Iceland - November 2008

No more November! No more November! Wait, I enjoyed November...albeit it was a busy November, and I'm late...I know. Wonder if it's because I'm preggers. Late = Pregnant, right?

As promised, I'm picking up the pace a bit as the year draws to a close...but my pace these days is more like a plod! My age is catching up with me - 32!! Still not as old as some of you...you know who you are, Old People!!! On the Día de los Muertos, I went to a Halloween Party.....a day late and a dollar short if you ask me. But they didn't, and it cost me more like 10 dollars to get in and who the hell knows how much per beer! Glad the exchange rate is better than when I first got here! Luckily, woke up on the 2nd with not too much of a hangover. But enough of one to just sit around the house all day, and I mean sit around the house. My ass has its own zip code these days!! Must be from all the healthy eating and exercise I get! Oh but wait...don't let me ruin the bestest story of the month. Read on.....

With the hangover under control got to watch a replay of the Texas/Texas Tech game. I miss LIVE college football soooo much. I just can't resist checking the scores online before the dumb replay starts. Election Day was a bitch! And I don't mean like that one chick in that one movie that had that story line that wasn't so good and that actor that couldn't act to save his life. Know which one I'm talkin about? The day was not like her. I went to work at 0730 until around 1830. Ok for you not in 'the know,' 0730 = 7:30am and 1830 = 6:30pm. Trackin? At 1830 took off to go find a bite to eat. I ended up grabbing a crappy burger from this crappy restaurant called American Style. I ate said crappy burger and went back to the office. At 2000 plodded off to a hotel where we hosted an election night celebration. Politicos, educationists, those that study at high school, and a couple of good ol' boys were invited to this thing. Around 800 people turned up. I worked the event until around 0400 and then back to the office. Started my day at 0422 (5 November). I was so beat that my boss let me go home and take a nap, luckily. Sadly, I slept through my alarm and never made it back to work that day! I was a tad perturbed with myself for not going back in........... Did that read like it was believable at all? I actually slept through the alarm though! Seriously!! (jeez - 3 paragraphs and only the 5th...)

Did come up with a new word this month too...it's 'Preparture™.' If you'd like to know the definition, please contact me individually. I'd be more than happy to share if I feel it is appropriate for you to know. WARNING: The word is trademarked, a little trick I learned from the Love Guru!! Mariska Hargitay!, and unauthorized usage is prohibited by 6 USC 1976 (j)(m)!

Weekends are awesome. Had dinner at a co-worker's house on Friday night (remember the ho-hum husband? well he is well above ho-hum and almost cool!) He had me and some other folks over and made duck. I ate salad. During the rest of the weekend, I just kind of chilled. I did a little shopping. I bought my Christmas cards, an electric hand mixer, a CD, and groceries. Later that night, I consumed my evening meal at an establishment named TGI Friday's. Following the delightful meal, I had the pleasure of viewing a moving picture show called Quantum of Solace starring Daniel Craig as James Bond and the incomparable Dame Judi Dench as the spriteful M. I give it 3/4 of a thumb up! I have two thumbs though. I apparently didn't do jack on Sunday but Monday was a day to reckon with! Let me tell you just how the day began: to start with, I overslept. Not by much...but by enough. Then went into the bathroom to tinkle, and I blew out all the fuses in my bedroom, TV room, bathroom, and the rest of the residential wing. And since I was late already, I thought what the hell I'll actually iron a shirt for work. Blew up my flippin iron! Plugged it in and psssssstt smokey Teval iron. You'd think an appliance I bought in Pakistan would last longer than 18 months! Just another Manic Monday! But Tuesday was a holiday for me! Not for the Icelanders. So I got to shop in relative leisure. But lest we forget what the holiday was.

11 November is the one day every year marked on the calendar as a reminder to remember our veterans. But we should not forget or stop thinking about them any of the other 364 days or 365 in Leap Years!

And to cap off Veteran's Day, I parked my car in my underground parking spot! Didn't really know I had a spot. Did you? Now I don't have to scrape snow off of my windshield in the cold, dark, snowy mornings! Boo Yah!! But get this...my car got locked in the parking garage. When I moved in, I got the garage door opener. So I open the garage door, drive my car in, and back the son of a gun in the parking spot. Go upstairs and do whatever it is I do when I do what I do. The next morning drag my butt out of bed and triple-S! Plod on down to the parking garage door and put the key in. The key doesn't open the door. I stand around for 15-20 minutes in the cold waiting to see if somebody, anybody was going to go to the parking garage. Nope. Just my luck, right? So call one of my co-workers and beg to be picked up. Came home that evening and the landlord put a key to the garage in my mailbox. So that's how my work week wrapped up. Great! Way to begin the weekend!!

Ok, now here's the story that I alluded to at the top of this dribble. I plodded down the six flights of stairs to go to the grocery store to get me some junk food before I went to work. Surprise me and junk food!!!! And wah wah wah about working on Saturday, my day off. But that's not what this story is about. I plodded down the stairs (offsetting any junk food I'd buy) and came out on the first floor. One of the apartment's had their door open and it stunk to high heaven. Like gag me stink!!! My only thought was the guy took a huge dumpéé (pronounced doomp-ay - trying to class this story up a bit) and was disgusted by his own stink that he had to air out his own apartment. It stunk! Did I say that it stunk? It STUNK! But when I came back from the store with the the junk food in hand, the door was shut. So he was either embarrassed by me saying "Holy (expletive)! What is that (expletive) smell? It smells like somebody took a huge (expletive) (expletive). Did somebody (expletive) die in the (expletive) place? Maybe just maybe I helped somebody out that day by not making them smell that odoriferous non-delight. Maybe? I like to think so...cuz I'm a giver, and I care!!!!

The next day I had some co-workers over to my house for pizza, and I did a little Christmas decorating. I know it was early but there was a method to my madness. Sadly it seems to be all madness now with absolutely no (expletive) method! That Monday (17 November, if you're lost) I took a day off from work. I'm on what we call Use or Lose. I have too much vacation time on the books, and if I don't use it I lose it. Crazy conceptual name, huh? The following Thursday (the 20th...stay with me here!!!) was the first day with less than six hours of daylight. It only gets less from then on out until it starts getting more!!! Friday was yet another Use or Lose Day!!!

Saturday, 22 November 2008 was a day poor Iceland will not be able to recover from. Sure the economy will turn around eventually, but my friend Kathy moved to Iceland on this day. I woke up at the crack of dawn and drove out to the airport at 0530 to pick her up. Spent pretty much the rest of the day bumming around with her and getting her settled in and to the grocery store! Everybody loves groceries!!! Sunday I watched the OU/Texas Tech game. Boomer Sooner!!!!

On the 24th I did something I had never done before. It was something I thought might be fun at some point in my life but was a little too scared to try it. Thought what if people knew I liked to do this or was something I did on a regular basis. Some people might look at it as an abomination. I made my own pie crusts. You can't find frozen pastry shells here in Iceland; so I had no other choice. I needed two pumpkin pies for a Thanksgiving Dinner potluck. I hope you all can look past this fact and love me for whom I am and not that I make my own pie crusts! ;o)It was good times, good food, and good people!

I got to the leave the island and head off for a vacation away from work. I went to Copenhagen for Thanksgiving. I flew out on Wednesday afternoon after having the ho-hum husband and his family over for coffee. The family flew in from the US for the holiday and since I was leaving and wouldn't see them, I made coffee. In fact I had to go out and buy a coffee pot! So flew to Copenhagen on a somewhat bumpy flight. Drugs put me to sleep for like 30 minutes...UGH! Arrived and my friend who I was visiting made dinner, and then we made a pumpkin pie for Thursday.

Got up Thanksgiving morning but didn't get to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or anything. Didn't even get to watch football! We went out and saw the Little Mermaid statue and then to the grocery store. We came back and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening cooking and gorging ourselves. My friend had to work on Friday so while she was at work, I did a self-guided walking tour of part of Copenhagen. It was a bit chilly, and I saw a lot!! I saw some castles, some churches, the changing of the guards; saw me getting lost a few times too. Then I headed down to Tivoli Gardens. We saw a performance of the Nutcracker at Tivoli. It was a modern version that I somewhat enjoyed. It wasn't the best and it certainly wasn't the worst. Instead of ballet, there was break dancing and rapping and skateboarding on stage. If I didn't know it was the Nutcracker, then I wouldn't have understood the story at all as it was unfolding on stage! But oh well...it was an enjoyable part of the Christmas season. Afterwards we wandered around Tivoli Gardens until it was time to go home for dinner, watching Elf, and put up the Christmas tree! Saturday we got up and trained up to Helsingor also known as Elsinore. We visited Kronberg Castle which is the castle that Shakespeare uses as the setting for Hamlet. To be or not to be, that is the question... Well it was really cold and rainy so the bigger question was, To glögg or not to glögg? We glögged!!! Hmmm....warmed, spiced and sweetened wine on a bone-chilling day. Only a few things are better than that...and they all include me, myself and I! We were going to head across the sound on a ferry to Sweden but miserable weather would've made for a miserable time in Sweden. So alas, I didn't make it Sweden. 3 more Scandinavian countries to go in 18 months plus Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

On the final day of the month, we took a canal tour. I was stupid enough to sit outside the entire boat ride and caught a bit of a phlegmy-cough! Oh well...it was a nice canal tour! Then we went off to the Carlsberg brewery after meeting up with a friend that I was in Afghanistan with. Got to the brewery and the sucka was closed 'due to special engagement.' Yeah the special engagement was my ass walking all that way...open up bitches! Give me my tour and beers!! After our unsuccessful go at the brewery and the brawl I started with the security guards to get some free beer, we headed to the City Hall for the lighting of the Christmas tree. It was cool. It's a 200 year old tradition. And Santa came in on a fire truck, climbed up the ladder and lit the tree with fireworks. I asked Deb, what if he falls with all these kids around? They'd be scarred for life! But he didn't, and the tree was really nice looking. Then it was off to the airport and my flight back. The pills didn't even work on the flight at all, and it was a bumpy one! I arrived back at home on 1 December, and now it's time to bring on the Christmas season! I hope you all are well, and I apologize again for this being late! I'm a busy little beaver!!!!!!!