A storm or two

I never reached New Zealand.

The forecasted storm last Monday hit. And it hit us hard. My comrade-in-travel, Therese, and I took the train to Copenhagen much earlier than we had to because I wanted to meet up with a friend. This turned out to be a very good decision.

Not an hour after our arrival all virtually trains were cancelled. Thankfully there was a bus that would take us to the airport. After check-in Therese started to feel queasy. And it steadily worsened together with the weather. We had arrived at the airport ridiculously early so for some time we watched as flights were delayed and cancelled, and travellers were stranded.

Therese's sickness got so bad that we decided that she couldn't fly. Following this decision we stood in one queue after the other. First in the transit center, then at the baggage handling help desk (we'd waited in the transit center for such a long time that our baggage had been moved to safekeeping) and finally, believe it or not, at the hotel (SAS had sent 400 flightless travellers there). In all we waited in queues for about four hours.

For the past week we have been wading knee-deep in insurance claims, doctors appointments and denied refunds. We now await our sentence.

A feathery friend

The half term holiday brought with it a trip to Britain. Though the visit was only four days long we still managed to get around. 

We spent the first two days in Norfolk with Grandma and Grandpa. We visited the Queen at Sandringham, though disappointingly she wasn't home. The gardens were quite nice and once inside the house was very fancy, however the facade was less than impressive. It just didn't match the supposed splendor of the rest of the estate.
While waking back to the carpark we met a women with an owl. She offered to let me hold the owl saying: "Apart from me you're the first person that she has let hold her." I'm not sure how much I believe this but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.

The hunt

Coming home from Iceland early has posed a problem: I no longer have a job. Although I have a few things to do at home (applying for university, clearing and cleaning up a little, etc.) I still seem to do a lot of nothing. Whole days disappear into the distance completely empty of productivity. This I had foreseen, and so from day one I added to my to-do list to get a job.

This task is in no way easy. Now, I don't think I'm that picky, I have been cleaning toilets for a month, but it is very hard to find anything. My newly acquired diploma is useless for anything but university applications. My age is also against me: in Denmark you get paid less when you are under 18 and so the young are favoured. Finally there is also a severe limitation of jobs in the area. Even if I also take Århus and Randers into consideration there are very few jobs that I am qualified for. I also trip myself up by wanting a temporary job and because I want to travel during my gap year. This combination is far from optimal.

To be fair I have got two jobs in the near future. However both are very short term and ideally I would like a job that lasts at least a few months.

With my rant over I will continue my hunt in the forests of adulthood for the endangered species the job.

The harvests of Autumn

Autumn is a wonderful season and I'm glad to be home to witness it. Though the leaves have only just started to turn red and yellow, the fruit of Autumn is already weighing heavily on the branches.

In our garden we have numerous apple trees and they always produce many more apples than we can eat.

Every year I try to process and conserve them somehow, but the majority still seems to go to waste. With the extra time I have this year, I have been doing quite a lot. Mostly I just stew and freeze them, but I have also been baking a little: I have made two ginger and apple cakes, and an apple pastry. I'm also planning on drying some apple rings.

There are also a lot of blackberries in the nearby woods. Mum made some jelly and I made a batch of blackberry ice cream but there are still plenty on the bushes. The question is whether or not I will have to motivation to pick and process any more...

Home again

I am now home again after a rather hectic summer. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. From the crowds of scouts in Stavanger and the overload of new impressions in wonderful Georgia to the cleaning of toilets in beautiful Iceland. It has been a summer to remember.

However, I am glad to be home. For the time being I have had enough of airports and the stress they entail, all I want to do is harvest and process the apples from the garden, find myself a quiet job and slowly prepare myself for my trip to New Zealand in November.

So while the leaves start to turn red and yellow, I'm stoking the fire. Tea in one hand and a book in the other, I'm snuggling down for a quiet two months. I hope...

Lists

Things I have often had to say:
-"I don't speak Icelandic. But I do speak Danish, if that would help."
-"No, we don't have WiFi."
-"Yes, the showers are warm."
-"Thank you, for bringing the dog back from the middle of the road." (Though actually it's not our dog).
-"Yes, that is the phone I use." (See picture in a previous post).


Strange things I have said:
-"Sorry, I can't sell you that plate."
-"So, you're going to send the false teeth back in an old tea box?"
-"No, I don't know if you're allowed to camp on the beach."

Talents I never knew I had:
-I can carry sixteen pillows at once
-I can cook numerous meals with very few ingredients (though admittedly most of them were rather boring)

A strange fact:
-Sheep can, in fact, get over the cattle grids, making them completely useless

An infuriating fact:
-Two guides (there are often large groups staying) showed me pictures of northern lights that I'd missed. Each guide showed pictures from a different night

The cave city and contemporary transport

Near Gori there is the cave city, Uplistsikhe. Caves have been chipped out of the rock. Halls, houses, stores, wine cellars and temples are all to be found there. It is very hard to imagine people living there but for centuries it was one of the safest places around.

To get back to Gori we took a bus that was being driven right to the ground. Every part of it was somehow in disrepair: all the seats were ripped and some were bent, the door of the bus would not shut, there was a big gaping hole in the floor of the bus so you could see the road, the bus almost refused to go uphill and the whole time the bus sounded as though it were a cat being run over. 

This is not the sort of thing you would do on an ordinary package trip, and that's why I love going with the scouts!