16.7.2006

Driving Around Iceland

An Easy Way to Lose Weight!

Because I´m a writer, living alone there are no restrictions on how I spend my time, nothing holding me down but my lack of cash.

http://www.netsaga.is/media/files/Ladies%20and%20gentlemen-svenni.mp3

Thus it happened one Tuesday-morning when I took a look from my balcony out over Reykjavik in this beautiful weather in June twothousandandthree this crazy idea came to my head, that this was the day when I could, should and would make an old dream come true:

Driving around Iceland, my native soil.

Over the years I had already travelled on the north side all the way to Myvatn and on the south I´d driven to Egilsstadir on the east side of my fabulous island, thus only lacking the north-east side of a perfect ring.

Having made up my mind I visited my cellar-closet, fetched my tent which I´d recently bought in the Rumfatalager for a measly fourteenhundred kroners believing it being such a deed bargain, my old blue sleeping-bag which was supposed to be able of keeping me warm in a minus-thirty degrees weather and an old and thin tent's spongebed.

Before I started my trip along with my camping equipment and a bag full of extra clothes, such as a jumper and wool-socks, swimming clothes and a towel I filled the tank of my tiny Matiz with petrol.

When at ten o'clock I came through the tunnel under the Hvalfjörður I rushed on north and came to Akureyri half past two. I decided to dwell overnight in this capital of the North country at the camping site by the swimming pool and elementary school.

I spent the rest of this Tuesday sight-seeing and walking around the town, idling my time and happened to count the steps up to their church and I concluded they are a hundred, went swimming, had me a burger, and realized how much I missed having a lover by my side, a woman whom I could enjoy times of joy and sorrow with.

In the evening I idled in their town's tiny center which didn´t really leave me breathless, perhabs for the lack of rovers. Elevendish I returned to my tiny bubble-tent entering my sleeping-bag on the thin sponge.

To my dismay I realized that the tent happened to be so short that my toes had to stay outside overnight, but fortunately being at Akureyri where it "never" rains.

At seven in the morning I'd already packed all my accessories into my car again, filled the tank the second time and was on my way, driving through the pretty forest most inwardly in beautiful Eyjafjordur, then on the other side of the fiord from where I could look over this pretty town, before I took a right turn to the east over a mountain-pass.

I decided to take a detour and visit Husavik which happens to be at a nice site by Skjalfandi- bay, in a small town where I decided to have an oil and sparkplug changing, but the local repairman told me there wasn´t time yet and therefore he didn´t get any money from me.

According to my map the nature-pearl Asbyrgi is supposed to be at a short distance east of Husavik and therefore I decided to to take a look for the first and supposedly only time in my life; the repairman'd informed me that the drive would be quite short, approx. an hour.

I bid farewell to this quiet and peaceful town and headed east full of hope and assurance, drove by and through a lot of road-work, construction of a new road and had been on the road nearly two hours when I gave up and turned right towards Europe´s highest waterfall, Dettifoss, for I couldn´t find the famous Asbyrgi.

This decision of mine to turn south seemed in a short while to have been just another blunder, mistake and shortsightedness on my behalf, despite the fact that according to my map I would shortly reach both the great waterfall and the mysterious lake Myvatn (gnats-lake) by this road and then Highway no. one, because at the same time I came closer to the waterfall the road became worse, changed from being a fair gravel road into a track or a path not even feasible for big and powerful mountain jeeps.

But 'cause the track was so terribly narrow I was totally unable to take a u-turn, besides I kept on believing that this adventure or blunder of mine would soon come to an end.

In the first and second gear the mini-car crept along nearly three hours until we came to a road-sign which told us that there was just a kilometer left to the promised fall in Jokulsa a Fjollum (glaciersriver on mountains).

At the short while I stayed there by the mighty fall a few buses came to the site, full of curious foreigners, straight south from Myvatn, but I hadn´t met a car on the north-trail.

From this magnificient waterfall my route lay south to Myvatn and of course according to my luck I happened to choose the wrong road of two towards the lake and by sheer coincidence another car, a German lady tourist travelling alone followed me believing that I had more experience than she had, being an Icelander and all, but... eventually we reached the extraordinary Myvatn and then we parted and I've never heard from her since.

She went West by Northland, but I South by Eastland, having filled my stomach with an icecone and driven to the mysterious Dimmuborgir, from where an ambulance was leaving having come for some sick tourist when I came there.

I headed south towards Egilsstadir driving a long and deserted road, through the forest at Hallormsstadir which truly amased me in many aspects, caved in on putting down my tent there in the forest for it was raining, but decided instead to turn around and visit my uncle Runar who lives at Seydisfjordur with his family, working as a trawler´s captain.

But on my way over the high and horrid mountain cliff Fjardarheidi (fiord-heath) in heavy fog I happened to phone him telling him I'd be knocking at his door in a short while supposedly visiting him and sleeping overnight, but... to my disappointment I´d come just at the only wrong weekday of all.

The great ferryboat Smyrill, which sails weekly between Europe´s mainland and Iceland with a short visit at the Faroe Islands happened to be there at the moment supposing to sail in the morning.

In this tiny beautiful town which stands at the end of a long and deep fiord surrounded by high cliffs everything turns around on Wednesdays with the flooding of tourists, foreign and Icelandic aiming to take the ferry on Thursday, filling every extra bed in town and therefore there wasn´t any room for me when I happened to make a visit for the first time.

The weather being at its worst in ages, stormy and rainy, I wasn´t able to put up my tent, but instead I slept in the passenger front seat, fully dressed with my sleeping bag over me to keep me warm.

I got some sleep, but around seven o'clock I decided to make my uncle a visit, hoping to get some coffee.

When I arrived there having found the house after good instructions on-line the night guests had left and I received the nicest of huggings, coffee and toast, just the way their kin's famous for.

Around ten o'clock I thanked them wholeheartedly and went on my way south by magnificient but frightening mountain roads until I reached beautiful Hofn (harbour) in Hornafjordur (corner-fiord), where I had actually been a teacher in the elementary school in the winter of 1979-80.

In my short visit I took a shower in the swimming pool which happens to be located next to the house I used to live in for the winter of my teaching, and happened to meet there an old acqaintance, now a swimming pool employee whom had arrived for the first time to the town when I was there, his wife being a teacher in my school but he working elsewhere.

After my showering there really was nothing holding me there (actually forgetting one of my father´s brothers who was living there, shame on me) so I filled the tank for the third time on this roundtrip and drove on west by the South beach, over the vast sands, which were much covered with grass, but just about uncovered when I´d been there twentythree years earlier.

Back then the sands were quite bad at times, especially when there was some wind, sand blowing the cars.

The reason I´m tellling you about my trip around fabulous Iceland is just because you, yes I´m talking to you, were talking about the hardship you were always having with your overweight, but I´m just about coming to the overweight part of this story and it happened when I had arrived at Kidholt (kid-hill), a gorgeous cottage which my parents own in the South-lowland where I decided to sleep the third night of my journey.

In the morning the rain had stopped and the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so good even that I decided to assist my dad in whatever he was doing, stripping down to my shorts.

When my mother, bless her heart, saw me naked above waist she was absolutely stunned and said:

-Wow, how fat you have become Oli, when she saw how my breasts were reaching down to my stomach.

I was really stunned myself hearing this true statement from my mother who isn´t really known for anything but true sincerity towards me, her eldest.

-You must quit eating sugar and practise more than you do today (I was really quite a keen biker) she recommended me, always keeping my welfare at her heart.

You´ll never be able to find you a woman with women-breasts like these, son.

I was really startled by this warning from the mother and decided to start my emaciation on the spot and said no to all them delicious cakes and cookies mum vited me along with the coffee, before I returned to my home in Reykjavik, thus perfecting the ring.

I followed her recommendation to the letter and stopped buying any food with sugar-ingredients, cakes and candy, thus sugar not tempting me anymore in my dull solitude in my home, and I used my bike any time I could, riding up and down hills in the neighbourhood.

My changed habits soon gave me great results, because before the first week ended I had tightened my belt and a litle later I began using old pants anew, the ones I had stuffed in the back of my closet.

The losing of overweight dosn´t have to mean any more money-spending, just a simple change of habits.

REMEMBER THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!