London and Australia
Since my last update I have enjoyed a lovely stay in London, been reunited with Thorri, and flown to the other end of the planet.
I can't believe I'm in Australia already. It's been this far off part of my journey for such a long time. When I saw my grandmother and Lindsay waiting for me and Thorri at the Tamworth airport I was struck with the sheer insanity of it all. I can't really put the feeling into words, but it might have been close to how you feel when you've been spinning around on a desk chair for ages and then suddenly get up.
My weekend in London was absolutely lovely. The morning after I arrived, Tommi took me to a market for some yummy steak and cheese pie. I can't go to England and not have pie. We also went to the Wellcome collection where we saw Napoleon's tooth brush and other interesting things. (His tooth brush looked really weird, by the way.)
There was also an exhibition dealing with human enhancement which I found to be very interesting. Especially a video by an artist who had asked a plastic surgeon to draw on her naked form the blueprints for all the procedures he thought would be needed to make her as flawless as possible. This was not an unattractive or misshapen woman, and yet she ended up looking like an army of toddlers with crayons had been unleashed on her. It was a very sharp commentary on what society has come to consider to be 'flawless'.
After our tour of the Wellcome collection we cooked ourselves a nice dinner and watched Blade Runner, a film I had never seen before. We were inspired to watch it because it was mentioned in the human enhancement exhibition. The film raised some interesting questions about what it means to be human, but I was appalled at how the female characters (although the word 'character' barely applies) were treated.
The day after was spent buying our weight in fruit, browsing all the wonderful things on display at Forbidden Planet (I seriously wanted all the Harry Potter stuff. Especially the beautiful Time Turner replica!) and having Turkish food with Tommi's girlfriend Holly and her mother.
My last full day in London, Monday, was spent getting ready to meet Þorri at the airport. I must have made it to the arrivals gate almost two hours early because I was so eager to see him again! You can imagine how happy we were when we were finally reunited. ♥
We stayed at an airport hotel that night, making it easy to get the airport the next day. I won't bore you with the details of our journey (6 hours to Abu Dhabi, 10 hours waiting in Abu Dhabi, 13 hours to Sydney, 4 hours waiting in Sydney, 1 hour to Tamworth, 2 hours driving to Narrabri) except to say it was exhausting. Especially since I came down with a sore throat right at the start of the journey. I did manage to catch up on all the recent film releases, though.
After we got to my grandmother's house we've been doing a lot of eating and sleeping. Þorri is loving all the animals that you see around the house (mainly birds and some lizards) and I'm loving my grandmother's collection of murder mysteries. Oh, and last night we started watching Downton Abbey! I've already become quite invested.
Tonight there will be a dinner party. My grandmother has invited some friends that I'm looking forward to seeing again, and there has been talk of pancakes. Yummy Icelandic pancakes!
Hopefully my throat will get better soon, being sick is no fun. Will you send me some healing mojo if you have any to spare?
I can't believe I'm in Australia already. It's been this far off part of my journey for such a long time. When I saw my grandmother and Lindsay waiting for me and Thorri at the Tamworth airport I was struck with the sheer insanity of it all. I can't really put the feeling into words, but it might have been close to how you feel when you've been spinning around on a desk chair for ages and then suddenly get up.
My weekend in London was absolutely lovely. The morning after I arrived, Tommi took me to a market for some yummy steak and cheese pie. I can't go to England and not have pie. We also went to the Wellcome collection where we saw Napoleon's tooth brush and other interesting things. (His tooth brush looked really weird, by the way.)
There was also an exhibition dealing with human enhancement which I found to be very interesting. Especially a video by an artist who had asked a plastic surgeon to draw on her naked form the blueprints for all the procedures he thought would be needed to make her as flawless as possible. This was not an unattractive or misshapen woman, and yet she ended up looking like an army of toddlers with crayons had been unleashed on her. It was a very sharp commentary on what society has come to consider to be 'flawless'.
After our tour of the Wellcome collection we cooked ourselves a nice dinner and watched Blade Runner, a film I had never seen before. We were inspired to watch it because it was mentioned in the human enhancement exhibition. The film raised some interesting questions about what it means to be human, but I was appalled at how the female characters (although the word 'character' barely applies) were treated.
The day after was spent buying our weight in fruit, browsing all the wonderful things on display at Forbidden Planet (I seriously wanted all the Harry Potter stuff. Especially the beautiful Time Turner replica!) and having Turkish food with Tommi's girlfriend Holly and her mother.
My last full day in London, Monday, was spent getting ready to meet Þorri at the airport. I must have made it to the arrivals gate almost two hours early because I was so eager to see him again! You can imagine how happy we were when we were finally reunited. ♥
We stayed at an airport hotel that night, making it easy to get the airport the next day. I won't bore you with the details of our journey (6 hours to Abu Dhabi, 10 hours waiting in Abu Dhabi, 13 hours to Sydney, 4 hours waiting in Sydney, 1 hour to Tamworth, 2 hours driving to Narrabri) except to say it was exhausting. Especially since I came down with a sore throat right at the start of the journey. I did manage to catch up on all the recent film releases, though.
After we got to my grandmother's house we've been doing a lot of eating and sleeping. Þorri is loving all the animals that you see around the house (mainly birds and some lizards) and I'm loving my grandmother's collection of murder mysteries. Oh, and last night we started watching Downton Abbey! I've already become quite invested.
Tonight there will be a dinner party. My grandmother has invited some friends that I'm looking forward to seeing again, and there has been talk of pancakes. Yummy Icelandic pancakes!
Hopefully my throat will get better soon, being sick is no fun. Will you send me some healing mojo if you have any to spare?