London!

Hello everyone!

I apologize for the late blog update but things have been busy. My classes start on Tuesday, so I figured I could blog a little bit before I embrace the routine that is school.

So let's start with Gunnar and mine's vacation in London.

My last can of Malt for almost 6 months T^T

Our vacation started well as we managed to get exit seats on the plane, which meant more leg space (that is ALWAYS a plus when on a plane!) for us. It was late when we arrived in Heathrow airport and we were having trouble dragging my huge ass suitcase (the wheels were almost busted - too much weight, I guess?) but thankfully our hotel wasn't far from Paddington station. We checked in, went to Burger King for food and went to sleep.

The next day we went to the British Museum and almost spent the entire day there! It's so HUGE! And there was so much to see! I think we only saw half of it. Gunnar and I were, of course, most excited to see the Ancient Egypt exhibit and too see the mummies!

I couldn't resist taking a photo of one of the Assyrian horse sculptures. They sculpted everything and I mean everything, even the horse's testicles! XD The immature girl that I am found it hilarious.

After glorious sights for the brain, we decided to go Madame Tussaud's Wax museum. We arrived at Baker Street and I just HAD to take a photo of the Sherlock Holmes statue.

We arrived at the wax museum around 3 PM and were surprised that the line wasn't that long. Oh, how wrong we were. . . . The line was actually much longer inside the museum and I think we had to wait an hour to actually get inside the wax exhibit!
But it didn't matter. We had fun there. I got to meet Morgan Freeman, Patrick Stewart and Jim Carrey among other waxy celebrities inside the museum. There was even a 4D cinema with the Marvel Heroes and I must say there was better 3D effects in that short movie than in any other 3D films I've seen.

Saturday, we woke up early to go to the London Dungeon. I had been there before when I was 15 years old and I was eager to see if anything had changed since that time. There was more of live actors taking you around the place and they interacted a bit with the audience which was fun. Gunnar and I were sent to the torture chamber, that is I was locked inside a cage and Gunnar was locked to a chair and was almost a guinea pig to the torture device demonstrations! Afterwards we went to Notting Hill to go to the Portobello Street Market and see if we could find anything interesting on sale there.
Usually it's just the same crap booth after booth but we did buy ourselves an authentic gas mask. We're into the weird stuff and the gas mask is a nice add to our weird collection.

We spent Sunday at the London Zoo with our friend, Claire. It has been 2 years since we last saw her and we had such a great time there! Even now, I miss her already!

Monday was shopping day but Gunnar had to remind me a million times that I couldn't spend too much on clothes because I wouldn't be able to fit it in my suitcases XC But that didn't stop me from buying 3 packs of underwear and two black camisoles at Primark! We actually bought more clothes on Gunnar than on myself, which is a good thing because my babe needed more clothes. We also stopped at Boots pharmacy and bought tons of cheap but effective medicines to take with us home.
We went out to dinner at this nice place at St.Christopher's Place near Oxford Street (or in Oxford Street. . . I don't know). On our way back to the hotel, we got tricked into buying a Mineral Peeling Gel from some fancy store but at least the saleswoman gave us a nice deal. 2 Mineral Peeling Gels + Mud Soap for 45 pounds. Let me know if that deal was horrible or not. But at least it works . . . . I think.

Tuesday morning we left for the airport where we said our goodbyes. I'm not gonna lie, it was one of most hardest things I have done. Damn did I feel incredibly sad by the time I entered the plane. I kept reminding myself that I would talk to him on Skype once I got to Japan. Also time will go by fast once I get into the routine of studying and stuff. But it was still pretty hard! :C





So that's pretty much what happened in London. Stay tuned next time for the first days in Kyushu, Japan!

Love & Peace!

~Villimey

Countdown to Japan: 13 days

Hello everyone!

I decided to awaken my little blog from its slumber and use it as my traveling blog in my stay in Japan.

That way, people can read a little about my adventures in Fukuoka, Kyushu (the big, southern island of Japan) and see pictures too. I just hope that I won't be too busy with my schedule but I shall do my best to update this blog as much as possible.

So now there are only 13 days till I venture again to the land of the rising sun and have I prepared everything?


....................................................

....................................................

..................................no

- I have not packed yet

- I still have to get more medication so that my cholesterol won't rise while I'm there

- I have not gotten any Japanese and British currency

- I have not printed out our flight tickets and hotel booking yet

.........I really need to put my shit together!

BUT !

I have said goodbyes to most of my important people and I'm still scheduled to do that for this week and till I leave. Thankfully I get to spend 5 days in London with Gunnar, so we will leave with happy & fun memories there.

I'm excited yet nervous. But I know I will have a good time there. But I also know that I will miss my loved ones terribly! Thank god for Skype!

Anyways, I hope that the rest of you who won't be able to join me in conversations on Skype will be able to enjoy this little blog of mine :)

If internet at the hotel allows me, the next update will be in London, which is in a week!

Stay tuned!

Love & Peace

~Villimey

Nostalgia Path: What I got for Christmas + a healthy snack recipe!

Apparently it's going to be a quiet evening at my apartment tonight. . . . Everybody - and I mean everybody, even the cats - have fallen asleep. . . . before 7 PM. I guess not everyone has such endless energy such as myself, hehe.

It's time for another walk down memory lane and I found it appropriate giving the Christmas month, that I should reminisce about the presents that I got for Christmas when I was a child. It's so easy to find Christmas presents for kids, all they want are toys, toys, TOYS! If you give them something that is NOT a toy, be prepared for some major hissy fits and loud nagging (even crying!). Although it might be easy, it's also pretty scary too!

1. Playmobil

When I was a kid, regardless of age, I LOVED playing with Playmobil or "Playmó" like we used to call it. However, I preferred the ones which had a lot of small crap included. You know, the little baby playmobil, the animals, the miniture toys. And I also liked playing with the kid figures more than the adult ones. I think it was probably because I wanted those kid figures to have more adventures than the adult ones XD
Oh, if a playmobil package came with a little yellow teddy bear, I would be BEAMING WITH HAPPINESS!! That little guy was my angel, my gem, my treasure! I used to hold it in my right hand ALL THE FUCKING TIME!! My mom told me that I had started to write and draw with my left hand because I was always holding on to that yellow teddy bear. Now I wonder where I left him. . . .

2. Lego Belville

I have to admit, I wasn't that much into the original Legos when I was a kid. I mean, sure, I loved playing with the types for babies (building stuff was AWESOME!!) but when I got Belville for Christmas one time, I knew there would be no turning back. I loved playing with them but not as much as, say, organizing them neatly? Yeah, I was a neat-freak back in the days (I'm still a bit of neat-freak but not as hardcore as I used to be!) You see, nothing made me more giddy with excitement than when I had organized the figures in either normal or weird positions and they just had to stay like that until I wanted to play with them again.

3. Dennis the Menace the movie

I got the movie on VHS from Santa Claus (Kertasníkir in the Icelandic tradition) and I was so excited that I watched it immediately. And I repeatedly watched it until Dennis' techniques, habits, the clothes he wore were engraved into my mind. For it was this movie that turned me into a slight prankster when I was a kid. I even got my dad to make me a slingshot out of PIPES! And it didn't hurt that my maternal grandpa looks A LOT like Walter Matthau did in that movie (minus the moustache).

4. The pink Barbie Car. . .

. . . . . . Yes, I got that car from my aunt. Which was funny because I didn't own any Barbies! I think she assumed that I was really girly like her own daughter (who owned sooooo many Barbie dolls!). If I ever got caught playing with a Barbie - which just happened when I visited my niece - the only thing I would do is just change their clothes. That was it. It's not like they could move their limbs easily! And they couldn't even stand without falling down (seriously, what is up with that?! Even with those heels on their tippy-toe feet, they STILL wouldn't stand upright!). So yeah, I didn't play with that car much, he just collected dust on top of my closet for a long time.



I would list more but those are things that I remember the strongest when it comes to toys that I got. I wish I could ask for some cool toys for this Christmas without getting weird looks. But hey, I guess I have grown up a little up since the things that I want this year are stuff like books, art supplies, clothes and board games. I guess you can call board games toys for adults :P


Alrighty, time for a recipe! This is a pretty healthy snack, which is good since we Icelanders are nr.2 obese people in the world (it doesn't make any sense, we have the most beautiful women AND the most fat people?!). Anyways, like I said, it's healthy and you don't need an oven for it! All you need is a food processor or a blender. You can view the original recipe in English HERE while I will post the recipe in Icelandic.

Hafra-rúsínur kúlur

1/2 bolli af rúsínum (80gr.)
6 matskeiðar af haframjöli (30gr.)
1/2 bolli af valhnetum (40gr.)
1/8 teskeið + 1/16 tsk af salti
1/4 teskeið af vanilludropum

Persónulega mæli ég með að setja 2-3 tsk af agave-sýrópi svo það verði nógu klístrugt til að móta.

Malið haframjölið í matvinnsluvélinni þangað til að það verður mjög fínt, í c.a. 30 sek.
Bætið síðan hinum hráefnunum og blandið mjög vel.
Mótið í litla bolta eða í stöng. Það er mjög gott að frysta þetta. En þetta helst inn í ísskáp í allt að 2 vikur.

Þið getið bætt hverju sem er í kúlurnar, ég hef sjálf sett hveitikím og þurrkuð goji-ber ásamt 1 tsk af kanil og þetta bragðast æðislega!

Einfalt, hollt & gott ;)

Question of the day:

~Do you remember what you got for Christmas when you were a kid?

Meaningful and homemade gifts for Christmas

Well, since December has rolled in, more and more people are racing to the malls in order to buy Christmas presents for their loved ones.

I can see nothing wrong with that, except people nowadays tend to buy things that are new and exciting. . . . things that people probably won't use much when the craze has faded away.

I heard the other day that the Christmas present of the year in Iceland was an Ipad. I really don't get why though. It's SUPER expensive - especially here in Iceland and it doesn't seem to be very foolproof or should I say "clumsy-proof". That's just my opinion, I'm sure a lot of people will defend this product, saying it's great and everything but is that really what people want or even NEED?

For me, when it comes to gifts, be it Christmas gifts or birthday gifts, I always tend to think it through for a long time. For me, gifts have to come from the heart. It has to show that you really care about the person and that you put a lot of careful thinking and time on it.

That's why I love making some gifts from scratch. There are lots of ideas out there that you can do.

For example, 2 years ago I made a photo album for my mom to give to her on Christmas Eve. I used old photos of her when she was a teenager, old family photos, photos of her parents, siblings and close friends and I glued them on an empty scrapbook and wrote sweet sentences next to the photos. Needless to say, my mom loved it (she even started to cry, she was so happy).

I also drew a picture for my paternal grandparents and put it in a cool frame. My grandfather has always liked my drawings, so I figured giving one to them would be a great Christmas present.

You don't really have to be artistic to make these kind of presents, all it counts is that you put some love and time into it and people will appreciate the effort afterwards.

Here are some ideas for slightly home-made and meaningful Christmas presents:

1. Family photo in a pretty frame
If you have grandparents and they don't have a recent photo of your family, it's a great present to give. It doesn't have to be done by a professional photographer (well, if you can find one that's not incredibly expensive, then I think you should give it a go!). You can use an old-fashioned camera yourself, take the photo, develop it at a store (or print it at your own home) and put it in a nice frame.
A nice idea to it would to let your family hold some sweet notes in front of them as a message to the one you're giving it to. For example "We love you Granma & Grandpa" or "Thank you for always being there for us" or some other mushy stuff, because let's face it: Christmas is all about being mushy!

2. The gift of experience
Okay, so this is not really "home-made" but I think giving gifts that will give you experience is a great present! It can be anything. If your friend has expressed desire to learn how to make Indian food, then you can give her Indian cooking lessons! For the adventurous types, giving things like scuba-diving (I don't really know if that's possible to do in Iceland though . . . ), Sky diving (NOW THAT'S WHAT I WANT FOR MY 25TH BIRTHDAY!!!), rockclimbing lessons, the list is endless!

3. a homemade recipe book
If someone you know really loves to cook, I think it would be great if you would give that person your very own recipe book. I mean, sure recipe books from celebrities are fun to have too but they can be expensive and in my opinion, gathering your own or your family's famous recipes are much more fun and creative. Then you can spend time decorating it on your own. Just don't go overboard with the glitter!

4. Photo calendar
This is something that my brothers, my older brother's girlfriend, my husband and I are going to give to my maternal grandparents. We're going to collect photos of everyone they know & love, and match it together with their respective birthday months. That way, they will always know all of our birthdays (not that grandparents usually ALWAYS remember them anyways).

5. Something artistic
If you happen to be artistic, then I suggest drawing a memory drawing. It doesn't have to be super detailed, a simple black&white drawing of a special memory with the one you intend to give it to, is a great idea. In order to get ideas, I think searching around old photoalbums might be a good idea.

6. homemade clothes
I know a lot of girls that just love to knit. Knitting a woolen sweater with a cool pattern (not necessarily the old-fashioned Icelandic pattern because in my opinion, it has become pretty overrated) or a scarf or mittens are great gifts. Just make sure that the person you're giving it to, prefers the good old itchy wool or the more softer one.

7. Connect your gift with the person's hobby
Okay, again this is probably not "home-made" but this is one of the reasons I put careful thinking into my gifts. I try to connect it with that person's hobby. For example, my best friend is artistic and is really good at it, so I always encourage her to keep up the good work by giving her art supplies as presents. My husband is a zombie-fanatic (and is slowly turning me into one), so I gave him the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks along with a lightsaber, telling him that he should prepare at once for Zombie Apocalypse. I think I will give him a specialized Zombie Survival Kit for his next birthday. The only tricky thing is where can I get a machete. . . ?

8. Memory jar
I just read about this one and I instantly fell in love with it! It's similar to the photo album that I made for my mom. It won't cost you much, all you need is a big empty jar and memories that you have gathered from friends and family. You write on a piece of paper, fold it together and put it inside the jar. Then you can spend some time decorating the jar. It would be nice if you could gather 365 memories from people, so that the person who gets it can pick up one piece of paper and read what people wrote about him every day for a year.


That's all I can think of for now. Until next time,

Catch ya laters!

Question of the day:

~Have you ever made a home-made gift before? Share with us your ideas!

Snowy day calls for laziness and a muffin recipe!

Yep, I'm definitely back in my home country. . . .It has been snowing non-stop today (how convenient since today is December 1st).

Yeah I know it's a shitty picture taken with a shitty camera. I apologize for not owning a really expensive one (I might borrow my dad's camera once my finals are over) to take all those glorious photos of food or environment that I have been seeing on various blogs out there. . . . .

Anyway, for a person who doesn't particularly like the snow and all its wonders (I hate being cold! Really, sometimes I wonder if I had been adopted from some heat-loving country like Spain or something!), I didn't really shout profanities and verbal abuse at the snow once I noticed it snowing today. It just reminded me that I really was home.

A year ago I was in Japan for an exchange program and I was probably the only person at the university that I was attending, that jumped with joy when I was told that it rarely snowed in Tokyo. Of course I got weird and shocked looks, with people saying "but it's so beautiful and fluffy and stuff!". Seriously?

Seriously?

When you come from a country that practically snows for 4 months almost non-stop, you embrace the idea of no snow! No really, my husband and I were both so relieved that we never had to go out dead early in the morning and have to scrape the snow off the car windows.Nor did we have to get particularly worried that our shoes and sock might get drenched.

Okay so we did get that one day in the Tokyo area where it snowed a lot and that was the time when I went partying with my friends, so dressing according to the weather did not apply with me at that time. SO of course I cursed BLOODY FUCKING MURDER as I had to walk in ankle-deep wet snow, praying that I would NOT be clumsy enough to trip and get myself entirely drenched.

So there you have it, I'm not a fan of snow, its coldness and whatever that comes along with it. But like I said, it DOES have a special meaning to it as it reminds me of home. Just sitting on your couch, wearing semi-woolen sweater that your mom bought in H&M in London and relax the whole day.

That's exactly what I did today. I could have been productive (well, I was a little bit productive = washed our clothes, took them out of the dryer, folded them and swept the floor) and I could have gone to the gym for my 1-hour sweat-induced workout but I decided that today was going to be a day where I did nothing at all. And you know what, it felt pretty good. You need at least one day where you can just let go , relax and do nothing (I call browsing various sites on the internet as "nothing" here). Some people do that on weekends but I like being active on weekends where I go to the gym, bake goodies and try to find my motivation to draw.

I find it more important to do so in December where everyone is getting stressed for the holidays. So despite getting drowned in preparing for finals, projects, cleaning the whole house and other stress-related stuff, I suggest that you take one day to just let go. It's worth it, I tell you.

I'm both looking forward to the weekend and dreading it a little. The last day in my pole fitness class is on Saturday and I'm sad that it's ending. But at least I told the trainer that I would come back after New Years. The second thing dreading me concerning the weekend, is that I have to spend it reading a whole book that might have valuable information for my B.A. graduate thesis. My topic is interesting. The book is not. Why the hell do scholars have to write in such a boring manner??
So the only thing cheering me up for the weekend is that I'm going to bake my favorite muffin recipe. I've done it twice now and the husband and I really like it. You can view the recipe HERE in English (I wish it was my creation, but sadly it's not). It's from Janetha's blog which is one of my favorite blogs to read.

Since it's in English, I'm going to go ahead and translate it in Icelandic so that my Icelandic readers can understand and so that my foreign friends can laugh at how stupid it looks in Icelandic.

Banana Muffins

Einn bolli af hveiti
Einn bolli af heilhveiti
Ein matskeið af lyftidufti
1/2 teskeið af salti
1/4 teskeið af kanil (þar sem ég elska kanil, þá set ég vanalega 1-2 teskeiðar)
1/2 bolli af hrásykri
1/2 bolli af púðursykri
1/3 bolli af repjuolíu (canola oil)
4 stappaðir bananar (skiptir engu máli hvort þeir séu ofþroskaðir eða ekki)
1 teskeið vanilla (ég notaði vanilludropa)
1/4 bolli af vatni
Fylling af þínu vali (ég hef notað súkkulaðibita og rúsinur)
Má bæta við hnetum

Aðferð:

1. Blandið saman hveiti, lyftidufti, salti og kanil saman í skál og setjið til hliðar.
2. Blandið saman sykur, bönunum, olíu, vatni og vanilludropum í skál þangað til að blandan verði mjúk (ég notaði KitchenAid hrærivél en þið getið hrært þetta með því að nota gömlu góðu hendurnar)
3. Hellið þurrefnunum varlega saman við blautu blönduna og hrærið vel.
4. Hrærið fyllinguna saman við
5. Setjið deigið í muffin form og hafið það þannig að deigið nái að miðju í forminu
6. Látið múffurnar bakast við 175-180 gráður Celsius í ofni í 25 mínútur eða þangað til brúnirnar verði gullnar á lit.

Gott er að stinga tannstöngli í miðju múffuna til að tjékka hvort að þær séu ekki bakaðar í gegn.

Kælið, berið fram og njótið :)

Until next time

Catch ya laters!


Question of the day:

~If it snows in your country, do you feel lazy or active when it snows?

Colors, toys and babies/kids

Yay, I just finished a section of my B.A. thesis that I was scheduled for today and now I can allow myself to write a new blog post!

This thought occurred to me when I was at the gym last Sunday (yeah, I'm the kind of person who would sacrifice a Sunday for health, but hey, it's only an hour!):

Why is that when it comes to colors, blue usually represents boys and pink represents girls? And I'm not talking about....you know, regular blue and pink but that disgusting light, fuzzy blue and pink that make most people, who absolutely ADORE babies, go "awwwwwww shooooo kyuuuuute!!!"

I'm sure that some of you have wondered about that too. So I did a little research online and came upon this article.
Apparently two neuroscientists were wondering about the same thing, so they did an experiment where men and women between the ages 20-26 sat in front of a computer while two rectangles of different colors flashed on the screen. The neuroscientists divided the color spectrum into two halves, red-green and blue-yellow. The rectangles were sorted into these two categories. Then they asked the person tested to choose the rectangle they most preferred and after that, the computer would move on to another set of rectangles.

It turns out for this set of experiment that both men and women preferred blue out of the 4 basic, original colors. But then when they had to choose from mixed colors, the men really liked the idea of color blends, while the women were more leaning towards the various shades of red, like pink and lilac.

It was an interesting article but I noticed one flaw though: Those test subjects were people at the age of 20-26. Why didn't they test it on babies or little kids? According to the article, the neuroscientists suggest that the reason for the clear distinction between genders regarding color preferences are found in humanity's distant past.

Damn, I really thought they would have an answer for this. it has been bugging me for quite some time. I still remember the time when my room was painted pink and as a kid that was hoping to become the first female Indiana Jones (sadly Lara Croft beat me to it.....), I HATED IT!! Pink wasn't my favorite color, it was both red and blue!

This happened also when I was watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother. Lily, Marshall, Robin's new boyfriend, Robin and Barney were preparing to paint L & M's baby's room yellow because they didn't want to know the sex of the baby. Only when they did find out, they rush out to buy blue paint (can ya guess what the sex of the baby was? -_-;; ).

I don't think I know any parents that painted their baby's room green or purple or just plain white, instead of blue or pink. And then I'm not just talking about the light colors...Really what's wrong with the regular base color? It's not like the baby is going to go blind from the strength of the color.

Here's an idea that I will utilize whenever I will have the urge to have a kid myself:

Paint the baby room white. Then when the baby will be old enough to know what it likes, let it choose the colors for the room for themselves. Then you can have a good parent-child time painting the room together. White does represent the symbol of purity and babies are supposed to be quite "pure"....It will also keep the tooth fairy monster from Darkness Falls to take away your child! Win-win situation!

The same applies for toys.

When I was a kid, I didn't get why I had to settle for Barbie dolls when my brothers were allowed to have He-man figurines, toy cars and water guns. Those toys looked WAY more fun than Barbie dolls!

Eventually my parents caved in to my constant whining (while also seeing that I preferred not to wear girly clothes at all), and gave me similar toys.

Again, why do girls have to have dolls while boys anything that has to do with destruction and stuff? Is it because it's considered manly for the boys? So that they can become strong, just like the figurines they were holding in their tiny hands? Why can't boys play with dolls too (well, some toys, like Action Man, do look A LOT like dolls in my opinion....)?

That brings me to an episode of Friends, when Ross's boy Ben came to stay with his father and he was holding a Barbie doll. Ben was allowed to pick any toy from the store and he picked Barbie. Of course that upsets his father Ross to the point that he tries to make his son prefer army figurines, like Dino Soldier or G.I. Joe instead. Apparently he feared that his son Ben might grow up and start liking the same sex as he is.

I really don't think that toys will change a kid's sexual orientation when they grow up. It just doesn't make any sense. Then what will happen to girls who used to play with toys that were more suited for boys?

Again, similar suggestion: Just like Carol & Susan (Ben's lesbian mothers), let your children pick their own toys. It's for their enjoyment and who knows, they might mix their selection and pick BOTH a Barbie and a skateboard.

Until next time,

Catch ya laters!


Questions of the day:

~ What was/still is your favorite color?
~ What used to be your favorite toy as a child?

My opinion on the Westboro Baptist Church

I just finished watching Louis Theroux's documenturies about the Westboro Baptist Church. I really had to take a moment before writing, so that I wouldn't turn this post into a complete rage post....

Soooo many emotions were churning inside as I was watching it: Anger, confusion, sadness and pity. I felt really sorry for Louis Theroux as he was only trying to gain an understanding about this weird family gathering and they kept condemning him, even putting his face on one of their posters!

Why does this family have to live with such hate? Why can't they see that their children will never have friends outside of that gathering, will never get to see the world with an open mind? Their kids can't even speak their mind, in fear of getting thrown out!

It saddens me that they even would throw away anyone who actually wants to belong to the outside world and they never want to hear from them again. Like that one girl said: "Some kids lose their parents because of cancer, or accidents. I lost mine because of a cult".

Whatever happened to "Treat others as you would treat yourself"?

According to the documentaries, they seem to show care and respect between themselves, so why can't they just live among us and keep these notions and feelings to themselves? Why go all the way to another state, just to scream at a mourning mother that her son was a "filthy faggot"?

In my honest opinion, I really pity them for their shallow minds and a big part of me feels like they really enjoy being in the spotlight. (Haters gonna hate! is what came into mind just now....).

That's all for today.

Question of the day:

~What do you feel about those kind of people?
~ Do you just ignore them or according to your own beliefs, do you feel like you have to say something?