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Attention Icelandic people...

If you're planning on going somewhere abroad within the first 6 months of 2013 I'd recommend buying it as a "christmas gift" for yourself now..

With WOW air. Click here

• I'm not sure until when you can purchase the ticket 
• You have to book the flight from the 20. December until the 10. february. After that it's just a gift certificate for that amount.. 
• You can travel from the 10th of January until the 10th of June (that day being the last arrival day back in Iceland)
• Go to Copenhagen or London for 22900
• Go to Berlin, Stuttgart or Dusseldorf for 26900
• Bags not included. 

With Iceland air. Click here

• You can buy the tickets until 18:00 the 24th of December. 
• You have from the 20th of Dec until the 11th of Jan to book the your ticket. 
• You have to fly from the 10th of Jan until the 15th of April 2013
• They have more variety, you can choose;
• Europe 1. - 31900kr. (London, Manchester, Glasgow, Gatwick, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki)
• Europe 2. - 35900 kr (Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munchen, Paris)
• America 1. - 54900kr (New York, Boston, Toronto)
• America 2 -64900kr ( Seattle, Denver)

It's actually also good if you're from any of those places and want to visit Iceland. 

This is really as cheap as the tickets are ever going to get. Trust me, I should know I check flight tickets more than I check my facebook messages...

Even with the cheapest offers (which are the ones that you have only 24 hours to decide where and when to go) these are slightly cheaper, and you have enough time to decide now so... GO GO GO 

london ticket - check!

Oh what a good day. the final piece of my messy flight ticket cake has arrived... I FINALLY bought my last ticket for my trip in December.. 

the ticket from iceland to london and london to iceland are now in my inbox. jibbididú! 

I managed to make it so that I have some days in between arriving in london to when I have to leave, those days I'm going to use to meet my childhood friend Hannah. I can't wait... We we're best friends when we were growing up in Norway, met again in 2008 when I visited her in Norway, then in 2009 we went to France together and now we're meeting in Wales since she lives there studying psychology. Next will be meeting in Iceland, definitely !

(hahaha notice on my arm, I'm so subtle getting someones number..."here's a big black marker, why don't you just make a sleeve on my arm from your number")

I can't wait to go! I'm so not cut out for any of this, it's so cold and I feel like it's dark 24/7. I liked it way better when it was bright. You know when you wake up in the middle of the night and turn the light on in your room, you can feel that it's wrong in some way. You can feel that your only light source is coming from the light bulb, it's not just helping brightening up whats already semi bright.... well that's how it's starting to be here all the time now. does that even make sense?

It's so hard to get anything done when you always feel like you should be sleeping. just ends up with A LOT of naps, and I was the queen of naps even when it was bright!

on my most depressed moment Nathan sends me this picture he took on the way to work. palm trees, sun & summer. really?! kick me when I'm down why don't you! btw so funny how everything is wrong, he's sitting on the wrong side of the car, driving on the wrong side of the street. Silly australians..

Only good thing is that with winter comes christmas... except everyone is getting so overly excited already it's driving me nuts. IT'S OCTOBER FOR GOODNESS SAKE! you don't sing christmas songs already, getting all excited now just makes the wait so much longer. that's also why I don't like buying flight tickets so much in advance. When I get an idea in my head I want to perform it straight away, I don't want to wait 65 days and then get to do it! 

oh I find this so funny! as offensive as it is, what a great sense of humor hahaha!! 

bungy jump in Innsbruck

Finally uploaded the video of Nathan bungee jumping in Austria from last month !

I realize it's safe & you're more likely to die on the way to the bungee jump, but I can't describe the feeling of seeing someone so close to you literally jumping of a bridge! 

My heart skipped a beat and I couldn't breath until he was up again and I had made sure he was ok..

I actually turned off the video because, like you can hear I called "Is he alive??" and the guys answered "ehh, enough, come see for yourself" and I'm just like "ENOUGH?! what do you mean enough??" 

It took probably about 5 minutes for him to get up again because you have to tie yourself to 2 wires and so on while hanging upside down before they drag you up again, but those 5 minutes felt like forever.. I've never been so happy to see anyone again

After he had jumped and was on his way back up again I was talking to this guy that had jumped before him , with hair longer than mine, with dreadlocks... you know the type. A minute into the conversation I realized the guy was smoking marijuana. Just jumped off a bridge and is now standing on top of it smoking weed, that guy sure knows how to live hahaha! 

also see the houses there, imagine living in them and whenever you go outside and look up there are people screaming falling from the sky 

oh and what the hell kind of sound am I making in the beginning of the video , jeez! 

I am so happy, so happy so happy!!! 

I just booked tickets for going away in December! I'm working so much and psychology is way up my ass, so in dec I'm gonna take a month off to just relax, travel and do whatever the hell I want! 

The original plan was to spend both Christmas and New Years away. I love Christmas, but I think it's just as much fun experiencing it in a new place as being in Iceland! Sure it's really good to be with family and stuff, but I also want to experience Christmas in other cultures & plus in most cases visiting family on non-holiday occasions is better. I'd rather try to spend time with my family under normal circumstances than simply forgetting to visit and then try to make up for it all by showing up every day at family holidays...

School finishes in the end of November and then I only have the final exams left... they however, the only three exams that I have to take (although I have a feeling that when the time comes it's gonna change from being only to all these exams!!! ) are going to be stretched over such a long period of time that by the time the final final exam arrives it will be so close to Christmas I could just as well wait a week and then leave for my trip...

• 2008 - Iceland 
• 2009 - Italy
• 2010 - Iceland
• 2011 - Sweden
• 2012 - Iceland

which means, next year I'll have to go somewhere just to not break this tradition I've got going on! 

I leave the 29th and fly "straight" to Singapore, it takes so long to finally get there and I bet that after all that travel I'll look like a rotten potato, you'd think that someone like me that travels so much would have found a magic solution to looking pretty after so much waiting in airports, but when it comes down to it, I never give a shit how I look so I just let it slide. This is the reason you never see photos of me in airports! 

I'm going to stay in Singapore for the majority of the time, experiencing new years there which I bet will be real fun! Then I travel on to Kuala Lumpur, no clue when I go from Singapore to Kuala, but it's only a 4 hour bus ride away so I suppose I could go anytime !

My next flight then leaves from Kuala the 20th of Jan and goes on to Abu Dhabi, where I'll spend some days... it wasn't really the plan but due to flight connections and finding the cheapest tickets I'm forced to wait there... At first I was like "oh man I have to wait for so many days in Abu"... then suddenly it hit me "I have to wait so many days in Abu" how could I have looked at this as a bad thing?? I mean, at any other occasion I'd be paying a fortune to get there, why would I then be upset with getting it free within a travel I'd be making either way?? Yaay abu dhabi!! 

So basically in eleven weeks, which is by the way the longest time I've ever planned ahead, and I now remember why I don't... I get so excited and then the departure day never seems to arrive! anyhow... it's going to be ;; 

London - Singapore

Singapore - Kuala lumpur 

Kuala lumpur- Abu Dhabi 

Abu Dhabi - London 

I still haven't found tickets from and to london (to Iceland) since I'm waiting on a 24 hour offer to come, but hopefully I'll have a day or two extra in London so I can go up to whales and visit Hannah, who's up there studying psychology at the university of swansea.. We can be all educational discussing behavior and stuff... yaay ! 

Austria

Wonderful wonderful Austria! 

The whole week was so wonderful and amazing I can't even begin to describe it! 

The road that led up to the hotel 

These are so cute... piles of wooden logs everywhere. I think I love them especially much because we don't have tree's in Iceland. Everytime I go to a country with trees I just can't stop looking up and around like I just landed on the moon hahaha

How nice living in a place like this where your neighbors are miles away. Such big difference in the life there than in some big city like Rome 

Love how cute all the houses are, made out of wood and everywhere you'd go they'd have flowers hanging from the balcony

One day in Innsbruck. Nathan was trying to make it seem like he was eating the mountain... close enough!

Driving up the hill behind Innsbruck we got a really nice view over the city.

This is actually taken from a mcdonalds, believe it or not. The nicest McDonalds restaurant ever

again, from the McDonalds... the most romantic mcdonalds meal I've ever had hahaah

Driving again over Innsbruck some days later.. 

This was a BIG issue for me. I kept forgetting the keys in the damn door! I always opened the door and since Nate was walking in right after me I just kept leaving them in there assuming he'd take them. The next morning I'd always be turning the whole room upside down looking for the keys

Grass angels! hahhaah, I love just laying. If I find a nice spot where you kinda stop to look around and soak in the view I just lay down and stay. This night we went out eating, we went to this small place and I asked the waiter "Do you have any food?"

waiter "Yes, pizza" 

me "great, whats kinda of pizza?" 

waiter "House pizza" 

me "ok, but whats on the pizza?"

waiter "?" 

Me "like... what do you put on top of the pizza?" (of course showing with hand movements as well)

waiter "house!" 

great... so we had the pizza with a house as a topping

anyways, on the way back it was all dark and chilly and we find this spot that looked so cozy so we lay down and stay forever just talking about everything and nothing. The air was so cold but it was like you got some heat from the ground, if that makes any sense, because as soon as we laid down it wasn't cold anymore.

People really need to lay down more, gives you more of an opportunity to be in a nice place and relax in it, kinda like seeing, not just looking. 

This was my second time in Austria, I'd already been to lovely Vienna last summer where I was hosted by Dominik and this time added Salzburg, Linz & Innsbruck to the list. Then of course the countryside where we were staying and not to mention taking trains across Austria many times. 

What surprised me a lot was that in the smaller villages there were all these people dressed in their typical austrian clothes, something like this...

It was all very sound-of-music-ish! 

I can't wait to go back to Austria one day, such a characteristic country, I love it & it's so easy to travel within it + it boarders germany, czech republic, slovakia, hungary, slovenia, italy and switzerland (and Lichenstein if you want to count that in). Perfect! 

eagles nest

So this day we went up to the eagles nest. I explained it before but anyways, this place is where Hitler spent his free time coming up with his brilliant ideas! All the other houses that hitler had have been burned down, makes sense. Still good to keep this one as a reminder of what happened.

You see, the european person on average scores 10 points higher on an iq test than an Australian. So when an aussie comes to europe they will have a lot of trouble doing the easiest things like paying for parking since all the machines are made for people with higher iq's. Here you can see Nate trying to prove me wrong... and failing to do so.

The jewish star... aah I get such chills when I see pictures like these just because you know what the people in them represent 

A grave yard for the people that Hitler killed. It goes on forever... 

Nathan with his head up in the clouds, literally. jumping around on rocks. The amount of energy that this boy has is scary at times

The elevator that brings you up to the main house. It was designed like this because Hitler was claustrophobic. Mirrors all over that made the space seem not so small. I think his punishment should have been to be locked up in a tiny prison cell for the rest of his life. 

Going down to the underground where they would hide in case of an attack 

This note was on the outside of the house. For the life of me I can't figure out what language this is supposed to be! it's still annoying the hell out of me trying to figure it out haha

The fireplace that mussolini gave to hitler during the second world war.

And a normal picture of the house, not sure why the previous one came out so blurry.. 

-Kat

worlds

Some pictures from the worlds !

& 1,2,3 start!!

It's so much fun taking pictures of this sport. They're always doing some super dramatic move that looks great on a picture. 

Insane jump, and the fall would have been soo far! guess that's why he feels the need to do that ridiculous face hahahaha! 

aaaah why would they make the fall so far down?!

Trials WM 2012.

Nice work of art there, but it made the wood lodge thinner & therefore harder to ride on... good thinking there

It's amazing to see these guys ride, it's like the bike is an extra limb missing from their body & the bikes work with them in an unbelievable way. There's a lot of falling and getting cuts from the pedals which I'm actually not a big fan of. On several occasions Kaye (Nate's mom) & I were about to have a heart attack when he'd come close to falling.

I'm so sorry for the embarrassment Nathan but I just have to post this video. I so luckily caught on tape when he fell in a rather stupid slow-motion way, I also got a lot of videos where he got through everything perfectly, but where's the fun in them?? 

hahahahah!! 

trip home

Finally after a 16 hour trip I have arrived at home. I'm tired and I want to go back to Austria! 

The last week has been wonderful in every way. I'm literally going from an Austrian fairy tale one day back to freezing Iceland & University the next day! First day of school is tomorrow since I've been away the last week. Now I better stack up with coffee and pull my shit together if I'm going to ace this semester. 

I swear to got I've gained like 5kg in the past week. If I didn't know any better I'd think Nate's dad produced mozart balls, his mom always had a sandwich ready and nate's mission in life is having his mouth full at all times!

The diet starts tomorrow... or you know, not an actual diet. More like a trying to go more towards the fruit section. I have a personal trainer, that I have not been using at all. Just got an email from him reminding me that you don't get fit unless you do something. jeez rub it in...

Now I've been going through some pictures from the trip and can't believe how few photo's I have. I literally have no pictures of myself from the trip haha! 

here are some pictures from the way home though...

Train station in Innsbruck

This really cute couple that was all mushy mushy for the whole 5 hours of the train ride. I wanted to spit on them. They were too happy and I was too alone hahaha! nono of course I was happy for them, maybe like 90% happy 10% jealous. 

wow think of actually living there. I could actually easily imagine having a holiday house in a place like this. So peaceful ! I spent hours looking out the window, you really see a lot of the country travelling by train.

London stansted here I come 

When is Starbucks ever going to come to Iceland? Probably good they're not here, I'd go broke from their mozzarella & pomodoro sandwich and frappuccino. mmmmmm! 

Sunset In London 

hahahahaha I love those head thingy's in the wow planes.

"Hi, I am your seat... nice to meet you, pleasure to have you sit on me"

Anyways, big day tomorrow. I better get some rest. I'll work on uploading those pictures asap. Goodnight! 

Germany...again

Heey!

So now we´re in Germany again! We´re at this Sport hotel which is perfect for Nathan, we had been here 5 minutes and he had already found a mountain bike and gone up in the mountains.

Yesterday we took a train for 2 hours, arrived in Innsbruck and were going to go bungy jumping. Turns out they had closed like 10 minutes earlier or something so we had gone all that way for nothing! We then took the train back, watched the finals of the 26" and went back to the Hotel.

The hotel I was staying at was about 15km away from Saalfelden, very discrete location and soo incredibly cozy, everything was made out of wood, alps on both sides and so traditional. I got back to the hotel right after midnight and everything was locked up! .. I knocked, no answer, tried the extra key and even got Nathan to try it because I thought I was just being weak, still didn´t work and I finally walked around the hotel trying to find an open door. 

I was on the edge of desperation when I climbed up to the balcony of the room and was attempting to breaking in to my own hotel room! of course that didn´t work... Checking for the last time if I´d be able to open one of the doors I pressed it and swooosh, it was open all along! Half an hour wasted trying to break into a hotel! So typical getting into situations like this. Next time I´ll remember to try pushing every door before I start climbing balconies! 

Nathans back so we're gonna go out to eat with his parents now... I'm going home tomorrow so I'll post pictures and more then

Eagles nest

The last days have been amazing. 

Monday all went pretty fast in salzburg, tuesday and wednsday my friend nathan was competing in the world championship in trials. He already won #1 in australia and was therefore reprisenting them in the worlds. Only 10 minutes before it all started he was warming up, fell and broke his break, his dad then had to rush to get another break to switch. It was all very stressfull since he also gets judged on time... He lost at least half an hour but It all went well though and he ended up 14th in the world! Wohho, next year it's held in south africa and I believe he will do even better then!

Yesterday we then drove to germany and up into the mountains to see Hitlers summer house, where him and all his other disgusting friends met up and planned their unhuman actions. You could see all these pictures and history of what he did and how he did it, being in the same elevator as he once was and sitting exactly where he was sitting when he was deciding to torture all these people is sickening!

Such a beautiful place, ruined because of this horrible man! Thinking how recently this all happened is so scary. 

Last night we went to watch the top riders compete for first place. I was actually surprised how fast I got into this, I had imagined walking around town doing some late night shopping while nate would be watching that, but oh no I was right there so excited what was going to happen next. It's a really easy sport to watch, you get brakes inbetween and unalike football, basketball and handball you actually understand when somebody gets a point and know if its unfair or not. You dont just stand there and get distracted by the smallest things and clap when everybody else claps... Hahaha

Today is going to be soo much fun, nathan is riding to get rid of that ridiculous amount of energy he woke up with so I'm going to go out for a walk between the alps... Then were gonna have lunch and catch a train to innsbruck where we'll (hopefully) go bungee jumping of europbrucken. That is if I dont change my mind on the way or if some stupid thing doesnt happen that wont allow us to go!

Crossing my fingers that I won't die! :D 

Germania

Not bad waking up to this view! mmm had the best day ever yesterday, I'll put pictures later :) off to germany now !!

Österreich

Finally finally! Im in austria.

You know me, of course nothing went smoothly... 

8 hours before I left I started feeling funny and peeing blood (sorry for the brutal honesty haha). I just thought like oh this is just perfect now I'll go to the doctor and he'll tell me I have a weird disease that won't allow me to fly, it 'only' turned out to be a kidney infection. 

I got some antibiotics, packed and went to the airport... Forgetting the medicine at home so poor mom had to rush back home and get it. 

At the airport I then had my drinking bottle and while waiting in some line I was playing with it, screwing the lid on and off, you know fun stuff... At some point I got distracted while the lid was off, completely forgot I had taken it off and then proceeded with pouring my full water bottle all over my chest! At least I amused the people around me. This was When I was just about to go on a 8 hour long trip! 

When I finally get to austria I was supposed to be picked up, but then I get a call saying that they went to lienz instead of linz,, they had driven 4 hours in the wrong direction! 

We finally found each other though and went out to eat pizza and some austrian apfel something or another. Then I had forgotten the name of my hotel so we couldn't find that so I got to crash on the couch of the world championship team! Not bad huhh hahaha

Now I'm safe and sound finally in my own hotel room in the cutest little town between the alps in austria. Everything is so beautiful, trees all over and houses made from wood. 

Tomorrow I'm going to watch the world championship in mountain biking trials, never done that before :D then I'll find something fun to do, saalfelden has a lot to offer! I'll probably get lost and end up living with cows in the alps. 

un'altro viaggio

In the last 4 days I have slept 11 hours thank you very much! Now I have 17 hours until I'm going to catch my flight and I still have left working for 10 hours & sleeping & packing!

I need 34 hours in my day! :( 

There has also been a slight change of plans. 

I'm not going to London anymore... or I am, but I'm catching a connection flight as soon as I get there to go to Austria. I got really lucky with the tickets and found a cheap one that leaves from London 3 hours after I arrive there. Why not?

Ok. I'm a complete freak. I have a check list for packing in my room. It works though, it saves me about 2 hours of running around like a headless chicken!

I'm only taking that brown bag with me because if I want to check in a bag it costs more than the flight ticket and I don't really need more. The limitations of liquids however then make life a bit difficult but I have it all figured out!

I have a box in my room with all "this-type-of-stuff". little bag for documents & tickets. Mini shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, mouthwash, hand sanitize & nail polish. Then I also have my dry shampoo, which I love! It's a travel version so it's smaller and it's so comfy only having to clean your hair once a week while travelling and using dry shampoo the days in between. 

then you of course can't forget the brennivin bottle there hahaha! good for if you want to get drunk on a long bus ride or something

My two favorite mini travel things... 

1. This great invention for perfume!

You take what ever perfume you want to be in the bottle and simply just spray into the part that's turning up on the picture. Then you just close it up and you have I think 120 sprays before it's finished. Also nice to have in your purse :D

Such a weight saver!

2. This wonderful scale to weigh your bag

You just take the strips (you can see them on the second picture) and click them around the handles of the bag. Then you just turn the scale on and lift your bag up and it gives you a precise number of how heavy your bag is both in lb & kg. The scale itself is I'd guess less than 200 gr and is really worth squeezing in your bag. Even when your at home you can't really check your baggage weight because the home scales aren't made for it. Can save you heaps of money.

Now I have a lunch date with Sunna. We're gonna track down the fattest, greasiest most hang-over food we can find and eat it all!