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Iceland
My first (hopefully of many) mini-breaks after 'settling in' to London life. My main hope for the weekend was that we'd get to see the Northern Lights - unfortunately that wasn't to be as the skies were too overcast and apparently it wasn't cold enough (don't believe the hype - it was freezing and but for Megan's coat/sleeping bag combo, I'd have been in trouble)... but aside from that, I couldn't have asked for anything more. 
There were 15 of us in the group and on day 1, we did the typical boy/girl split - while the boys went to sample food and drinks (and supposedly checked out a museum), the girls hit the shops. To the delight of those who have been in London a little longer than I have, it turns out Iceland's home grown fashion scene is actually quite similar to New Zealand's - although we weren't quite sure about all the claims that Iceland must seem cheap now that the banks have collapsed! Still, as a group, I think we did our bit to support the local economy... and I have a feeling there'll be quite a few comments along the lines of "Oh, this old thing? I picked it up in Iceland a while ago"! If only the Iceland shaped ice-cube moulds hadn't cost in the region of £20 - how cool a conversation piece would they have been! 
Touristy stuff (minus the Northern Lights) was taken care of on day 2 when we did the Golden Circle tour in a super jeep. We saw (part of) the Great Atlantic Rift, stopped by some geysirs (pronounced "geezer" in Iceland, much to our amusement), and went snow-mobiling on a glacier. The fact it was snowing while we were on the glacier was great - until we started travelling at 70kms an hour and you had to choose between a visor and poor visibility or no visor, visibility but stinging flakes in your face. The things we do! Icelandic food was delicious, although I didn't venture into the 
domain of whale burgers. Hard to pick a highlight but gourmet, late night pizzas and peppersteak to satisfy a specific craving boh deserve a special mention. If only the wine had been up to the same standard. The Icelandic people were lovely and friendly (and supposedly a little crazy according to our snow-mobile captain). The landscape is incredibly majestic. And everything seems set up to make it easy for tourists - our transfer to the airport was arranged so that we got to spend a couple of hours in some hot pools en-route. Perfect, relaxing way to end a lovely long weekend. Special thanks to Ed, Alex, Kristen and Troy for looking into tours and getting the rest of us organised.
My first (hopefully of many) mini-breaks after 'settling in' to London life. My main hope for the weekend was that we'd get to see the Northern Lights - unfortunately that wasn't to be as the skies were too overcast and apparently it wasn't cold enough (don't believe the hype - it was freezing and but for Megan's coat/sleeping bag combo, I'd have been in trouble)... but aside from that, I couldn't have asked for anything more. 
There were 15 of us in the group and on day 1, we did the typical boy/girl split - while the boys went to sample food and drinks (and supposedly checked out a museum), the girls hit the shops. To the delight of those who have been in London a little longer than I have, it turns out Iceland's home grown fashion scene is actually quite similar to New Zealand's - although we weren't quite sure about all the claims that Iceland must seem cheap now that the banks have collapsed! Still, as a group, I think we did our bit to support the local economy... and I have a feeling there'll be quite a few comments along the lines of "Oh, this old thing? I picked it up in Iceland a while ago"! If only the Iceland shaped ice-cube moulds hadn't cost in the region of £20 - how cool a conversation piece would they have been! 
Touristy stuff (minus the Northern Lights) was taken care of on day 2 when we did the Golden Circle tour in a super jeep. We saw (part of) the Great Atlantic Rift, stopped by some geysirs (pronounced "geezer" in Iceland, much to our amusement), and went snow-mobiling on a glacier. The fact it was snowing while we were on the glacier was great - until we started travelling at 70kms an hour and you had to choose between a visor and poor visibility or no visor, visibility but stinging flakes in your face. The things we do! Icelandic food was delicious, although I didn't venture into the 
domain of whale burgers. Hard to pick a highlight but gourmet, late night pizzas and peppersteak to satisfy a specific craving boh deserve a special mention. If only the wine had been up to the same standard. The Icelandic people were lovely and friendly (and supposedly a little crazy according to our snow-mobile captain). The landscape is incredibly majestic. And everything seems set up to make it easy for tourists - our transfer to the airport was arranged so that we got to spend a couple of hours in some hot pools en-route. Perfect, relaxing way to end a lovely long weekend. Special thanks to Ed, Alex, Kristen and Troy for looking into tours and getting the rest of us organised. 
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