the Tennessee and South Carolina to drive The Dragon there's been some discussion on the concept of road trip vacations to see epic roads.  I've been on a few brief road trips before, but I've never attempted anything particularly lengthy, and I've certainly never been on a road trip where the driving was the focus of the vacation rather than just a means to an end.  I've got to say that I'm pretty fascinated by the whole concept and I'm really looking forward to our trip down to The Dragon to experience what can really be called a "driving holiday" first-hand.

That brings me to my topic for this week.  I was telling a friend from work about my desire to drive out to B.C. along the Canadian route, just to see a huge swath of our country.  He said that such a voyage sounded just a bit too arduous (I think it's the Prairies that seem unappealing) but he suggested a less logistically-challenging alternative: fly to Calgary, rent a car, and drive to Vancouver from there.  It's a way to see some of the country without having to take a month or two off work.  I'm pretty keen on the idea, and may join my friend on such a voyage in the near future.

If you just put Calgary to Vancouver into Google Maps it will, of course, give you the most direct route, largely following the Trans-Canada Highway.  However, Google Maps also lets you click and drag your route around, changing it up in certain sections as you see necessary.  As this would be a scenic trip the direct route defeats the purpose.  However, a few slight alterations seems to yield a more interesting path.  In the midst of Banff National Park Highway 1 branches off towards Yoho National Park and continues on to Glacier National Park.  These are two places that I'd like to hit, but I think they could be done as a side trip, with the intention of heading back to the fork in the road and taking Highway 93 North towards Jasper.  Beyond Jasper the road drops sharply to the South towards Kamloops.  Once the route hits Kamloops I alter it again, pulling it off it's Southerly course and turning it West to swing through Whistler before dropping down to Vancouver.  Of course, once in Vancouver the obvious thing to do it to grab the ferry and head over to the Island.

Now, this is where you, my loyal readership come in.  My experience with the West of our fine country has been confined to Vancouver Island and a small taste of mainland Vancouver.  I'm not familiar with the roads and mountain passes that cover the rest of Southern B.C. or any of Alberta.  So, has anyone been driving through these areas?  How does my route look?  Any suggestions for side-trips, or alterations to see and/or avoid certain regions would be very much appreciated.  Also, anyone who wants to join in the adventure is more than welcome to do so.

That's all of my trip-planning for this week.  Stay tuned, and watch the comments section of this post for any useful Western Canada travel tips.  See you next week!

Responses

Happy Tuesday Everyone!

I wanted to take the time this week to respond to a few comments, just so everyone knows that I actually do read them!  First, an apology to Jay, apparently the road we are going to drive is referred to as simple "The Dragon" and that "The Tail of the Dragon" is actually a gift shop.  There were several references on the Minis on the Dragon website to "The Tail of the Dragon" and I thought that was an official term.

On the subject of driving, Corey posted a link in a comment to last week's blog for a road in California.  Check last week's comment section, it looks excellent.  The link is to the Google Map for that section of road, and I highly recommend checking out the Street View of it.  I've actually heard that coastline from Washington State right down to California offers some phenomenal driving.  I'd really love to check it out sometime.

Switching over to our earlier discussion on currency; I got a pretty disbelieving reaction when I said that I had a hard time finding Yen in Toronto.  Believe me, I was just as surprised as everyone else.  I assumed that I'd be able to score some Yen at one of the big currency exchanges downtown, but I had no luck.  I'm just happy that I called ahead before going down there.  I have to assume that my inability to procure currency was some kind of strange fluke.  My greatest mistake there was waiting until just before I left to try finding Yen.  Which brings us to Travel Tip #1: Never Procrastinate!  If something can be done in advance, do it.  I wouldn't have thought that anyone in a major city would ever have trouble finding Yen, but there you go.  If I'd gotten on that sooner I probably wouldn't have had any issues.

Going farther back in the comments now, my diving buddy Helmut left me a message on one of the Iceland posts.  If you're still reading this Helmut, I got the message late, but I did get it.  I tried to e-mail you, but I got a delivery failure, I'll try again today.  Hope you are doing well.

Okay, that wraps up the responses that I wanted to get out.  Before I go, a little bit of personal news that does relate to travel.  On Saturday I purchased my first motorcycle!  It's a Honda CBR125R, which is a 125cc (small engine) sport bike.  I believe the official colour is Hurricane White.  I'm very excited about it!  Unfortunately I won't get the bike until Spring since the riding season here is on the verge of being over, so I just had the bike put directly into storage.  Come April though (maybe late March if I'm really lucky) I'll finally be able to get the bike out and start practicing.  There's been some talk of bringing it down to The Dragon, but I'll have to see if I'm feeling skilled enough at that point to make it worthwhile.  The happiest news in all of this is that I told my parents that I got a bike and as far as I know I haven't been officially disowned, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Well, more on my motorcycling adventures later.  Right now I need to go to work so that I can afford to get my bike insured.  Be well everyone!

What's Up Next

This morning begins with a sigh, as most mornings do when I realize that I don't really have any trips planned in the near future.  For me the planning of a trip can be nearly as much fun as the actual execution, and it can keep me entertained for a very long time.  Unfortunately I don't really have anything on my radar at the moment.  I'm considering booking some time off around the end of January and trying to get one of these last-minute deals where you don't know where you're going until a few weeks from departure time.  It's apparently a very cheap way to go south in the winter, and I could certainly use a nice week in the sunny Caribbean by the time January rolls around each year.  The only downside to that is that it doesn't give me a plan to drool over for the next three months.  Oh well, sometimes cost considerations have to be made.

Given that I have no concrete plan for a winter getaway the only trip that I've got definitively planned is around the end of April when I'll be heading down with Jay, Graydyn, Susan, and perhaps others to attend the Minis on the Dragon event.  They've got a website (http://minisonthedragon.info/index.html) setup if you'd like the full story, but I'll try to summarize here.  The Tail of the Dragon, or simply the Dragon is a stretch of Highway 129 that crosses the Tennessee/North Carolina state line and in 11 miles manages to curve 318 times.  This makes it a mecca for motorcycle and sports car enthusiasts.  Every spring Mini enthusiasts converge on the Dragon to experience the epic driving and enjoy the company of fellow Mini fanatics.  For any of you that know Jay, you know he looks forward to this all year.

For me the trip will be less about the driving and more about the epic countryside of rolling mountains and dense forest that surround the area.  I'm hoping to get in some really excellent hiking, and may even camp for a night at some point.  Of course, as a licensed motorcycle driver I will be tempted to rent a bike and see what I'm made of on The Dragon, but I have a sneaking suspicion that what I'm made of isn't sufficient to emerge from the The Dragon with all my limbs intact.  Maybe I'll try to get some practice next summer and leave those 318 curves for 2011.

Of Mice and Money

Happy Tuesday everyone!  I was inspired for this week's post by some comments that my friend Corey tried unsuccessfully to make on an earlier post.  He e-mailed me his thoughts on the matters of carrying cash, and exchanging currency, and I'd like to share them with you:

"If you are in a part of the world that might be considered ‘dodgy’ and need to exchange currency, make sure that you have crisp, brand new US Dollars.  They have to be the ones with the seemingly large head of Andrew Jackson (if $20’s), the new 2004 format, and not creased in any way – you’ll get a better exchange rate and the bills are much less likely to be refused.  I’ve had crumpled bills rejected in China and Central/South America, and I got a better rate in Russia.  Actually, speaking of Russia, I got a better rate from the security guard at the hotel than the Exchange Booth – of course, caution is required when changing money on the street, both in ensuring that you get real currency and only exposing what you want to exchange.  There tends to be a group of 3 or 4 guys looking to change currency, and if you open your money belt with 100’s of US Dollars and only want to exchange $40, someone’s gonna be keeping an eye on you.

It’s something that people don’t think of before they travel – the bank tellers in Canada don’t really understand when you’re asking for crisp US bills and assume you’re going to use it for sniffing cocaine."  --Corey

I really thought that was an interesting point about the crispness of the bills.  If you plan on exchanging cash when you arrive at your destination it's well worth getting a few strange looks from the bank tellers to ask for fresh money.  I've found that having your cash exchange at your destination is sometimes the only option.  We tried to get some Yen in Canada before heading to Japan and were met with VERY limited success.  I really thought that Yen would be easy to come by, but I was mistaken.  You can imagine my luck trying to find Icelandic Krona before leaving.

In Iceland I was able to exchange some Canadian money right at the airport to get me started.  If you're dealing with an airport currency exchange you're not likely to run into any issues with Canadian money, but elsewhere Corey's point about carrying US dollars can't be overstated.  In a lot of places you can just pay in USD and not have to worry about exchanging your money at all.  It's a widely accepted, and sometimes widely sought after currency, and it's probably worth taking the hit on exchanging your money twice just for the security of having such a universal form of cash.

Generally speaking I would try to avoid situations like what Corey described where you're exchanging money at the hotel lobby.  The rate at the currency exchange may be highway robbery, but it's much preferable to being robbed.  That said, if you are in a comfortable situation and feel like you can change money securely it may end up being a major cost-savings for you.  You have to know Corey to realize that situations like that just tend to work out for him.  Which leads us to travel tip #510: "Carry a horseshoe securely in your rectum."

My approach has been to bring a bit of cash to exchange at the airport and then rely on ATMs to get cash as I need it.  This avoids the always unpleasant act of carrying huge amounts of cash around.  This approach is not without it's risks however.  For any new readers I'll quickly go over my well documented ATM debacle in Japan.  At the time I had a 6-digit PIN number, which is perfectly acceptable in Canada.  Having read the Japanese ATMs worked with Canadian cards I just took as much Yen as I could muster and decided to rely on the ATM system.  My first attempt to do so was, fortunately, very early in the trip and was done more as a test than anything.  The Japanese ATM system (and apparently this goes for most ATM systems the world over) will only accept a 4-digit PIN and was unprepared for the 6-digits that I entered.  The theory is that, expecting a mere 4 digits the machine just sent the first 4 digits of my PIN to my bank for verification.  Upon receiving an incorrect PIN from a foreign country my bank did me the favour of cancelling my card.  So let that be a lesson to everyone!  You can't always count on the ATMs, and if you'd like to make use of them ensure that you have a 4-digit PIN.

Unfortunately my mishap in Japan happened despite the fact that I'd called my bank to let them know I'd be out of the country.  Still, I don't in anyway look down upon this practice and in fact I strongly encourage it.  My bank has actually taken to warning people about the 4-digit PIN situation when they call about leaving the country, so obviously I wasn't the only person to stumble over that little technicality.  There are also certain security protocols, put in place for our protection, that they will set aside given the appropriate warning.  Another fun anecdote comes from a friend of mine who's parents were travelling through Europe without having warned their bank in advance.  Apparently they were in an area where many countries were intersecting and managed to use their credit card in three different countries over the course of one day.  You can imagine what kind of alarm bells that raises with the good people at Visa!  So, for good reason, they cancelled the card.  Had they been warned in advance this situation would not have come up.  This is particularly important because, as I found out in Japan, once a card has been cancelled there's nothing to be done about it until you return home.  A few simple precautions can prevent you from being stranded with a non-functioning card.

Well, all this talk of money reminds me that I should probably go to work and earn some of it.  Any other suggestions for safely accessing your money while abroad are always welcome in the comments section.  See you all next Tuesday!

Pictures From Killarney

Okay, I was home this weekend for Thanksgiving and was able to steal my Dad's pictures from our Killarney trip. I've posted a selection of them here for your viewing enjoyment. The long weekend sort of threw me off my usual routine, so I'm afraid that this Tuesday's posting is going to be a little light. I've started compiling something for next week though. For now, enjoy the pics:

This one's from Graydyn. He got a shot of Dad by the waterfalls flowing from Killarney Lake down to Freeland.

This one's from Dad, it's looking generally North-West from the banks of our camp. I love the colour and clarity of the water in this shot.

Here's another one from Dad on our first morning at camp. It's a similar point on the shore from the previous shot, just looking more North.

I don't normally post pics of myself on here, but I thought I'd throw in this one of Jay and I (and Gray, but he's almost perfectly behind me) just so you can see my awesome new hat.

I actually took this one from up on the Crack. I think it really clearly shows why they call this place the Crack.

Another one of mine. I don't normally like the composition on my photos, but I was quite pleased with how this turned out. Also from up on the Crack.

One last one from my Dad. These are some Mergansers (spelling? I don't know. They're ducks) that were hanging around our camp.

Okay, sorry about the short post, but it's already getting late and I don't want to keep you all waiting. See you next Tuesday!

Last Week's Mighty Adventure

First off, I apologize for not posting last Tuesday. I should have mentioned in my previous post that I would still be in Killarney on Tuesday and was therefore going to miss a scheduled post. Well, it's Tuesday again and I'm back in action!

So, as mentioned earlier I went camping two weekends ago with Graydyn, Dad, and Jay. We drove up Friday afternoon, stopping in Barrie for a pretty excellent burger. I wish I could remember the name of that place; there aren't many people left in the world hand-making a patty these days. At any rate, following our epic burger stop we drove up to the lovely town of Killarney. Unfortunately the best part of the drive, the final run along the Hwy 637 into Killarney was marred by some strange form of road repair that seemed to involve just covering perfectly good paved road with gravel. The road surface along many stretches was slick with gravel and we drove through a haze of dust kicked up by other cars. Not very pleasant for us, but far less so for the motorcyclists who frequent the road. I'm happy to report though that traffic and rain conspired to pack down the gravel into something resembling a road again by the time we left. I think that may be a driveable road again already.

We did our usual trick of staying at the lodge the night before camping so that we could start out refreshed. Our biggest departure from tradition came from our means of travel: we left the kayaks at home and opted for some rented canoes. Kayaks and Canoes each offer their own unique sets of pros and cons, and we got to experience each of these first hand on this short trip. The biggest benefit that the canoe offers is the ease with which it can be loaded for travel. Gear goes into drybags, drybags get thrown into canoe. It's just that easy. The joy of that becomes abundantly clear at the portages, which were a piece of cake on this trip. It wasn't too difficult to adapt to the different style of paddling either, with Graydyn and I managing to get into a pretty good rhythm within the first couple hundred meters. It really didn't take us long to get to our destination on Lake Killarney.

We decided on campsite number 16 which is at the North of the lake just as it begins to turn East and is on the Northern side of the Crack. It was a beautiful and very sheltered sight. Not one I'd recommend if the wind is coming straight out of the North, but aside from that situation you've got a lot of shelter on all other sides, which turned out perfectly since the prevailing winds were southerly while we were away.

After we'd setup camp we just chilled out around the campsite. At one point we attempted to go swimming in the stunningly clear waters of Lake Killarney... that way brief since the water temperatures were more than just a bit bracing. It was pretty refreshing though!

Sunday morning we got up, got ourselves fed, and got right back into the canoes again. We stuck to Lake Killareny, but paddled around to the portage into Lake Kakakise, which links up to the main hiking trail. We abandoned the canoes at the head of the portage and walked it, but even that was enough to make me have serious second-thoughts about ever attempting that portage with a fully loaded boat; it's pretty rocky, and there are some steep sections. Once we hit the main trail we hiked up to the Crack. It's a hike that we've done before, but it's no less spectacular the second time around. The leaves were in their fall colours and the sky was clear and bright, offering up stunning views of the surrounding landscape.

When we returned from our hike we didn't have a lot of day left, so we spent that time casually trying to fish. We didn't have any luck, but this wasn't terribly surprising since it's reported that all the lakes in that area were heavily damaged by acid rain and have yet to recover.

The weather report had called for rain the entire time we were to be out in the park, a threat that didn't materialize until Sunday night. It was kind enough to wait until we'd all got settled comfortably into our tents though, which I thought was nice. The rain absolutely hammered down all night, and showed no signs of lagging vigor the next morning. Unfortunately, as with my last camping trip, the rainy morning was the one where we had to break camp. As expected all of our gear was completely soaked by the time we had it all loaded into the canoes and set out back to park entrance. This is where we ran into the major downside of the canoe; it doesn't handle bad weather nearly as well as a kayak. You see, a kayak is a very streamlined and low-to-the-water affair. A canoe is open and subject to the will of the wind, and also takes on a lot of water when the rain gets hard, which it did. We paddled through quite the storm, and were all thoroughly drenched by the first portage. We managed to escape the park in one piece though.

The plan was to spend Monday night in Killarney, hang out around Killarney Tuesday, and then leave on Wednesday. However, the weather was calling for the rain to continue through Tuesday and so we made the decision to just spend Monday night and then leave on Tuesday. We just felt that if we were going to be held indoors due to the weather then there was no point in hanging around. It wasn't a big deal though since we'd already had a great trip.

Well, that's all the details for now. Unfortunately I really didn't take many pictures since my Dad had his far superior camera with him, and I thought I'd leave it to him, so I don't have any pictures to post right now, but I should have some for next week's post. Tune in next week for photos!

This Week In Camping

Welcome to another exciting Tuesday! Well, exciting for me anyway; I'm pretty wound up to go camping this weekend! For those of you who haven't already been informed, I'm heading up to Killarney with Dad, Gray, and Jay on Friday. We're staying in town for the evening and then heading into the park on Saturday for some camping. We're departing from our usual approach by leaving the kayaks at come and opting for some rented canoes. It could be quite the adventure getting off the beach, since in this group only Dad has any canoeing experience. I'm quite confident that we'll be able to get the hang of it though. Dad's pretty keen on not having to load the kayaks by himself before meeting us up here, and there should be some advantages to the canoes for this particular trip. While a kayak is generally much better if the weather turns foul, and probably the vessel of choice if you're on your own, a canoe has a LOT more open space for gear. When we kayak everything ends up in small dry bag bundles to fit in the small holds. This makes it a nightmare for unloading the boats when you need to portage. With the canoes we can load all of our gear into boundary bags (think a huge dry bag with a backpack-style harness on it) so that when we hit a portage we just throw our gear on our backs, grab our canoes, and walk. I'm picturing the portages being a lot less annoying than previous they have been on previous excursions.

Speaking of camping, I've been directed to another great camping opportunity! A friend of mine recently returned from a two-year stay in Australia. He successfully avoided running afoul of Australia's legion of poisonous snakes, spiders, rocks, mammals, etc. and returned to tell the tale. And his favorite destination in Australia? Tasmania, giving a big eff yu to mainland Australia. I kid. Anyway, he really did love Tasmania for it's pristine wilderness and abundance of wildlife. Obviously this has piqued my interest. He'd mentioned that one of the things to do in Tasmania is to walk the Overland Track, a 6-day journey through the Tasmanian countryside. If you check out this website I think you'll see why I've become quite enamored of the idea: http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=7771

Apparently the Track has become quite the popular destination, but they're doing their best to manage the flow of people and keep the crowds down. Still, given their description of the weather I don't think that the off-season could throw anything at me that a good hearty Canadian lad couldn't handle. I hate crowds when I'm trying to enjoy the great outdoors. Actually, scratch the postfix there; I hate crowds. I'll do just about anything to avoid them. That includes braving a risk of snow.

My next trick will be to attempt a few long-distance hiking/camping trips around here to ensure that I'm up to the challenge. I may find that I'm not as keen on camping when I don't have a boat handy to carry all my gear for me. Fortunately this area abounds with opportunities to test myself, and I intend to do so at my nearest convenience. After that I need only face the challenge of trying to find some friends who are willing to fly half way around the world to exciting Tasmania for the privilege of sleeping on their dirt. Wish me luck with that one.

Special Announcement

Okay, it's not Tuesday, but this one takes precedence. My very good friends Steve and Tinea just welcomed their second child into the world. Keaton Collins was born 1:41 this morning at a weight of 10lbs 12oz. Mom and baby are doing well. Young Master Parker now has himself a younger brother! Congratulations to the entire Collins family. Welcome to this fine world of ours Keaton, may you see much of it and may it treat you well.

Travel Advisories

Happy Tuesday everyone!

I was really happy to see the number of people who were keeping up with this blog while I was away in Iceland, and it was great fun reading all of your comments while I was there. That's inspired me to keep this blog alive, even while I'm not abroad. I really abandoned it after Japan; I think there were about half a dozen posts between August '07 and my Iceland trip in August of '09. Obviously since this is a travel blog it's a little more difficult to keep it going when I'm not travelling, but I've got a couple ideas about that. First, I need to travel more. I'll see what I can do about that. However, in the meantime I'm going to set up a schedule. This blog will be updated every Tuesday. That will give me a week between each post to find something travel related to discuss, and it will hold me to a schedule to keep me inspired and on-track.

This week I'd like to discuss travel advisories. This actually came up quite organically in a conversation I was having with some co-workers. We were talking about governments issuing travel advisories to their citizens, but realized that we'd never gone out of our way to find these advisories. It didn't take me long to find the Canadian Government's travel website, but what really shocked me was the quality of it. That's a really great page! If you navigate to www.travel.gc.ca you'll find loads of tips for travellers as well as tips and warnings pertaining to specific countries. Just look up the country you're planning to visit and read up about any potential hazards that may await you.

Another great feature there that I was unfamiliar with is the traveller registration process. Just look to the links along the left side of their website under "Planning a trip" and you'll find a link labelled "Registration of Canadians Abroad." This allows you to let the Canadian Government know where you'll be so that they can contact you in case of an emergency back home, or make you aware of an emerging threat to your safety in the region that you are visit, should one arise. I thought that was a great service, and wanted to share it with all of you since that was new to me.

Well, that's all for now. I recommend that you all check out www.travel.gc.ca, and while you're doing that I'll be coming up with next week's topic for discussion. Please feel free to make suggestions if there's something in particular that you'd like me to research or discuss.

Montreal: By Land, Sea, and Air

Montreal!

This trip was a bit of a last-minute decision, and was largely initiated by Graydyn's desire to go there and eat all of their food. He actually booked the whole thing while I was still in Iceland, which was a real treat for me since I was still on vacation while getting updates via e-mail about my next trip. I think I need to ensure that I've always got something being planned while I'm away...

We (being Graydyn, Susan, Jay, and myself) just went for the Labour Day long weekend, and in order to make the most of our time we decided to fly. Porter airlines runs short-distance flights on smaller planes from the diminutive Toronto City Centre Airport. This option is extremely convenient for us since we were able to take the subway down, catch a ferry (hence the travelling by sea portion of this post's title) and then jump on a plane. Since it's a smaller airport you don't need to leave as much time to get through security and all that. Also, you get to wait in the hippest departure lounge I've ever been in! The flight itself is a piece of cake, weighing in somewhere around the one hour mark. It goes a little something like this: take off, gain altitude, level off, get served snack and red wine, eat snack, chug red wine since you are beginning decent, descend, touchdown. Yeah, not exactly a taxing way to travel.

Upon arrival at Montreal we grabbed a cab to our hotel, which is probably a better bet than relying on public transit if you've got enough people to split the cost. We then did what anyone should do immediately upon getting settled in Montreal; this:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is my first ever genuine Quebec poutine, served at the world-famous Dunn's restaurant in downtown Montreal. Beside it you will see the edge of a smoked meat sandwich (the well deserved source of Dunn's fame) and above it a beer. There can be no better way to spend an evening with your friends than this.

We didn't get in till the evening, so by the time we'd had our food we were ready to wind down for the evening.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and got our tourism well and truly underway. We were going to start with the Botanical Gardens, but on our way stopped to check out this impressive structure:

No, not Graydyn. That's the Olympic Stadium in the background. It's a great landmark since the Botanical Gardens are across the street from it, and the Biodome is beside it. Both of those are things that you should check out by the way.

The Botanical Gardens feature a very nice Insectarium, with cool things like this on the wall:

There were also some live insects, but they don't let them wander about as freely as the metal ones, and they didn't photograph well through their glass homes.

The gardens themselves were very nice with great features like a Japanese garden:

A nice pond:

And a very cool heron:

After touring around there for quite awhile we jumped across the street to the Biodome. This building encloses a variety of distinct ecosystems, kept separate from each other at their ideal temperatures.

You can wander around freely through these various forests and admire their denizens, sometimes quite close up.

It was a bit crowded in there and I really wouldn't mind taking a look around again sometime when it's not the Saturday of a holiday weekend.

By the time we'd finished wandering about the Biodome it was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for dinner. Graydyn and Susan had dinner plans, so Jay and I just wandered about until we found an appealing looking restaurant. We picked a rib joint called Bofinger which I highly recommend for their pulled pork sandwich and great poutine, but ironically not for their ribs which Jay reported were a bit lackluster.

The following day started out with a breakfast of crepes at "Crepes 2Go" which I HIGHLY recommend. They've only got one guy making the crepes on a pair of griddles, so it may take awhile if there's a crowd, but it's well worth the wait.

After that we took a trip down to Montreal's historic "Old Town" to have a look around and the nice architecture:

Another great example being:

We made our way down to the shore of the river and followed it for awhile, taking in the nice views:

After spending the morning wandering about we were ready for a big lunch. We made our way to another world-famous venue for smoked meat sandwiches: Shwartz's. This place can be easily identified by the clear sign, and the 465,000 people lined up outside waiting desperately to get in and have a sandwich. If you happen to be in the area and notice that there is a full legion waiting to get in, try the door to the left, which leads to their take-out-only restaurant. You'll have to find somewhere else in the city to eat your lunch, but at least you'll get it before dinner time.

I, for one, was pretty beat by the time we were finished lunch. I should have brought my hiking boots on this trip, but I neglected to do so, and my poor choice of footwear may have lead to my lack of enthusiasm for further walking. We just chilled out in the hotel pool for the afternoon so that my various appendages could recover from their trauma.

That evening we headed to Au Pied De Cochon (I believe that's literally "The Pig's Foot" and I hope I spelled it correctly) which was really the focal point of this entire culinary adventure. This epic restaurant has an entire section dedicated to the lovely Fois Gras, and features numerous wonderful duck dishes. If you are dining with a vegetarian I strongly recommend finding another venue unless they feel like making a meal of bread and water. Actually, given the state of their menu I imagine that there's some duck somewhere in the bread as well.

Needless to say we had a wonderful meal, which capped off a great weekend. There wasn't much more to the weekend, since we just got up the next day, had breakfast, and made our way to the airport. I'm somewhat ashamed that it's taken me this long to make my way to Montreal, and I really wish that I'd had more time to enjoy it. I can say with certainty that it won't be the last time I find myself in that truly lovely city... I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

Montreal: Ready To Go

Hi everyone! It's Friday morning and I'm just taking a moment to write this before I head to work. I'm all packed up and as soon as work is finished I'll be making a quick dash home, grabbing my luggage, and jumping on the subway down to the airport. After a mere one hour on the plane I'll be in Montreal! I'm really liking the sound of this short trip.

To confirm, my laptop is indeed dead. I'll still do my best to get a post or two out this weekend, but the pictures will have to wait until next week, probably Tuesday. With my machine in the shop for the third time (with the same symptoms) and having very little life left in its battery I was VERY tempted to just get myself a new laptop. Unfortunately the more I researched the new line of netbooks that are out right now the pickier I got. I've figured out what machine I was (Asus Eee PC 1005HA-P) but wasn't able to procure one in time for this trip. Having missed the mark for my Montreal trip I've just put a hold of any computer shopping for now. If it's even three months before I need a laptop again the entire face of what's available to the consumer will have drastically changed and I'll have to re-educate myself on what's out there.

Okay, I have to keep this brief, so I'm signing off now. Remember to check in this weekend as I will hopefully be able to find internet access somewhere along the line. Failing that I will get all my thoughts up in one massive post on Tuesday. Talk to you later!

Final Thoughts On Iceland

Well, I'm home now. As much as it will pain me to be back to work on Monday, sometimes it's nice to be home. I'm really looking forward to my trip back to Petrolia tonight, it will be great to see everyone and go through my pictures. The latter activity might be an issue as my laptop appears to have died... again. Same problem as the first two times. Oh well, at least it didn't fail my while I was away.

I just wanted to close out this trip with a few final thought, tips really, for anyone considering a trip to Iceland (which I highly recommend.) So here's my tips for the Icelandic adventure:

1) Your hot water is probably going to smell like sulphur. That's because it gets pumped out of the ground, and there's nothing to be done about it, so save yourself the trouble of complaining to the front desk.

2) The wind in Iceland can be savage. This is largely attributed to the lack of trees. Whatever the cause, make sure you have a good jacket that is breathable but blocks out the wind.

3) Regarding the aforementioned wind: when it's that windy the weather can change in a hurry. If you are going out make sure you dress for changes in the weather.

4) Layer up so that you've got something to take off; the weather can turn nice just as quickly as it can turn foul.

5) Due to the high winds the rain can travel in an alarmingly horizontal fashion. While umbrellas are commonly used, and widely available, in the long run you may be better served by a rain suit, especially if you are out on adventurous activities.

6) Don't burden yourself with trying to find Kronur in your home country, or ever travelling with huge amounts of cash unless you are going to be away from a major centre for awhile. Bank machines are everywhere in the capital and plastic is very widely accepted. Just make sure that you have a 4-digit PIN.

7) If you are even considering a trip in August make sure that you look up when the Reykjavik Marathon is held. It's always a Saturday in August. This is important because whatever day the marathon is, that evening will be Culture Night, and you don't want to miss that.

8) Over-the-counter pharmaceuticals are not as readily available as they are in Canada. Even mild painkillers for a headache appear to only be available in pharmacies, and even then they are kept behind the counter. With the pharmacy hours not being particularly long it's advised that if you are even slightly prone to headache, allergy, etc. that you bring some meds with you.

9) The day-night cycle shifts around quite quickly. Make sure that you are aware of when the sun rises and sets for the time that you are there and if the sun will be up during hours that you are likely to be sleeping bring a sleep mask. Heavy blinds and curtains aren't necessarily something you can count on.

That's really about all I can offer in terms of advice for the perspective Iceland tourist. I can only now reiterate that I highly recommend this as a vacation spot. It's got all the excitement and adventure that you could ask for, but is quite easy to travel to since they've got a very well established tourist trade and English is spoke almost universally.

To close, I had a staggeringly good time and I really do hope that I get the opportunity to visit again. Hopefully sometime soon. I'll be back home in Petrolia for this weekend, visiting friends and family. Next weekend will find Graydyn, Susan, Jay, and myself in Montreal, so look for some posts then. Thanks for reading, and an extra special thanks for those who commented while I was away, it was great to have that feedback and to know that everyone was keeping tabs on me.

For now, this is Colin, signing off.

My Last Day In Iceland Draws To A Close

It's truly sad to say, but the sun is setting on my last full day in Reykjavik. Tomorrow will be almost entirely a travel day. I'm really hoping that they've got a Wi-Fi hotspot somewhere in the airport that I can make a final post from, but if not I'll post from Canada tomorrow with my final thoughts on the trip, and a few useful tips I've compiled. For now, I'll just focus on the events of the day.

I let myself sleep in again this morning, once again choosing a good night's sleep over the free breakfast. I actually ended up having a quite a good breakfast at Cafe Paris, which is close to my guesthouse. You always find the good restaurants on your last day don't you?

Left with a bit of time to kill I began to wander aimlessly around Reykjavik. I ended up approaching Hallgrimskirkja from the back of the church, and got some shots that show how impressive the structure must be without all the scaffolding on it.



It really is a massive structure. Also, on my first day here I'd just snapped a few photos as I wandered past, so this time I decided to actually poke my head in for a moment. I rather enjoy the fact that in the Viking tradition even their pipe organ looks a bit like a weapon:



After snapping a few more shots of the church I went to catch the bus for my rafting trip. Unfortunately this concludes the portion of the post where I have any pictures to show. My camera is waterproof, but I didn't have a good way of securing it to myself for the rafting ride and I decided that it was just too risky to bring it along. It's a shame too, I could have got some great pictures.

The rafting itself was a blast. Almost everyone on my raft was Canadian, and we all got questioned on why we would have to come to Iceland for rafting when there was certainly perfectly good rafting to be had in Canada. I guess sometimes the things that are close to home just get taken for granted. I've been informed that there's some excellent white water rafting to be had in Ottawa for those of you who don't feel like making the trek to Iceland.

For anyone considering the Hvítá rafting experience here, you should keep in mind that you will get wet, and you will get cold. This is just part of the Icelandic rafting experience, and should be something that you are prepared to deal with. Beyond that it's not really a difficult river and makes for a good first ride. There were plenty of flat stretches where we were just fooling around by playing various games while standing on the side walls, which invariably ended with someone (often me) in the water. It really gets you used to the whole feel of rafting.

Since returning to Reykjavik I've just had time for dinner, and then to get here to my beloved cafe for a blog post. After this it will probably be time for me to call it a night. As I mentioned earlier I'm going to get a wrap-up post up either tomorrow or Friday, so check in for that. Also, as Graydyn pointed out in the comments, I'll be in Montreal the Labour Day long weekend, and I'll hopefully be able to get a post or two in there as well.

Check in soon, more posts to follow! Thanks for reading everyone!

A Slight Departure From My Master Plan

Okay, so with only a couple of days left in Iceland I'd managed to formulate a fairly concrete master plan. Today we white water rafting at noon, which I expected to take up the whole afternoon, so I figured that I'd sleep in as much as possible to make sure that I was fully refreshed, and then make rafting the focus of my day. Tomorrow I'd intended to hit a couple of interesting sounding museums and spend the day around Reykjavik.

Arriving at the Cintimani Centre at noon today I was informed that I wasn't in the system. Apparently Reykjavik Excursion, whom I booked this tour with, outsource most of their tours to other more specialize tour groups, and (I was informed) have a habit of forgetting to actually call these tour groups to book people into the tours they had been sold. I was quite ready to recommend Reykjavik Excursions as a convenient place to book any sort of tour that might happen to interest you, but this puts a damper on that plan. They still operate the FlyBus, the most convenient way of getting between Reykjavik, the Blue Lagoon, and the airport at Keflavik, so don't give up on them completely, but you may wish to exercise some caution when it comes to booking anything else with them.

That said, the good people at Cintamani were willing to accept my ticket to the rafting tour and book me in for tomorrow, so at least I don't have to go shout at someone from Reykjavik Excursions about getting my money back. The unfortunate thing is that I'd really just slept in and then killed time this morning waiting for the rafting trip, when I could have been using that time to see the sights.

Realizing that I'd already lost half the day I immediately set out to recoup what was left of yesterday's plan so I headed in the direction of the National Museum of Iceland. Along the way I came across this:





That is a rather substantial cemetery in Reykjavik that David had pointed out upon returning from one of our diving trips a few days ago. I believe it's the biggest in the country, though I can't confirm that. It's obviously quite old, and it was fascinating to walk around, especially with the drizzling weather setting an ideal mood. I just love the fact that it looks more like a forest than a cemetery. There are trees everywhere, often dominating the plot, with only a tiny chuck of stone to let you know that it's actually a grave. Very natural, and very nice.

From there I went across the road to the museum. There's a rather large, permanent exhibit in place on the history of Iceland that's well worth checking out. It's free on Wednesdays, which is why it's even more unfortunate that I couldn't have gone tomorrow instead, but at a mere 800ISK it's still worth checking out no matter what day of the week you manage to get there. The light was dim, and most exhibits were behind glass, so photography was difficult, but I managed a few good shots.

Below is the actual axe head and wood block used in the last ever execution carried out in Iceland!



The next shot depicts some settlement-era weapons that have been found in various grave sites.



Some of you are surely wondering at the strange coincidence that the only pictures that turned out happen to display one type of weapon or another. Those that know me better will realize that medieval weapons are the reason that I go to museums and that I have not, in fact, photographed anything else.

From there I began my final mission that I'd planned for tomorrow: Souvenir Shopping. Whenever I'm planning on living out of my backpack for awhile I bring at least one simple nylon stuff sack. This allows me to put my dirty clothes in a distinct bag to keep them separate from the clean stuff. It's just an organizational aid really. I found out today though that there is a great advantage to having your clothes in a stuff sack as opposed to neatly folded in your backpack... they take up a lot less space. With liberal amounts of squeezing, pushing, and swearing I was able to get all of the clothes that I've worn up to this point into an incredibly compact little package. I have no further worries about shipping silly souvenirs home, and all without having to buy an extra piece of luggage.

To Corey's point, yes, I could buy Brennivin at the duty-free in the airport. However, since it's become such a discussion point I didn't want to risk getting through airport security only to find that there was none to be had at the duty-free. I therefore decided to just go buy some at the local liquor store. I could have just bought a 1L bottle, but going with two 500mL bottles allowed me to get them in plastic bottles which should have far less risk of breakage. I was willing to throw out some of my clothes, but I'd rather they not all smell like caraway schnapps. Everything else I've got will just be wrapped in the few remaining articles of clothing that I'm either wearing, or will wear tomorrow, and I will have to hope that they survive the travel-related abuses that are sure to befall them.

As a side note, I've decided to take the advice that my dear Aunt Jeanette gave in the comments section of a previous post and do this for a living. From this point forward my new job title is "Adventurer" and that is how I intend to introduce myself. It should be noted that I haven't yet figured out how to earn any money by adventuring, so I will continue to occasionally perform the duties of a computer programmer in order to fund my hobbies of eating, having a roof over my head, and adventuring for a living. That's a fairly minor footnote though and should not detract in anyway from viewing me as a paramount adventurer while I figure out how to get paid for this ridiculously lavish lifestyle.

Well, I've still got a few hours left in this day, but the weather is (as it has been all day) truly miserable. I may decide to just stay holed up in my cafe here and have a couple beers to pass the time. I'll be back on tomorrow night, hopefully with tales of rafting!