Uppfært
12.7.2000

Runar: Europe - June 2000

Mail to Runar in Europe 2000 
Pictures - Myndir 

place - intended stay in days

Pictures
May-
June

• Mouse here to find July
• Here you have found June
  with Spain - Madrid - Amsterdam - Iceland
• and first we had May
  with London - Paris - Spain - Morocco

Subject:
The saga
continues

I started my stay here with a trip to the north side of the country, visiting Mývatn for a family reunion, and then to Ólafsfjörð, where my grandparents live. Upon return to Reykjavík I took a trip into Þórsmörk. Then I geared up for my second Family Reunion on the west fjords. Transportation was the first issue. My brother, Siggi, was kind enough to lend me his car. It took over 3 hours to clean inside of the car. The Muffler was shot, and you could hear it from a mile away. The vehicle was running on a spare tire, and still had winter nails in the other 3 tires--which will get you a very stiff fine. The breaks were mostly shot. Fifth gear didn´t work. Various body panels had been tied on with string, to prevent them from falling off. And most luxury features (radio, AC, locks) of the car had either been removed or were non functional. After spending a morning straitening out the tires and Muffler, we were off.

The West Fjords are the mass of land that looks like the head of Iceland and are home to some of the countries longest unpaved roads. On Friday night we ended up at the second family reunion, this time my Father´s Father´s family. I, cutting the reunion short, drove then the 450km to my Mother´s Father´s 75th Birthday that was being celebrated on Saturday at Ólafsfirði.

Not being stressed for time, knowing that I didn´t need to fly out until Wednesday June 27th, I didn´t even leave Ólafsfjörð until Tuesday morning, having then to drive the 400 km south to Reykjavik. I put over 2000 KM on my brothers car, with only minor fixes (and 5 liters of oil).

As it turns out, June 27th 2000 falls on a Tuseday, a fact that, until recently, completely alluded me. No stress, I´ve gotten a new booking on the flight and should be able to leave today around 4:00pm. This just meant a couple of extra days in Iceland.

I will go straight to my sister's house in Denmark, not spending any time in Copenhagen again. Then I'll probably go North from there, hitting Oslo and Stockholm before my pilgrimage south to Italy.

I'm using a new program to send out this email, so hopefully everyone will get it. If you´d at least send this message back to me, I´ll know everything is working, thanks.

Best wishes - Runar

Pictures from the visit to Iceland 
- Myndir frá Íslandsdvölinni

Copenhagen - 2

Subject:
Back
in Iceland

Iceland - 19

Hello,

I just wanted to write a quick note so everyone knew I´d made it to Iceland without problems. I had no problems getting around Copenhagen or making it to the airport. I didn´t have time to do any of the sites, but will save 2 days for that on my return trip.

This morning we´re heading out to Mývatn, a lake in the northern part of the country, for a family reunion. It should take about 6 hours to drive, so I´d better get started. I probably won´t write too much these next few days, I don´t think I´ll be able to get to a computer up there. Thanks for your letters, and I´ll be in touch. - Rúnar

Subject:
Amsterdam,
Day 2

These stand for the adversities the Amsterdammers have overcome throughout their history: fire, plague, and floods.

After much needed sleep yesterday morning, I was destined for the Rijksmuseum. After getting there, the over 200 rooms of art were a little overwhelming. I studied the map, planned a route, and started hiking. 3 hours later, and more art than any one person should be subjected to, I was done. It was very good, well worth the hike.

I didn't have the energy to tackle the Van Gogh Museum after that. I saved it for this morning, it was very good. Over 200 Pictures and drawings were in the collection. The city is great, full of energy and very progressive. Amsterdam is much easier to travel than Spain or France.

Here everything is also in English, and everyone speaks it. It doesn't matter if you go to the local bakery or the old lady next to you on the Trolley, they all speak English. This makes everything much easier.

My first impression of the city was that everyone smoked marijuana, and alot of people do. I don't think that's the defining characteristic of the city. The tolerated trade brings it's share of junkies, but many people stay clear away from it or smoke only casually. Bikes, there's a defining characteristic.

The city of Amsterdam has 800,000 people in it, and as many bikes. There are bike lanes on every major road. The funny thing is, all the bikes look the same. Everyone rides on old, rusted, 1 gear, narrow tire, $10 bike. There are two main reasons for this, both to do with theft. First, people expect bikes to be stolen, especially good bikes, so they don't want to have especially good bikes. Second, bikes that are stolen are sold at a very low price to pedestrians. So pedestrians buy the bikes, with the expectation it'll be stolen, it's a full circle. Many areas have NO car parking lots, only bike racks.

Amsterdam has more canals than Venice, and gains a great deal of character from that fact. I haven't made it on one of the boat tours, perhaps I'll do that this afternoon.

I've been having continued problems with the mailing list, so if you haven't been getting emails regularly (every 2 days at most), drop by the archive at http//www.gopfrettir.net/runar.htm Thanks to GOP it's completely up to date.

Since I have reservations on all my trains to Copenhagen, the trip should go smoothly. My train leaves from here around 20:05, arriving in Copenhagen around 10:00 AM. The next email will be from Iceland!

Best wishes, Runar

Subject:
Flower
Power

The trip up was an uphill battle. First, I took the night train from Madrid to Paris, but less than half way up it stopped, at about 7:00 AM. They said we needed to change trains, but then the train was full that I needed to get onto. We were 4 backpackers who'd gotten together. Oh well, We'd just get on the next train. I went to talk to the ticket guy, he master of French Hospitality. After trying to tell him that I wanted to go to Paris, he says that it's all Full. I ask, when's the following train. [In a thick French Accent] "FULL, FULL, FULL!". "So I can never go to Paris?", I say. "All FULL". After going about for a few minutes, determined that there would be further service to Paris from this station, at some point, he wrote down the time, 19:40. I'd get to Paris at 5:00 AM the following day, and still have to get to Amsterdam.

This didn't sound good at all, spending a whole day in nowhere France, loosing a day in Amsterdam. First, I thought bus, there must be a bus going to Paris. After much searching I found out, buses don't run on Sunday's. What else to do, the group had resided itself to staying for a day in town, but they didn't have another train to catch as I did.

I pulled out the Eurail Map and saw that if I took a train East, I might be able to wind my way North to Paris. I took my idea to my friend at the window. He seemed surprised, almost impressed, the alternate would work. We had 3 minutes to catch the Train East. After 3 changes on route, I was in Paris at 20:20, in time to make it across Paris to Gare'd Nord (another Train Station), eat a good meal, and gear up for the run.

You see, I was too late to book reservations, so I can sit as there's Space Available. The interesting thing is that about 60% of the people are Space A, so it's a mad rush to grab seats whenever the Gate is Announced. Having no desire to sit in a seat for the next 8 hours and getting a bad night sleep, I held out for a sleeper car, and got it (for a little extra cost). There was a while where I didn't think I'd get a seat nor a sleeper. Six hours of good sleep on the train and at 7:20 this morning the train pulled into Amsterdam's Central Station.

After getting oriented, booking a hostel for the night, I started wandering the streets. It's definitely a colorful, anything goes city. I won't get into all the weed around, but the bars have menus that read like the inventory of a police drug raid. I'll talk more of the city when I get better oriented, I'm going to check out the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam's greatest. Then It's off to the Van Gogh Museum, has over 200 paintings by Vincent. Offshore there's Anne Frank's House, a must see (only two blocks from my hostel).

Much to do, I'll be in touch. - Runar

Saturday,

June 03,

2000 4:57 PM

Subject:

Madrid
on route
to Amsterdam

This morning was an early one, rising around 6:30 to catch the bus to Ciez (sp?). After the two hour bus ride, I took the train to Sevillia, another two hours. By this time it was 13:00. I had plenty of time before my trip on the AVE, the High speed train, to Madrid. This usually 6 hour train ride is cut to 2.5 hours due to the over 160MPH speed of the train. Just watching the countryside fly by at that speed was nauseating.

After grabbing something to eat and bumming around Lisbon for a few hours, I´ll continue on to Paris. I have a sleeper on the 22:30 train, and should get there tomorrow in time to spend a few hours in the city and take the night train to Amsterdam.

Whew, that´s alot of travel.

After 3 days in Amsterdam I´ll take the night train to Copenhagen and then the flight to Iceland. It´s been fairly uneventful (that´s a good thing) thus far. These days of travel are a welcome time to reflect on the past 2 weeks of travel, catch up on my journal, and relax.

Best wishes - Rúnar

Subject:
Back in Spain

Wednesday was the last day I wrote a letter, and I was still undecided on how to make it back up to Tanger (over 700 KM). I´ve been traveling with an older man, in his 60´s, from Canada--we both had similar agenda´s in Morocco and both first timers. I suggested that we should rent a car to get back up to Tanger, that way I´d get to explore the African country side. While the idea of city driving didn´t appeal to me at all, the notion that I would have as much time as I´d liked to hit the remote villages and beautiful sites of Morocco was too appealing to pass up. The decision was made, and after much dealing with slick car rental agents, I had the keys of a 1998 Fiat Uno in my hands.

My apprehension to city driving was well founded, it´s utter chaos. The philosophy for driving in Morocco is close your eyes and go. There is no hesitation, people expect you to go, and if you don´t you´ll be left behind. I think drivers use the horn to great each other, because it´s going non stop in many cars. It was getting late Wednesday when I got the car, so the decision was made not to leave until in the morning. Note, road signs in Arabic don´t help one iota in trying to find one´s destination. In truth, I was impressed by Morocco road sign and even highway infrastructure. The occasional French translation of the signs, and frequent stops to ask the locals, was all it took to navigate.

The first segment of the trip was definitely something special. When I started from Marakech, things seemed normal. As I progressed there was more and more activity and Police/Military around. Then I noticed the fact that there were cops and army people at every turn, by the truck loads. They didn´t seem to be doing anything special. Then I started to notice more and more crowds of people, all cheering us on. After about an hour of driving, the crowds of people, all dressed up, were more organized and lined up along the road for us. It was a great welcome, but hard to see them doing this every day in anticipation of the occasional tourist. At this point a light-bulb went of in my mind, perhaps they aren´t waiting for me. Sure enough, the Prince, some high up mucketty muck would be king, was on his way to Marikech via this route, and we had timed it just right to meet his procession.

After turning off the main road things went back to normal, and I got a taste of the real Morocco, the real poverty. Things aren´t just bad, they´re worse. We drove through towns that looked like they were in ruins, but people were living in them. Absolute poverty with absolute heat. After catching some sights, I set mine on Fes, A Palace city, supposedly the most beautiful in Morocco.

The thing I noticed first on Moroccan highways, is what garbage cars/trucks people drive. Probably 90% of the cars I met were at least 30 years old. Every Moroccan driver doubles as a mechanic, Especially public transportation people (taxi and bus drivers). It wasn´t until 10 PM I made it to Fes. It was too late to hit any of the sites and I would have to travel another 300 KM in the morning to Tanger, where I had an appointment to return the car at 1 PM. I´m feeling prolific, perhaps I should cut this short (you´re probably tired of reading!). The trip to Tanger was successful, but I didn´t make it until 14:45 to the rendezvous spot. You see, I would drop the car off at the train station, where a man had traveled 10 hours by train to meet me, and drive the car back to Markech. All this was included in the $145 total cost of renting the car.

After fighting off a few hustlers and would be friends on the way to the Boat, I made the 2.5 hour journey back to Algeciras. I had fortunately missed the last train to Madrid by only 15 minutes, so now I can relax in the sleepy town of Tarifa for the night. The plan is to continue pressing north, first back to Madrid, then to Paris and on to Amsterdam for a couple of days before I catch my plane in Copenhagen. It´s about two full days and nights of travel to Amsterdam.

Adios Amigos, I´ll keep in touch, thanks for reading :) Runar

Pictures
May-
June

• Mouse here to find July
• Here you have found June
  with Spain - Madrid - Amsterdam - Iceland
• and first we had May
  with London - Paris - Spain - Morocco