Comparisons

Landmannalaugar-I mean, the Badlands.

Which one is the real Arc de Triomphe? hmmm.

Venice or "Venice"

First batch of photos

A cute mural in the Charlie Brown museum.

The infamous In-N-Out fast food chain.

50 states make for interesting plates.

It was such a nice clear day when I went on this hill. It's usually foggy!

Self explanatory.

The cute family dog. Aww, Muffin!

Some random buskers outside Fisherman's Wharf.

You'd never see houses like this in Toronto! Every house is unique here unlike the cookie cutter houses so common in suburban sprawl.

Ocean Beach. Very creative name.

A few years ago I wrote about how Quebec reminded me of San Francisco because of its steep hills. Well, here you go.

The view of downtown San Francisco from the Modern Art Museum.

Open wide! A lot of people take the very accessible public transit system, which includes streetcars, buses, cable cars and the subway.

The sun is deceiving. It's quite cold.

Random Québec Pics

Here are some pictures. Sorry for the spacing between the pictures, I don't know what happened.

I live here! No, I wish. But this street is full of houses, one being auctioned for Sotheby's, and it's CLOSE to where I live!

Bike stunts.

More bike stunts.

Shoes collés on the wall.

This is supposed to be Styx.

Moulin à images.

Moulin à images. There was staged smoke coming out of the silo thing!

Chute de Montmercy.

Confiture tasting.

Chair with no back - Île d'Orléans specialty

Beirut and Bell Orchestre at the Festival de Québec!

La Citadelle

Rue Sous-le-Cap. C'est belle, non?

Les lofts.

Snæfellnes Pictures

Here's a link to the pictures Stefan, our tour guide, took of an excursion to Snæfellsnes.

More on that later.
*Update May 11*: Snæfellsnes is a peninsula north of the Reykjanes peninsula. Many people go there for daytrips because purpotedly it is mini-Iceland: most natural features of Iceland can be seen all in here. It is home to Iceland's newest national park. In all a day's time, we drove along the southern part of the peninsula, and then the north and then quickly came back down to RVK.

First, we drove to see some basalt columns. Did you know that the design of the big church in Reykjavik, Hallgrimskirkja, was inspired by these columns?

And then we stopped to see some seals. They are such wonderful creatures because they peer at you from a safe yet close distance, bobbing up and down, only their heads sticking out while you watch. No, we did not see any puffins and I do not care about whether or not I will see puffins because they are little brats!

Next we stopped at a fishing village in the southwest. We walked to the edge of the cliffs and below us were sandy black beaches and huge caves. Another part of it reminded me of the Bay of Fundy.

We drove through the national park. Personally, I wasn't very impressed by it as like most of everything else it was a wasteland. But it contained Snæfellsjökull, the volcano-glacier where, according to Jules Verne, one can enter the center of the earth.

We stopped at another beach area but then it was really windy and raining and I felt like I was going to catch a cold so I didn't pay much attention to where we were or why we stopped there.

The best part, though, was the shark museum. It's located on the northeastern part of the peninsula. As we pulled up into the parking yard, we saw a huge dead shark on a cart. Everyone of course jumped out of the car and crowded around the cart, quickly snapping pictures. People started poking the skin, which I felt repulsed by. It was a 110-year-old shark, caught the night before. They can live until 150 years, but it takes 40 years to ferment before it can be eaten. The owner came out - he's really passionate about his field of expertise and it showed - and after a while talking about the shark, he said, "Why don't we go to the drying shack. It's much more interesting." (in Icelandic he said all this). I loved the fact that what we thought was the most fascinating thing was mundane for him. We headed to the shack where fish was drying. There the owner told us the story of his travel to Italy. He had brought some fermented shark meat to his friend in Italy. The police eventually came knocking at the door and asked where he had put the corpse. Then we headed into the museum where a lot of neat fishing and shark things were displayed.

Awesome day.

Cave beach thing.

Shark museum.

Shark.

Photos: Aldrei fór ég suður og RANDOM

I figure it's taking too long to upload these photos manually so from now on I think I will have links to my flickr account. The photos of this entry are also available at the account. Enjoy!

The following were taking about three weeks ago, when the capital was holding a blues festival. These cars sort of invaded the public square for a while.

Sunsets in Seltjarnes.

Me and the horse I was riding on.

Most famous and delicious hot dog stand in town. The lines are there at all times of the day. A few days ago I learned Icelanders' most consumed foodstuffs are hot dogs and Coca-Cola. Diabete epidemic, anyone? Note the massive construction in the background.

This is in Núpur in the Westfjords. A piece of wool left behind.

This photo looks kind of weird because I'm leaning to one side and DM to another. But this is at the concert.

Dr. Spock, the Icelandic wannabe of the Kaizer's Orchestra!

So beautiful.

I must include this only because I think it looks like something out of a movie poster. I'm not saying I take cinematic pictures - it really just looks like that. By the way, they were looking at the scenery in the picture right above this one.

Kulusuk Photos

Here's what Reykjavik looks like from the air.

It's Greenland! The other side of the plane looked even more interesting, unfortunately.

First look at the village: From the airport you hike about 3 km, round a mountain corner then see this.

Our cabin/ accommodation for the next few days. It's made out of strong, flexible wood and can stand storms, even though it doesn't look like it. There were already kids hanging around when we got there.

Dogsledding!

Notice the blue, blue sky in the background. It's like an inverted version of the colours of the sea in the Mediterranean or Caribbean.

Cute girl who just ran up to us and started playing with us.

Tobogganing, or 'sledging'.

The storm! Spot the houses!

The windows after the storm had really intricate designs.

The brown barrels are there to hold the house down and prevent it from blowing away!

Bingo night.

Rocks, with lots of striations.

At the edge of Kulusuk.

Our food group, who shopped and cooked together. With lots of Ritter Sport chocolate.

Once more, the cracked ice. They look like continents from up here.

I wish I could've taken more pictures of the mountains as we were coming in, and also the dogs. But such is chance.