Ready, Steady...Tow!: 11/12/06

The Sugarcubes Reunion in Reykjavik, Iceland (Sykurmolarnir) Nov. 17th, 2006

I still cant believe I actually got to see the Sugarcubes live, and In Reykjavik. My dream come true. YAY! Definitely the best Birthday EVER. Oh, did you hear..? Bjork and Matthew Barney were on my flight home too! On my flight there we had Mike White up in first class. So my three favorite creative genuisis in film, art and music were all on my flights in and out of Iceland. So strange. Well, here are some photos from the concert as well as some other people who I became friends with who also traveled far and wide for the big event! For a venue for 5,000 people 1,000 came from outside of Iceland. What pull. Opening acts were Mum and Rass.

here are some video snipits too!

"Deus"

"Bee"

"Planet"

"Walkabout"

"Motorcrash"

"Hit"

"Fucking in Rhythm and Sorrow"

Luftgutair

IKEA, Swans and Wigeon Face Attacks

Had the IKEA in Reykjavik been anything different than what any of you have seen already, I would of taken some photos. It happened to be a lot like any of the American locations. Some exceptions include cans of beer you could purchase at the hot dog stand downstairs near the exit, the metric system on the throwaway rulers and more plenty more espresso accessories. The highlight of my day however was on the way home from IKEA and hearing the Icelandic version of "Birthday" from the Sugarcubes on the radio, on the actual day of my birth nonetheless. Little things rock my socks off, and this was one of them.

Earlier today Bill and I spent some time at the Tjornin Lake. Locals refer to it as "the pond". This is one of the most amazing places in Reykjavik. Feeding the birds is one of the only things to do there other than waste some time at the City Hall building. There you can see the largest topographic map of Iceland, get a free wifi hook up, have some coffee and sit in a window with a beautiful view of the pond and watch all the other people feeding the birds freeze their asses off. Today we decided to freeze our asses off for a bit and feed these dinosaurs. Here are some photos and video of the area/birds. I felt a bit like an arctic snow white.

Here is Bill dodging a flying attack from a wigeon. Yep, apparently they don't have pigeons here.

If you look closely you can see a wigeon that tried attaching itself to Bill's face. They really liked Bill.

This guy here was my favorite geese of the day. He was the only patient son of a gun on the whole pond!

Look at the neck on this turkey.

This one melts my heart. Look how he tilts his little head like Lois..

Me and more swans.

I like this photo. You can see City Hall in the background. It's architecturally an amazing building.

This is me being honest.

Here I am with the large topographic map of Iceland.

Here is Bill on the other side of the topographic map pointing out an extremely remote populated area of the island.

This is a view of the pond at around 4:45 pm. It's just so beautiful.

Iceland, Birthday, Sugarcubes

They all go hand in hand don't they? I'm not talking abou the hit single "birthday" but my actual birthday! Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, I'm 29! Holy shit I'm in iceland. and this Friday I'll get to see my favorite band play, the Sugarcubes! Thanks Sugarcubes!!! This will be the best birthday present ever! It's currently 13:38 and Bill's in the shower. I'm eating Skonsur, that's basically thick pancake in a bag that you can get for roughly a dollar at the Bonus discount Super Market on the main shopping street, Laugavgur. It's about 30 degrees outside and we got about 4 more hours of daylight if we are lucky. Our Couch Surfing hosts here in Reykjavik are Setta og Bjarni. og means and. They are two stylish scandinavians with a fantastic apt. right in the center of town. They have been so kind to let us stay for 6 whole nights. We even have our own room and we've purchased groceries that we've been cooking here as well, anything to save a kronur here. its $$$$$. Yeah Bill and I are real high flutin'. We only go to real high class joints on our Holidays. We got in a few days ago and since then we've mainly caught up on sleep, and ventured out with the daylight. Setta og Bjarni have invited us to IKEA later today so pictures should follow. It feels so great to be back in Iceland. I am so pissed I didn't get accepted to this program I had applied to back when I had a short stint at the University of Minnesota. Damned that Scandinavian Graduate student who got a full ride to the University of Iceland because he wanted to translate the Old Norse Language into Binary Code. I suppose the administrators found that to be more applicable over my eagerness to study fine arts here in Iceland. This is definielty a place I could live. To date, it is still my favorite place I've ever been. Here are some photos of our stay here thus far in Iceland:

Well this is some cockamamy statement. This graf is pro alcohol and anti-cannibas. Who finds the time for this?

After the Sugarcubes concert Friday night, I'll be here at Sirkus, with DJ Gus Gus! Yay!

Here I am hanging out with some troll wall art on the wall outside of the bar Sirkus.

Here is Bill with the same wall art.

More amazing colorful graffetti.

I'm gonna go find out how much this dress costs. I love it. I'm sure it would break my piggily wiggily bank

Is there a film I don't know about with Leo starring as Che Guevara? (cause I saw this in a store front last night)

These Dorrritos really amused us. They call Cool Ranch Flavor, "Cool American".

I didn't see Mods or Rockers in England. WTF?

We arrived into dreary London the morning of Nov. 11th. We had no set agenda and we had our accommodations set with somebody we met through www.couchsurfing.com. John Wright was our couch surfing host and what a great host he was. We were staying in a south west suburb called Kingston which wasn't really a suburb but more like an outdoor shopping centre. It was also home to Kingston University. John was very welcoming, and gave us tips and ideas what to do with our short stay. John had another couch surfer staying with him, Santiago from Argentina. We hope to cross paths with the both of them again someday. Two day's isn't long in London, but our wallets couldn't handle much more so it was good to say good bye. (not that Iceland is any cheaper). The highlight of our trip was seeing Borat in Camden. Go see it if you haven't already and bring your loved ones too. We found it interesting that we laughed our asses off at times that the English audience had no reaction. The American's and the English are just on two totally different pages in the funny dept. Here are some of the things we saw:

Am I the only one in the dark here about this? Who knew that Patrick Swayze had a staring role in Guys and Dolls?

These kids ruled. Notice the boys jacket, that's right.. Fresno State Bulldogs. I had to say something. I asked the kid if he knew what he had on, and he replied with a no. I told him I was originally from Fresno and that it was a cowboy town in California with lots of raisins. The two of them were so stoked. I asked if I could take a photo and they cheerfully accepted.

For some reason I was really amused with the oversized bottom half of a punk rocker that was attached to the side of a building in Camden.

This was the most interesting street signage I came across on my travels.

Here is Bill crushing a Mini Cooper with his fingers.

Bill and The Mona Lisa in the Tubes.

Bill and the London Bridge Underground Sign. It's so hard not to take photos in the Underground. Their logo looks too good.

Traditional English Breakfast with John Wright our Couch Surfing Host.

The Tate Modern

Bill inside the Tate Modern

This guy had it going on. He was playing under a bridge along the Thames River next to the Tate Modern museum.

The Millennium Bridge and Swiss Re Building

I caught this moment of a man and his daughter assisting his construction of a rock tower formation they built along the river bank of The Thames. It was quite sweet.