Category Travel
Black sand beaches!
At long last! The wind died down just enough for us to scrape our way along the southern coast to Vik, a tiny town on a stretch of black sand beach. If you do a web search for pictures of Vik, you’ll see serenely pastoral views of a picturesque village nestled among green fields beside […]
Waterfalls!
Iceland is a land of wind and volcanoes and glaciers—and also waterfalls! They pour over the volcanic cliffs onto the flat coastland below. Highly dramatic and incredibly photogenic, they are sure crowd pleasers. The first one we visited was Seljalandsfoss, which was also the largest and busiest. Next, just a few hundred yards up the […]
Lava!
Getting rescued with a new (and functional!) van did not solve our problems. Cyclone Dennis was still pummelling us with 100+ mph winds, topping 150mph in the passes—which meant it wasn’t safe for us to continue our journey. So our guide announced an impromptu visit to the Lava Centre, which offered a small and highly […]
Stranded!
We left before dawn (aka a little after 9am) on a two-day adventure tour to the southern coast of Iceland. In no time at all we were traversing frozen lava fields and climbing our way over the Blue Mountains. About an hour outside of Reykjavík, just as we were passing through a town named after […]
Exploring Reykjavík
Oh man, what a day. We criss-crossed this charming town no fewer than five times from end to end under the biting winds of a north-Atlantic cyclone. The meals were delicious, the architecture fantastic, and those shapes, colours, and textures of the houses? I’m obsessed. Off to bed now—photos in order, without explanation; out into […]
Reykjavik!
We made it! The last flight out of Paris got us to Reykjavík just after midnight and literally minutes before Dennis the storm hit. By the time we had collected our luggage and climbed onto the shuttle, the wind and snow had begun. We crawled our way through blizzard conditions into town, more than an […]
Paris!
After a visit to the British Library on Sunday (which apparently I forgot to write about…), things figuratively went south when I came down with a mild stomach bug that Amy may have brought from her nephew in New York. I laid low and worked from home and tried to recover as quickly as possible […]
Amy’s here!
My doorbell rang at noon and who should be outside? None other than my dear Amy who has flown all the way from Seattle for a little vacation avec moi: a few days in London, followed by a few days in Paris, before a long weekend in Iceland (where we’re hoping to see some northern […]
Party in Luxembourg
I’ve been in Luxembourg all week for an EU business summit, which means many interesting-ish meetings and a massive themed costume party. Last year’s theme was The Great Gatsby, which meant I got to wear my tux (always a delight), but this year’s theme was The Future Is Now, which, I’m sorry, but what does […]
Visit to the London Art Fair
The London Art Fair happened this week literally across the street from where I live. That, plus the free tickets that the gallerist around the corner sent me, seemed like a sign that universe wanted me to go. Held inside a massive Victorian agricultural hall, the venue was enormous and, on preview night on Tuesday, […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 