Feb 18th, 2013 by Brian |
6 months… 6 years… we are spoiled, but the time that passed since our epic Baltic adventure felt more like the latter. The infectious itch to get away was back, and it needed to be scratched! A few contributing factors also increased the likelihood of full blown travel lust:
- Iceland Air announced another smokin’ deal on airfare+hotel that was hard to pass up
- My birthday was approaching
- Sónar music festival was expanding to Reykjavik this year… on my birthday… tickets only €85/person!
This would be another whirlwind weekend trip to Reykjavik with barely enough time to adjust to GMT. Fellow Mongol Rally veteran and Canadian friend Romanda joined us again via a quick flight from her new home in London, as she had last summer in Stockholm, to celebrate. 
Since we would be up all of Friday and Saturday night at the festival, we spent most of our daytime just relaxing in Reykjavik. Chilling out in cafes, visiting hot pot pools inside the city, and generally being lazy. We did fit in a look at Hallgrímskirkja and an interesting taste of fermented shark meat at Cafe Loki… but that’s pretty much it.
Harpa concert hall was the focus of our attention, and an amazing location for Sónar. Highlights: Sísý Ey, GusGus, Modeselektor, Squarepusher, Oculus, Ólafur Arnalds and Sin Fang! Two nights of amazing music, lots of walking/dancing, and exhaustion.
Spending a day at Blue Lagoon was again the perfect way to wind down before getting on the plane and flying home.
Now, to board another plane to San Francisco for SFMusicTech before I actually return to Seattle…
Posted in Iceland | No Comments »
originally posted on roamgreen.org
Waking early despite the late night out, I knew immediately that yesterday’s slightly scratchy throat was more than allergies or lack of sleep. I thought maybe a couple cups of the hibiscus tea in our apartment’s cupboard would sooth it, or maybe the eucalyptus läckerol I picked up at a sweet shop (side note, I’m addicted to läckerol from driving around Scandinavia now)… but no. A few hours of walking around sightseeing this morning and I was done. The girls stayed out and saw more of the town, but I’ve been back at the apartment chilling out all day. Hope to sleep this off tonight before we drive back to Hamburg tomorrow.
Posted in Denmark | No Comments »
Jun 30th, 2012 by Brian |
originally posted on roamgreen.org
The final stage of the rally today and we made great time from Stockholm to Copenhagen. After great weather in Stockholm we woke to a gray and rainy morning, but we soon left it behind as we chased better weather to the southwest. For the first time really on the rally we could properly say “hot” was the best description. An abusive toll allowed us to cross a pretty spectacular bridge and tunnel from Sweden into Denmark and we were quickly into the center of the city and cleaning up in another awesome Airbnb apartment.
We were among the last, if not *the* last, teams to arrive at the finish line party just a few minutes before 18h (what we’ll have to become re-accustomed to calling 6pm when we return home). Indeed, a few teams had already left to begin the long drive home to southern Germany as they had to be back at work on Monday. A fantastic spread of food was laid out for us to feast upon, and everybody set about congratulating each other on finishing. I tried purchasing a few drinks at the bar, but refused to sign a credit card receipt for Kr1510 (over $250)… oops, bar mistake, but they couldn’t seem to reverse the charge! Yikes. They assured me they would correct it before the billing reconciliation over night… we’ll see. The finish line ceremony awarded us a glossy certificate and basking in the glory of being last place among cars in the RoadBook competition, earning 8 out of a possible 25 points! Well earned if we do say so ourselves, given we skipped Russia, and put in a pretty creative interpretation of some of the tasks. The only team to earn less than us was a motorcycle team, but several teams didn’t do the RoadBook at all, so I think we accurately placed about middle of the pack.
About midnight, and in actual post-sunset darkness for the first time in a couple weeks, most of the remaining teams filtered off to bed, and we drove back to our apartment to park the car, but went out to meet up with another team and the promotions girls at a Scottish pub. Copenhagen never seems to sleep, people of all ages were still riding bicycles around town until all hours, and even parents out walking babies in strollers at 2 in the morning. Leaving quite early we were back at the apartment to sleep by 3 (most bars close at 5).
The rally is officially over and we have just a few days left before the trip is as well. Vi ses snart i Seattle!
Posted in Denmark, Sweden | No Comments »
Jun 29th, 2012 by Brian |
originally posted on roamgreen.org
Today was more meandering around Stockholm. Originally we were going to drive to Oslo today, but having to go to Copenhagen tomorrow would only leave us the 1 night in Oslo and with an over 7 hour drive to get there, it really didn’t make sense. We had a free place to stay in Oslo, but bensin (aka gas, petrol, liquid gold) is so dyrt (aka expensive) in Norway that paying for an extra night to stay in Stockholm is the same, if not less. It was nice to have a lazy day to wander around Södermalm neighborhood and see the city from the other side of the water today. We also took care of some rally mission tasks, develop film from our rally cam, and pick up Swedish vodka for our Baltic Rally local vodka collection. Today was also Romanda’s birthday, Happy Birthday Ro! The three of us went out for a fancy dinner in Gamla Stan and came back to the apartment to polish off a bottle of wine.
Been touristing so hard I’m still slow on photos, but I posted some Helsinki pics finally!
Tomorrow is the last rally stage, drive to Copenhagen and party at the finish line!
Posted in Sweden | No Comments »
Jun 28th, 2012 by Brian |
originally posted on roamgreen.org
Today Kim and I were joined by a 3rd Baltic Hero for the remainder of the rally:
Our Canadian friend Romanda from Mongol Rally team 3 Blondes and a Beater is now living in London and will be joining us for the next couple of days in Stockholm and Copenhagen to finish up the rally!
We all met at the central station this morning, meandered around Gamla stan and grabbed some lunch. Bellies full from a delicious veggie buffet, we met up with a fourth, another friend from Seattle who is Swedish and lives here part of the year leading tours around Scandinavia. We all walked over to Djurgården and explored Skansen, part zoo, part cultural and historical review of Sweden. Hours later, more walking, back down to Gamla stan for dinner, before finally catching the tunnelbana back to Abrahamsberg to end the night. Pretty exhausted today. The GPS track says we walked 9 miles, but it feels like we must have walked more. Planning to explore Söder tomorrow, maybe less walking… oh yeah, and photos at some point
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Posted in Sweden | No Comments »