White Out

Our village of Val d'Isere can be seen at the bottom of the valley.

Rather than waste precious electrons on the 'printed' word, I will let the photos do the talking here. One week snowboarding in the French Alps, right near the Italian border, with a good friend of mine from Australia, equals an awesome time, great boarding (for me, as an Australian, but I'm sure more fresh snow wouldn't have gone amiss), awesome food, lots of pains, and best of all, no fractured scaphoid!

Fire and Ice

Near Vik on the south coast

First I should say, I have never before planned a holiday around a single attraction so much, missed out on the particular attraction, yet had one of the best holidays ever. When I decided to go to Iceland for a week, one of my main aims was to see the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights. The concept of particles from the sun streaming into the atmosphere and putting on a light show seems so magical and I really wanted to see it for myself. I ditched Northern Norway in favour of Iceland figuring there were so many other things to do there I would probably have a better time, so off I went. All the while I knew that in addition to solar activity, one of the major factors for seeing the Aurora is cloud cover. Unfortunately, the weather for the 9 nights I was in Iceland could not really have been much worse. Cloud cover was 8/8 almost constantly, with only the occasional break for some moon-rays. Oh well, I may have to make a trip to Northern Norway after all...

The days in Iceland are extremely short this time of year. Sunrise was around 10:30-11:00 and sunset around 16:00 (it's very hard to really know when the sun is up when it is totally overcast and twilight seems to last forever). Similarly, the cities (or rather, 1 town and multiple villages) seem to operate based on daylight hours too. It is very hard to get up in the mornings when it's pitch black outside, but even worse when you step into the main street in the capital city and most the shops are still closed and there is barely a soul around. It seems like the only time there is congestion (both pedestrian and vehicular) is between around midnight and 2am on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Party time really is the only time Reykjavik gets busy, and the locals come out in force. And there is definitely no shortage of drinking establishments in town.

Frostbite

Why it's dangerous to walk on the footpaths here in winter

I'm guessing the doctors probably wouldn't classify it as frostbite, but after my experience of riding a bike today (the weather app on my phone said the windchill was -17'C!), frostbite is something I wouldn't wish on anyone! Last night when riding out to my Irish Pub Christmas dinner, I wore my ski gloves, thinking that's the way to keep warm. I was sorely mistaken. So thinking that my ski gloves simply do not stop wind like my other ones, I wore my other gloves today. Boy, big mistake. They were even worse. After a 15 minute ride I could not feel any of my fingers. It was a struggle trying to get my hand into my pocket in order to pull out my phone (with a map on it), not to mention a struggle trying to work the lock on my bike and then trying to grip the zipper on my jacket to take it off when I reached my destination. It took a good 15 minutes of indoor heat before I could feel my fingers again, and 2 hours later I still had pains in the extermities. Wow! Talk about an incentive to find better gloves!

On the bright side, here are some more pretty photos of this icy weather...

I've received the all clear!

Almost 5 months since the accident.
Almost 3 months since surgery.
Around 6 weeks since I've started physio.

And the good news is: my scaphoid is healing well and both the physio and doctor have given me the all-clear to go snowboarding this winter! Not something I was expecting, and not something I will be doing immediately, but good to hear the news!

Winter Wonderland

Just a few random photos from the last couple of weeks...

NOW I am integrating

Finally, I have joined the elite echelon of Danish society. I own a bike. But not just any bike, a dorky bike with a brand name that I had never heard of before, relatively simply, yet unnervingly expensive (for what it is). Two weeks after receiving the all-clear from my physio, I managed to select the most snowed in day since I have been here to get myself a bicycle. This also meant I had my first experience of riding on ice, through snow and slush, and having the pleasure (very unlike back home) of cars giving way to me!

For a country where it seems there are more bikes than people, it is crazy to think that bikes cost an obscene amount of money here. If you want a new bike, you will probably not find one under DKR 2,000. And that's for something simple (not a racer, not a mountain bike, and probably only a single gear - though in a country without hills that's not as bad as it sounds). If you want something fancy you'll pay upwards of DKR 4,000, and like any other country, you can really spend as much as you want. But the crazy thing is the cost of second hand bikes - from a shop, you'll unlikely find one for under DKR 600 or DKR 700. Not much less for a private sale. And to think that the sort of bike that I had to give away in Canberra before I left (because there was no chance of anyone paying money for it) would cost probably around DKR 800 here - that's crazy!

Anyway, I went for the cheapo option since my apartment building doesn't have underground bike parking - so a bit of rust, gears that are literally frozen in place and a slightly torn seat will just add to the character.

It's going to be a white Channukah

View of the courtyard from my kitchen window

Although the skies started looking rather ominous, I didn’t really believe the girl in the canteen when she said it was going to snow later. I did expect snow later in the week after seeing the Friday forecast as having a minimum of -7’C and a maximum of -5’C. But sure enough, that evening, snow flurries started falling. And sure enough, when I woke up this morning the city was covered in a light blanket of white powder – at least that’s how it looked. I quickly discovered after walking to the shops and back that the powder was rather icy and it probably wouldn’t be too long before I slipped and fell on my ass (or worse still, on an outstretched arm!). However, it was still very pretty seeing all the cars, trees, rooftops and parks covered in white.