Currently

Reading: a lot of Margaret Atwood and Peter Carey.

Watching: the entire collection of Red Dwarf; Big Love, Lost and Battlestar Galactica have all returned.

Feeling: like snotty death, caught a sinus cold in London when I was there last week and have spent the whole week in bed in my smelly musty room.

So, I went to London last week to see Wicked (which was wicked by the way), and to catch up with some fellow Aussies, that is Brad and Pamela of Adelaide fame. Technically I had intended to go see Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London, as well as do some shopping, but came down with aforementioned cold, and instead enjoyed the hospitality – and English television – of Palmers Lodge Hostel for most of the ‘holiday’. To my credit, I did try once to go site-seeing: I made it as far as Picadilly Circus, got off the bus, ran into a Starbucks, threw up in their loo (it’s alright, I bought a hot chocolate to make up for it), and decided that maybe I was too sick to be trekking around in London weather.

I learned two valuable lessons on this trip:

1) If you are Australian, you do need a passport to cross into the UK from France, even if you have a Carte de Sejour (French temporary residents card). I realised I’d forgotten my passport about thirty seconds before the bus pulled into the Passport Control. Luckily they did let me through on a one-time-only deal, but only because I had a job in France, the Carte de Sejour, theatre tickets, and a return ticket for the following Sunday.

2) red wine is the same colour when it comes back up; and combined with half digested pepperoni pizza, makes your vomit look like splattered brains.

Yokkaichi-Astroboy (as I’m now calling him) got around also:

Pamela, Brad and Astroboy.

Pam's friend.

Their housemate.

The pubs/bars in London don’t exactly vary much from those at home: the place we went too could’ve been Mansions or New York’s – even the wine I was drinking was from South Oz.

Meanwhile, back in Lille, I’m reading about these record 44 degree temperatures back in Adelaide when I get up to open the blind to be greeted by:

Frosty tree in our yard.

Sub-zero temperatures froze the dew everywhere, creating a lovely white wonderland. This happened the other day, when I’d just come back from Iceland:

Trees and rooves covered in frost.

Look how magnificently clear the sky is. I love it when it goes sub-zero. No fog.

Frost patterns in the graffiti of a phone booth.

How gorgeous is this: graffiti scratched into the glass of a phone booth caught the dew and froze in crystalline patterns. It was wonderful.

Meanwhile, I have been slack talking about the Iceland trip, so here I go. Bear in mind there were something like 2000 photos and video footage.

Iceland (Part One)

Definitely here for the exchange rate, but hey, the nature's a bonus.

At least the Icelanders have got a sense of humour about their financial situation. If you weren’t aware, Iceland’s one of the great victims of the financial crisis: every single one of their banks collapsed and their currency devalued something like 400% in two years. One of Europe’s most expensive countries has suddenly become one of its cheapest. So I booked a ticket.

It’s still expensive in some ways: buy your alcohol at the airport, duty free, and bring as much food as you can carry back in Europe (no dairy or meat, though) and you’ve beaten two of the biggest expenses. Tours are reasonable priced, accomodation is pretty cheap and most sight-seeing is relatively inexpensive. Expect to go on a lot of tours or rent a car, however, as public transport is worse even than the US, and pretty much everything of interest is outside the city (there’s only one city, Reykjavik).

Reykjavik City Hostel

I stayed at the Reykjavik City Hostel, probably the best HI Hostel I’ve stayed in*, which is lucky, as its the only hostel in Reykjavik. It’s location sucks arse – it’s 40-minutes walk away from Downtown Reykjavik – and it doesn’t have a bar or a restaurant, so it’s not going to win any Best-Hostel-In-The-World awards, but it did have three kitchens, common rooms, facilities and so on that were pretty sweet.

Such is the food prices in Iceland that most guests eat in, cooking their own food.The kitchens were the best I’ve ever had in a hostel (second runner up would be Adelaide Hostel in San Francisco), due to a system where food can be stored in your own basket, with leftovers transfered to the ‘Orange’ basket when you left. I raided the ‘Orange’ baskets in all three kitchens, looking for things like butter, salt, spices, pasta, milk and so on. Similarly, the kitchens at the City Hostel were the main social hub of the hostel.

Next time I’ll talk about the glacier walk and other exciting things, but for now I’m too fucked.

Seeya.

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* ‘the best HI Hostel I’ve ever stayed in’ – note this isn’t particularly a big call, as most Hostelling International Hostels are, well, as exciting as an extended stay in hospital. I generally avoid them like the plague if I can.