one icelandic horse for christmas, please

this is one of the many reasons why iceland is awesome
the hotdogs are another
so are the horses


weathers a bit shit though

"ah! the famous maddie barton!"

i made it! to Iceland! without turning into a goose!

although, if i was a goose, then perhaps the flight would have been nicer. most turbulent thing ever. reason being Iceland has caught the tail end of a hurricane. which means the weather is beautiful. raining and pouring and windy. 

it´s awesome. absolutely awesome. 

i arrived at Þórgnýr's at midnightish, after nearly having been blown back to Aus. a considerable achievement on the weathers part, considering my pack weighs nineteen point seven kilos at the moment. He and his cat Freyja greeted me with "Ah! The famous Maddie Barton!" I gave the famous Maddie Barton response "um, hello?" Turns out some French guy who wanted to couch surf with Þórgnýr thinks I'm famous. Am I? 

Today I've pottered around Reykjavik, booked a horse riding tour for Friday, seen some of the original Saga manuscripts and drunk lots of coffee. And had Icelandic food - Þógnýr seemed rather upset he couldn't find any shark to give me, but we had Plokkfiskur, which is spuds and fish mashed up in white sauce with onions, and really really scrumptious. After that we caught the bus to Laugardalslaug swimmingpoolcentrethingymabob. Where I finally finally got to defrost my ears! It's not swimming my mother would approve of - no hard laps done while being chased by sting rays, rather floating in tubs of varying temperatures - we started in one that was 36 degrees c, then 42- which was toasty, then 44 degrees. which was bearable for about 30 seconds. i know i'm from a hot climate, but still. 44 degrees is a bit painful! (i'm a wuss)

Þórgnýr just told me that water is 800 times more conductive than air. So therefore, I'm not a wuss! Hurrah! 

The salt tub was probably the best - it was like being at South West Rocks on a summers evening...only it was 8 degrees out of the water, raining and windy. And no dolphins. 

So Iceland is living up to the hype, which you're all glad about after i ranted for all those years about running away here. bet you're all wishing you were here. 

(i think this might be one of my more positive posts....hrmm)

honk if you're terrified.

in a few hours, i'll be in iceland. this is a tremendously exciting thought, however i feel a bit bad as i still haven't written about pukkelpop or the past month in the detail i want to. i've started drafting it - so far the entry is about a mile long.

another feeling swirling around my stomach is a sort of deranged gooselike feeling. i rather suspect this is my parents fault - they keep saying "oh, you goose" and "don't be a goose". i'm worried i'm about to sprout feathers and only communicate via goose noises.

there was a lot more i wanted to say, but my mind has blanked. all i can think of is goose noises.

they're all mad.

So, Sarah Palin, huh? She's a serious politician, yeah?

um.

"The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe have also carried investigative reports on claims made by Mrs Palin as Alaskan Governor, and during her six years as Mayor of Wasilla, a town of 7000 residents.
They painted a picture of a tyrant prepared to sack long-time staff and surround herself with ill-qualified classmates.
The New York Times reported that one of these, a former real estate agent, was made director of the State Division of Agriculture after citing her childhood love of cows as a qualification."




(various noises of frustration and annoyance and other. wstfgl)


by this logic, MW should be Director of Lovely Clothes and I should be President of Tantrums.

full article here, by the by.

but wait, there's more!

In order to convince friends family and variouspeoplethataretryingtokillme that I am still alive (ha! ha!), MW has donated a bunch of photos that she's taken of me. They don't really paint a pretty portrait of me as an individual, but at least, in my heart, I know that I smell better than all of Brussels. Oh, and I'm better looking than Pete Wentz. And more creative with my poses.

I'm waiting for the photos to upload, which is taking millenia. And I'm worrying about the fact that my sleeping bag and warm clothes are in Hazel's attic, which I can't open. I'm not going to Iceland in my shorts. MW and I went to buy coats today. Primark is a scary scary scary place, so we bolted out of there. We feel more at home in Topshop, but I like to think that secretly, secretly I want to knit all my clothes out of toothfloss and therefore never have to go into a shop again. Ever.

....Anyone want to teach me how to knit????


We had pie! With sausage! And MW made a mess. But that's alright, because I am a mess. Sort of like a hurricane that doesn't know where it wants to go, only it knows that it wants to go. Somewhere. It just doesn't know where.

.....

We're having CAPSICUM for dinner tonight!!!!

ooh, look. photos.

1) Me having a temper tantrum in Cardiff, back in early August because "We have nowhere to stay in Brussels! Nowhere! Everything is bad!" ....then when we got to Brussels...well. I'll get to that later.

2) Me at Pukkelpop, day 2. After consuming the WORLD'S BEST PIZZA, we then had the WORLD'S BEST WATERMELON. However, the problem with the watermelon, and most of the food I had in Europe, was that MW had to leave me alone with it, as I was whispering sweet nothings into the ears of crepes and such.

3) Are we not all, in some way, the Rhino? - Me being 'deep' in the Pompidou, Paris.

4) Me waiting to meet a man to give him a half completed crossword, which would help him get in contact with an underground organisation which would meet him at midnight and get him safe transit out of Berlin.....the rabbit thing is an accident. truly.

5) Me having a bad morning in Berlin, and deciding to move under the bed and never come out.

um. yes. hurrah!

pretty in a panic

It has come to the attention of my poor poor poor travelling companion, MW that I am
a) mad
b) bonkers and
c) possibly Samwise Gamgee, because my reaction to realising that i will be in Iceland in 48 hours was similar (read: identical) to Sam realising he was going to get to see the elves;

'Me, go and see the elves and all! Hooray!' he shouted, and then burst into tears
(direct quote from Fellowship Of The Ring)

In order to deal with that, have some photos. They are in no particular order, and I'm not sure where i took them. I take bad tourist photos. Mostly it's just shit that makes me giggle.

1) Dinosaurs are not wankers. People who don't write poignant-messages-inspired-by-John Lennon on the Berlin Wall are clearly wankers. (as are people who don't understand my humour. ie the Belgish)

2) Signpost in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin which is where we went to see some bizarre Polish movie in a bookshop. We did have a drink that night. I had a rather large bottle of Czech beer. MW had white wine in a tumbler. The bookshop owner kept watch for the police, and the movie was deep.
3) Don't know if anyone else knows that, but there are moose...meese...moosi...moosolini...in Vienna. You have to be careful.
4) The Ferris Wheel in Vienna. That I went on! And I got a compartment all to myself! And it was most circular.
5) Swiss Chocolate. It didn't taste that fantastic, but it was irresistable. Somewhere someone is still laughing about the genius marketing ploy of calling chocolate "Tourist"

(I promise I'll write up my adventure "Europe Experiences Madeleine" tomorrow night when I'm trying to cope with the Iceland thing.)

neinneinNEIN

we have to go back to Brussels.







on a bus.





not fucking happy.


xx


also, what on earth has happened to the nsw parliment????????????????

gorbygorbygorby

Berlin is pretty fantastic, except I just broke the backspace key and am terrified that the german guy will go nuts at me and shout. Germans shouting is a bit scary. Had a fantasticly painful train ride from Vienna, with an Austrian hippy trying to encourage me to join his commune, and then a German man and his German dog both snoring from Lintz to Berlin, which is about 900 miles. I arrived in a bit of a state. I'm always in a bit of a state though, so that's ok.

But I really really like Berlin. I think its the history but it's also the sense of moving forward and developing.

fuck. i just broke one of the arrow keyz. clearly germans know nothing about building keyboards.

I have been to the Brandenburg Gate and accidentally done a walking tour which was really very interesting (and it says alot about communism that the fall of the wall happened because of a bodgy press conference). I braved the UBahn and went to Franfurter Tor to find a bookshop called East Of Eden where I sold some books, bought some books, had some green tea and a chat about the total awesomeness of Sons & Daughters (saw them at Pukkelpop, promise I'll write it up soon!!) This morning We, (American Girl, Jess, The Parisienne Georges and I) went to the Pergamon Museum, and I freaked out about how big and awe inspiring it all was. She thinks I'm a bit weird. But Georges thinks I'm amusing. And apparently the hight difference between us is rather funny.

I'm hoping to get to a few more musuems and art galleries while I'm here, but I've just found out that Jonquil are playing on the 11th, so I'm going to that and then on the 12th there's an Icelandinc guy called Siggi playing, so I want to go to that...and then i have to drag myself back to London, pick up my woolies and drag myself to Iceland

gosh, life is hard!

capital

The internet here is a bit weird - the smallest amount you can have is 45 minutes for one euro. so that means that after you've done whatever you were supposed to do (email the next hostel, check your bank balance) you really have nothing to do except catch up on Questionable Content Comics.
(by the way, where the hell is my Sven??)

So today in Vienna I have to go out and do stuff, which is cool, I guess. Or I could be like the ninety thousand other bogan Australians in this hostel and sleep all day, then drink all night and tell shitty stories. Seriously. I don't really see the point in doing that, so I'm rereading Lord Of The Rings and plotting my next moves. Feeling very antisocial.

Yesterday I went to Cafe Sacher (by accident) and had Sachertorte. Then I got the tram to the Belvedere and marvelled at the Klimts and the Surrealists. The classical paintings are a giggle also, lots of very serious Viennese people trying to look nonchalant.

I think I'm beginning to get a bit travel weary, which lot of you will scoff at. Which is why I'm looking forward to getting out of cities and into the wildness of Iceland. It's going to be so very awesome.

nien

if i hear one more joke about "wieners"....well. things won't be pretty. and there'll be a few bogan boys who won't ever come home.

urgh. australians think its a grand idea to come to austria and be stupid. and loud. and smelly.