Hiking in the Mourne Mountains.

What have I signed up for? The group I was with for the day hike to glendalough was your average tourist group. A couple Americans, a bunch of swedens, some brits and me, the Canadian. Everyone was going at a normal pace. Very relaxed, enjoying the scenery and such. The Mourne mountain clan consisted of mainly locals from in and around Dublin and 5 people from France living and working in Dublin. These people signed up not for the travelling and scenery – but for the hiking. Wow - were these people hardcore. If there is hiking equipment, these people had it. Although I was questioning the logic of carrying metal hiking poles to the highest summit in Northern Ireland in a rainstorm – but maybe that’s just me. Luckily one woman was just as slow as I was and we kept pace pretty well until it came to the summiting a mountain part. I was a little slower at this part. Although I wasn’t feeling at all pressured to kept up with the insanely fit pack, I was minorly annoyed that anytime I caught up it was time to go again – that’s nice they got a break…..

The mountains were breathtaking and I enjoying the scenery very much. Over two days our group summitted 3 or 4 different mountains in the region. My feet will never be the same.

Disaster is Dublin.

I arrived in Dublin on Aug 24th at about midnight. Gatwick was a disaster. Security was reasonable but I had to wait, and wait for the screen to tell me which gate I was supposed to go to in order to board my plane. It didn’t do so until 10mins before departure along with the other two planes going to Dublin as well. This caused a mad dash for the gates which basically caused gridlock in the hallway to gates 6-10. Everyone was pushy because they thought they were going to miss their plane…..until finally someone explained that we were all going to the same place and no one is going to miss their planes. We stayed in the gridlock another 30-40mins and finally boarded the plane. Like herding sheep but badly.

In the morning I left my hostel to meet up with my tour group. I didn’t have to go far and go directions from the front desk (left, right, left and so on) except I went out the wrong side of the building and was therefore hopelessly lost in no time. And then it started to rain. And then it started to pour. Great. I asked some people for directions. Occasionally people contradicted each other sending me more off course than I was to begin with. I want to take a taxi but time and time they were all full. At least 30 of them. I was very, very frustrated and wet. I was lost in the rain a total of an hour and subsequently missed the tour. &*#$!!!!. Not a happy Taylor. Luckily they had a day hike leaving in 15mins and I could go on that but I had to arrange my meals and accommodation. I called three hostels which were full and then they called an additional 10 and finally found me a place to stay. Relief. I was to meet up with my own tour in the morning to go hiking in the Mourne Mountains. I sadly missed going to the giant’s causeway (something that I was very excited about). But it will give me reason to come back someday.

Feeling better – and hiking in Glendalough.

The day hike south of Dublin was very nice; although it did require climbing approximately 1000 steps up a mountain! It rained the entire time but I had rain gear and wasn’t bothered. The only thing is that we missed out on the view because of the mist. I assumed it was very pretty. Imagination goes a long way.

Sightseeing in London


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Hello from London!

I have successfully made it here in one piece. The plane was delayed out of reykjavik an hour, but dad's plane was supposed to leave an hour after mine so I had company.
I took the underground instead of the heathrowexpress + underground and it took about the same time, wasn't scary at all and I didn't get lost. Yay me. Saved 15gbp doing this. I had a lovely chat with a vegetarian comedian on the tube, he was coming back from spain from visiting his sister.

I'm not too sure what my plans are for tomorrow. I will attempt to figure out the alarm clock on my phone.... I would like to do some laundry *very important* and then wander the city. Its raining right now and as much as the changing of the guard and whatever else is around may be cool, I'm not sure how much touring I want to do in a downpour lugging around my bag.
Wish me luck not getting too lost tomorrow.

Very excited for Ireland

SouthEast Iceland Part 2

Yesterday was a slow day by our travel standards. Up until now we've been cramming everything in the little time that we have here in this gorgeous country. We started the day by exploring the cliffs by the ocean just outside of Vik. We have been on a search for the supposed 10million Puffins that nest along the south coast. Until this day I hadn't seen a single one. The lonely planet book said that they nest until the middle of August and then leave, almost over night. Apparently they knew the canadians were coming to town. On this day we found some! They are very cute. I thought they would be more penquin size but they're smaller. Dad was looking to eat one while I just wanted to keep one. (Puffin is a very popular dish)

Down the road aways on the way back to Reykjavik we stopped at a glacier. Disappointed not being able to touch the first one we were determined to get on this one. I went around the front and dad the side. Dad succeeded and roamed around the outer edge; he found out quickly that the dirty black ice is still slippery! My mission around the front gave me some great views but alas there was a river all the way around the front. I gave up.

We made it back to the capital and went on yet another mission: To find a restaurant that had both vegetarian options and something weird for dad to eat (whale, puffin, ram's testicles etc.). After checking out menus for a while, I had a bowl of pasta at a local pub and dad had whale shish-kabobs at a lobster shack. Not satisfied with the whale, we went and found "putrified shark" at a grocery store. From my undertanding putrified shark is made when they bury shark meat in some sand and leave it there for 6 months. Yum. Rotten Shark. Guess how it tasted - rotten. LOL I had to move away when dad opened the bag it was so bad. Two bites and that was the end of it. Gross.

SouthEast Iceland

Yesterday our first stop was at a black sand beach near Vik and a helpful dog guided us to all the good places. He followed our car from a farm about a half km away. He would run a bit and then wait for us to catch up. When we climbed some boulders he showed us where all the good rocks were.
He was my buddy. The rock formations at the beach were very cool. Like columns in the rock. I'm looking forward to seeing how they compare to the Giant's Causeway columns in Ireland. It was wonderful to be on a black sand beach but I was still hoping for a palm tree. How touristy of me.

Farther down the road at Vik we picked up some hitchhikers from France. Then we drove for hours through a flat boring lava flow. Kind of like driving to Timmins but with no trees. The lava fields were cool for the first ten minutes. When we finally arrived at Skaftafell National Park I was a bit underwhelmed. I've been to the columbia icefields in Banff and therefore I've been spoiled with magnificent glaciers before. We made a 5 km hike up the the tongue of a glacier but was unable to cross the river to go up and touch it. Bummer. There were tours available for glacier walks but we decided to take a pass. 3-5 hours seems a bit much to be walking on a glacier.

The four of us continued east until we reached the glacier lagoon. Oh-my-God. I've seen the postcards of this place but it doesn't do it justice. Postcards you figure are from some photographer who stayed at the same spot forever to get the perfect shot in gorgeous weather with the right light. Well in this place - it is always the right shot. The pictures just don't do it justice. It was amazing. Probably the highlight of my entire trip. We spent some time walking around the lagoon, stopping for lunch and taking a boat tour. Then we travelled the 2 boring hours back through the lava field desert back to Vik.

SouthWest Iceland Part 1

Team Diabetes arranged for my trip until the 20th but as many others Dad and I decided to extend our trip and travel independently. We rented a car with the plans of driving east.
Our first stop was þingiviller Nathional Park. This spot in a UNESCO world heritage site and I´m told very pretty. Today was just not the day to see it. Most of the park is only accessible by hiking trails and the combination of a 10km race on a sore ankel, hours of walking the streets and hours of dancing meant I was moving a little slower than normal today. lol So basically we drove past the national park...ooo ahhh how pretty and continued driving. We continued on the "golden circle" to the big two tourist attractions - Geysir and Gullfoss. Although major tourist traps, both were worth the drive.

Strokkur is one of the most famous and predictable geysers in Iceland. It erupts about every 5 to 10 minutes at a height of 10-30m. Geysir, from which all Geysers are named only erupts only after a major earthquake at a height of approx. 60-75m.






Gullfoss waterfalls. Very cool






From here we headed south and stayed at a farmhouse in Skögar. Unlike some "farmhouse holidays" in Iceland we were actually on a farm. The woman that ran the place was very sweet. We had a homecooked meal with from scratch cream asperagus soup, fresh from the garden potatoes (which she was very proud of) and dad had the fish. It took a little explaining what a vegetarian was before she understood. They don´t get many of those out this way.

Reykjavik Culture Night. The 'culture' in Reykjavik Culture night may not have been the right word. Perhaps the most appropiate title for this evening is Reykjavik Drunkfest. LOL What a party! But more about that later....

After the race, cultural night set up and was under way. Dad and I walked around the streets in search of this culture. There were stores with open-house style set up with arists, a lot of gallery openings, plays around the city (at least according to the newspaper), and bands. We watched some belly dancers and a youth hiphop/breakdancing group for a while. Mostly thought the biggest attraction was the streets fulled to the brim with people.

For dinner Team Diabetes held a victory party at a very nice revolving restaurant with a glass dome ceiling perched high on a hill over looking Reykjavik downtown center. The dinner was excellent, the company at our table warm and caring and the 'why I did this' speeches moving. The victory party ended with the cultural night fireworks. I definately think we had the best view in the city!

At this point the night really begun. The way back from dinner we had to get off the bus extremely early because all the roads were blocked. With all the people around I managed to lose dad on the way back to the hotel. I found Hilary (one of the CDA staff) to go out with for the night. She was planning to go out with a group of people so I decided to go along. Not surprisingly it took about 5 minutes to lose this group in the crowd. Hilary, very determined to find this group, looked high and low. We barely saw any Canadians on the streets. I was just happy to walk around and people watch. And people watch I did. The party was not only in the bars, it was on the street, literally. Almost everyone on the street has a beer in their hand, and when they were done with it, threw the bottle. Oh dear! It was only 10:30pm and most people looked like they had had enough. An hour and a half we walked around searching, checking bars and whatnot. At this point hilary gave up and went to bed. I found another group at the hotel and ventured out with them.

Surprisingly in this madness I found Dad again walking around, just long enough to say goodnight. The group and I headed to a club. Two of the girls miracuously convinced the bouncer to let all ten of us in the club in front of the very long line. Impressive. This was the place to be apparently and about 15 more Canadians were already there.
The place was hopping and I ended dancing there until 4am. At this point the group was down to 5 - the "survivors." We went out to the streets again in search of another bar. We went to two before calling it a night a 5:30am. What a night.

Littering in the streets in the morning, doesn't have as much of an effect since you can't see the broken glass everywhere or hear the crunch beneath your feet. I slept in but dad said they had an army of cleaners out in the morning and the city was spotless by 10am. A miracle!



More pictures of the late night madness to come.....

Race Day. Saturday Aug. 19th was race day. My first 10Km race; my first real race period. I slept terrible the night before and woke up feeling a bit negative. I found out that the half-marathon race started only 20 minutes after the 10Km. The half is the most popular race consisting of thousands of people. Basically this meant that a gazillion fast people were going to pass me, yay? I have anxiety in general, and this was not helping. I was worried how my knee was going to hold up due to my injury and how my lungs were going to hold up due to my lack of jogging.




Reykjavik Marathon start line. A record number of runners took part as 10192 runners took to the streets of Reykjavík.



When we arrived at the start line the atmosphere was quite good. There was a lot of energy in the air. People excited, people scared. Loud icelandic music playing in the background. The first race to start was the ´charity start;´ this was just for Team Diabetes participants who thought they were going to take more than 5 hours in any race. There were about 20 people in all, mostly walkers and I felt very proud of them for the long journey they were about to take. Walking a marathon - what an accomplishment! I felt teary eyed when the gun went and off they went. It was to be another two hours until my race began.

At 9:40am, 2200 people and I crowd behind the start line. I position myself in the back; don´t want to be swept up in the madness. The countdown,in icelandic, the gun and we´re off. Less dramatic than I figured. I didn´t actually cross the start line for another 3 minutes. lol Although I hear that in actual major races it can take up to 30 minutes! I start the run out good. I walk along with a fellow Team Diabetes walker (in backless shoes nonetheless) until the pack thins out a bit and then I start to run. I catch up to another Team D (we´re quite easy to spot in our colourful singlets) and we keep at the same pace together. I´m moved by the spectators. The beginning of the race is through a residential area and there are locals infront of their houses cheering us on. I especially loved the group of about 15 or so with pots and pans and the nice man playing the acordian on his balconey! The whole "glamour" of racing is not what would ever bring me back to race again. It is these spectators and the energy in the air.

It is at about the 2Km mark when it happens; my ankle is starting to hurt. Oh no. I continue on for about another 3Km like this until ´mind over matter´is just not worth it anymore and I decide to walk the rest, or rather limp the rest. Well that sucks, I was actually making decent time. My team D buddy continued on without me, for well obvious reasons. It´s about this time when the hoards of half-marathon participants stream past me. Quite overwhelming considering we were on a trail that was maybe 4 people wide. I decided to ignore them, keep an eye out for some Canadians to cheer on and admire the scenery. (This part of the race took me along the coast around a peninsula - very pretty) When I reach the 9Km mark I decide the hell with it and very slowly jog the last Km to the finish. I come in at 1hour 29mins. and get my medal (not real gold sadly). The race is over. I felt kind of sad in a way. My Team Diabetes experience was almost over. At the same time I was happy the race was over and I was happy for all the people I met who accomplished their goals.





Taylor coming into the finish line. Yay me!








Patty, Jaime and me at the finish line with our medals






As I look back now, as much as don´t enjoy this sport, I would like to give it another shot. I had a goal of running a 10Km race to completion and I did that. Now I want to run a 10Km race and actually run the whole thing (on a 10/1 run/walk ratio anyways). Maybe I will learn to actually like running, although apparently that will take even more than running a 10km race in Iceland to do it. LOL

Blue Lagoon. Today Dad and I slept in late waking with a mad dash to get to the bus on time to go to the Blue lagoon. Bus left at 11am, we woke up at ten to eleven. Doh. I guess the combination of jet lag and staying awake for 35 hours will do that to you (we went to sleep at 8pm the night before!). When we made it to our destination, Team Diabetes had set up a brunch for everyone and made a few speeches. It was the first time that I got to see everyone from Team Diabetes (about 200 of us) who had fundraised from all over Canada. It very nice to see all the people and I bonded with a few over tales of training mishaps and fundraising successes and disasters.

After brunch we all headed out into the lagoon. It was a cool place I admit. Nothing like the Banff hot springs in Canada, which are basically a pool full of sulphur smelling hot water. These hot springs were smack dab in the middle of a very large lava field. Volcanic rocks covered all sides of the pool and the bottom was filled with mud. There was also some mud set aside to cover your skin if you're into that sort of thing; and yes of course I did!

This is me in the lava field outside the Blue Lagoon center

A section of the Blue Lagoon

Dad and I wading in the water

Leaving for Iceland Today!

It’s kind of surreal actually. It doesn’t feel like I’m about to embark on a 2 week adventure to Europe. I didn’t wake up with any Christmas morning type excitement. Everyone I talk to asks me if I’m excited with amazement and wonder in their eyes, and all I can manage umm yeah sure. Don’t get me wrong – I AM excited. And as I’ve explained to the 101 million people who have asked me about my excitement level. I will be excited, a la Christmas morning, when I’m on my third plane, Icelandair, in the air on the way to Iceland; even more excited when I actually land in Iceland. Right now it just seems so far away; and by all rights it is. I leave for public transit to get to the Ottawa airport at 2:30pm and I won’t get to Iceland until 3pm tomorrow Iceland time (or 11am tomorrow Ottawa time). That’s a little under 24 hours for transportation! Thank god they’re letting me bring a book! Although regrettably I can’t for the life of me find my mp3 player. Things could be worse; I have a friend who is at the Montreal airport right now delayed more than a day trying to get to London. Sleeping in the terminal sucks. Matt, my sympathies are with you.

New flight plan. Due to new regulations concerning Air Canada and Heathrow connection times, Team Diabetes had to redchedule my flight to Iceland (via London) as previously I had a 2.5 hour layover where I now need 4 hours. So instead of leaving at 10:30pm tomorrow, I now leave at 6pm - which means that I have to be there at 3:30pm! I also have the pleasure of stopping in Montreal on the way. I guess I should get packing!

Online Donation! A big thanks to M. Leibowitz for his generous donation!

Travel Plans.

Countdown to Iceland. In less than a week on August 16th I’ll be getting on a plane on my way to ICELAND!! Transport, airport layover and time change combined I don’t actually get to Reykjavik until 3pm the next day; but it’s worth it!

Team Diabetes has a nice little itinerary for us for the first three days including a dip in the blue lagoon, a pre and post race dinner, and of course the big race! My dad and I extended our travels for a few more days with the cost and itinerary on us. We hope to rent a car and then well drive East. I hope to hit up Geysir, Gullfoss, Mt. Helka, Heimaey Island, Skogar, Skaftafell and/or Jokulsarlon. Quite ambitious I think but at least some maybe I’ll get to see. Originally my dad called up National car rental and they quoted $800cad for four days!! LOL oh Iceland why must you be so expensive? I’ve since found something in the $400cad range but still. We will see. It stills seems less expensive than the overpriced tours. I hate big bus tours; it feels like cattle-herding.

At the end of the 6 days in Iceland my dad and I will part ways and I will head to London. I have only one day in London planned. Originally I was going to stay in England for a full 7 days but I kept asking myself exactly what I was going to do. I’m more into eco-tourism than I am into old buildings. I’d take a waterfall over an old church any day. Long extensive obsessed search on goggle and new plan – Ireland! After this search I started to wonder how people traveled in the “old days.” Lol Thank you Google!

Ireland. I’m to land in Dublin on the 24th of August. I have a 3 day hike in the Mourne mountains booked (I got the last spot!) with Dirty Boots Treks. I hope to spend one day after that around Dublin being a tourist, looking at a castle or whatever and the 7 storey Guinness storehouse etc. etc. Maybe a daytrip somewhere the day afterwards, either another hike or a cattle-herding bus tour. And then I’m on a flight back to London, a frantic transport between Gatwick and Heathrow airports and a flight back to Canada on the 30th. Excellent!

Heathrow Airport. As you've probably heard British police arrested 21 people who were plotting to carry liquid explosives on to as many as 10 jetliners at the Heathrow airport travelling to the US.

Security was raised to its highest level in Britain and carry-on luggage on all trans-Atlantic flights was banned. Passengers were only permitted to take aboard essential items, such as passports and wallets, and only then in a transparent plastic bag.

Next week I will fly through Heathrow on my way to Iceland as well as a stopover in London and flights to Ireland via Gatwick. The events of the day have gotten me a tad concerned as for my flight home I land at Gatwick at 9:30am and my flight leaves Heathrow at 2:35pm. I thought before this was enough time (Gatwick-Heathrow is about a 60min bus ride), but now I'm slightly concerned. I travelled through the US a month after 9/11 and it was madness.

A glimmer of hope. "Air Canada said there were no scheduled disruptions of its flights leaving Britain for Canada on Thursday." Hopefully that will remain into next week.

Yesterday I received my Team Diabetes package! I had been stressing about receiving my plane tickets. Canadian Diabetes Association doesn’t send out tickets until you finish fundraising or put a deposit on the remaining amount (At the time it was $337.43). So I did that a bit late in typical Taylor fashion. As I’m getting on a plane in exactly a week not having plane tickets in my hand was a bit tense. Receiving the package in the mail was a little disappointing I admit – after all that they were electronic tickets. Bah! I also received a big yellow poncho, some luggage tags, and an itinerary….ooOOoo….

Pictures. A while back Charles and I went camping in quebec for the weekend. Although we weren't really "one with nature" in the truest sense, (you could hear the soothing sounds of the highway from our tent), we did have a blast at the waterpark and the aerial park! It was a beautiful weekend and the waterpark was packed! Two different slides we ended up in an hour + line up! But each was worth it, especially the Colorado River slide! It's set up to mimic whitewater rafting with waves, drops etc. Unfortunately we dont have any pictures from that slide (too busy holding on for dear life). But we clicked a few pics on the "easy slides."

The next day Charles and I went to the aerial park. It's a short ride up a chair-lift to the top of a ski hill where there are four zones. The aerial park is basically a bunch of platforms high in the trees with a bunch of "activities" between them ranging from rope bridges to surfing snowboard to a number of ziplines. All of this finishing off with a 1000ft zipline down the ski hill to the bottom!!! Okay so I chickened out for that one but Charles gave it a whirl and said it was fun. bah. I was nervous on the 100ft ziplines. I highly recommend checking out an aerial park at some point!