Iceland Part 1

Bismillah...

Iceland has been in my wishlist since my undergraduate.. I don't remember how that came to be but I always thought it would be cool to go to the farthest land from home. The hardest part of this leg of the trip was to decide which part of Iceland that we would like to visit. The attractions are abundant and they're scattered all over Iceland. We finally decided to go for the East side since it's quite variety over that side; Waterfalls, Icebergs and Glaciers...


I say, Reykjavik airport is one of the most unique that I've ever seen. Impressive architecture and you can see art displays like these statues below. And I remember there were Viking proverbs written on the walls as we walk towards the arrival exit.

So like I said, all the way from the airport to Reykjavik, the scenery were volcanic rocks and moss that made me think, "So where are all the beautiful landscape shown on the internet!!!!!!!!!???"

It looks like as if there are no other living creatures other than those on the bus. And when the view of Reykjavik town looms from afar.. phew~ What a relief! It's very small for a capital but considering Iceland's population, the size is just nice to accommodate all the essentials. The first building that I saw was a huge IKEA outlet and I was like "HOLLA SCANDINAVIA!!!" (nda apalah blom sampai pon kan... sudah dekat..) and later found out that almost every single furniture in Iceland is IKEA's! We even developed a habit of checking for IKEA logo on every item we encounter; the bed in our room, the closets, the make up table, the utensils at the restaurants...

I had a bad gastritis when we arrived. I had a bad headache and was nauseous... Percayalah, baru aku tau tablet MMT tu sadap masa di Iceland because I never taste it before (^^")

We arrived in the evening and I still remember how torturous it was for me who was ill to wait for Maghrib which was at 11 pm.. And I've to wait for Isya' which was at 12.30 pm and Subuh at 2 am.. Of course lah aku tertidur dan lambat sket~ Aku x bole imagine orang yang puasa masa ni!!!!! 21 hours man!!!!

And malam macam dusk jak... Nampak lagi tu Matahari ok!

We booked our rental car with Thrifty. I went for the pick up because they needed my international driving licence. Gagah kan aku x pakai sweater... Nampak gumok sebab horizontal stripes and thick long john inside *perlukah explain??*

Masa ni lah aku nampak, muka Icelanders semua sepattern, macam Chad Micheal Murray hahaha

So about the car rental; we used the Car Trawler to get the best deal. Actually, we booked a compact car, Chevy Spark but we were offered an upgrade to Chevy Cruze for an additional 5 Euros per day.. So, why not?? (^^)

We also took the weather protection to be on the safe side.. Well, the roads are well paved, yes, but there are some attractions that have gravel roads and the weather could suddenly change so we prepared ourselves with all the protections needed. We don't want to pay thousands for scratches, do we??

Like what the CMM look-alike said, "Better be safe than sorry,"

I didn't drive of course.. I was too weak.. So I sat at the back, and just stare out the window and literally jumped out of my seat when the rocky scenery slowly turned into yellowish hilly area with waterfalls cascading down from the top!

Maaf lah kamera kampung...

It was like the landscape evolved from rocks to all these...

Notice those purple plant?? Oho do not be deceived by it's vibrant colour. That's lupine. Although, from my opinion, the lupine is one of the contributorto Iceland's rare beauty, it is considered an invasive plant and is endangering other plant species that is native to Iceland...

Our first destination, Skogafoss

Bha nanti la aku sambung....

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Goodbye Swiss and Hola Iceland!!!

Bismillah..

We spent 2 nights in Geneva and booked at the Geneva Youth Hostel. It was under a massive renovation so we didn't get any internet connection at the room. So I actually sat at the lobby that night to do some habitual massive photo upload on Facebook.

There was a group of school kids at the sitting area who I presumed were also there for the internet. Suddenly one of the boys who were sitting next to me asked "Apol?? *Apple* while his index finger pointing at my laptop.. "No, it's Lenovo"

Budak: Ne vous parle français?
GG: Sorry, I don't understand French...
Budak: Parli Italiano?
GG: Nope.. Not Italian either...
Budak: O que dizer de Português?
GG: Sorry.. No, I don't understand (^^")
Budak: Habla usted español?
GG: Sorry.. I only speak English
*Dalam hati.. Demit banyaknya bahasa ko pandai!!!!!!!! Ko show off ka ini?? hahaha*

Serius bingung aku sekejap.. Aku rasa dia actually mau tanya pasal charger laptop (^^") And then the boy who spoke to me and one of his friend went off and ran up the stairs. Heard a loud thud right after that followed by a loud cry. And I only discovered what happened the next morning when I saw the boy's friend berbalut POP di sebelah tangan and bandaged di sebelah lagi.. o0o0o0 rupanya kau jatuh tangga semalam...

We didn't do much in Geneva. We were too tired from the long road trip. We stroll around. Saw a Jewish Rabbi and I felt like I wanna say hi and ask him what he thinks about Islam because he's the first one I've ever seen in my entire life. But I refrained myself from doing so hehe Watch people returning to their homes from work; some were on trams, some were on roller blades, bicycles and skateboards... We don't see that in Malaysia, do we.

Took pictures of the popular places dan wajib the famous fountain...

O ya! When it comes to Geneva, there's one particular guy that I won't miss out in my story..

We met him when we were on our way to the train station. I actually noticed him walking beside us. He was wearing a red sweatshirt with hoodie, his ears were full of earrings and even his face was pierced. He was blonde and he has the dreadlock style. Kalau di Malaysia samseng habes suda neh!

And when we stopped at a junction waiting for the traffic light to turn red, he said 

"Hi! Where are you from?"

"We're from Malaysia"

"Ah! Really? Welcome to Geneva. How do you like it  here?"

Dan mulalah kami berborak sambil berjalan beriringan.. Terus jadi hensem!

And guess what, when we told him that we're trying to find the train station, he walked us there!!!

He wasn't sure about the new entrance and helped us ask around. Although he didn't walk us all the way to the entrance, macam macik Isabel n Bruce Willis look alike did, still it was very kind of him to be very helpful..

Ayuhlah kita instill sifat begini dengan strangers rather than being prejudice all da way!

At the airport, we did something cliche.. We got ourselves some Swiss wrist watch! My first choice was out of stock so out of dismay I end up buying two! (^^")

Where were we heading??? Our flight was bound to Luton, London in which SJ have waited for us for several hours and after that we took a flight to.... wait for it.. wait for it.. ICELAND!!!!!!!

We haven't eaten any proper meal until we reached London.. Aku pon gastrik lah.. Luckily there were lots of Vege food in Costa so I ate quite a lot to compensate the meals I missed... Namun aku pening juga sampai ke Iceland because it was too late~

It was a Friday, and to my surprise there was an announcement telling the venue for Jumaah prayer in the airport that day. Kagum seyh! That's what I call TOLERANCE!! The flight to Iceland from London took about 3 hours. We checked in at our hotel and was immediately very pleased with the service. O ya, there's a shuttle bus service that sends you straight to your hotel and it is the cheapest option. I remember it was Greyline and they even have WiFi on the bus. Since we'll be travelling to the east for two days, we only wanted to bring necessary items and leave our bags at the hotel. Luckily they allow us to do that and they also have this free phone for you to call your car rental company and the company will then pick you up to collect the car at the office~

Apa2 pon.. Sampai2 airport, ini saja yang aku nampak sampai Reykjavik... All black and barren.. And we didn't see any single plant! Except the yellowish moss..

"Aik? Indah Kabar dari rupa kah???" *Dalam hati*
"Uish!! Kite kat planet Nameck ke ape ni?" *Yang diluah*

So... When I saw greenery in the last scene of the movie Non-Stop (Yes, the plane hijacking movie starring Liam Neeson), I was like, "No! That's not Iceland airport!!!!!"

For a moment I do thought I'd picked a wrong destination for our Eurotrip.. But then I recalled the many articles that I read before the trip.. How often they use the word RARE...

So that's Iceland... It's RARE.. It's out of this world.. Jeng jeng jeng! Bersambung~

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Switzerland Towns/Cities

Bismillah..

It's been a while since I last post about our travel.. Hutang post semakin banyak~ 

So as promised, this time I am going to post about some of the towns/cities that we passed by in Switzerland. Well, I'm not that into cities before I went to Europe. Living in Asia, I used to have the impression that all cities are crowded and always on the rush. But then, European towns offered an absolutely different atmosphere than that of Asian's.

On the first day, we drove all the way from Geneva to Interlaken and had a quick stop at Oberhofen and passed the most medieval-looking town that I've ever seen, Fribourg. And on the second day we drove from Interlaken to Lucerne in which we had stopped in Lauterbrunnen, Trumelbach  and Grindelwald.

I think, if we had more time, I would've spent more days in Lucerne. It is such a beautiful town with lots of things to do. You can either go up on one of the mountains or take the cruise along Lake Luzern or just simply stroll at the old town vicinity which I find very interesting as well. 

We were on a budget trip and with at least three countries to go, we have to opt on the budget things to do which as you've probably guessed, strolling! (^^)

We spent a night at the Lucerne Youth Hostel which is located in walking distance to the lake. We shared our room with a middle age lady from South Africa. Didn't chat much that night because we were hushed to sleep by our dorm mate because she needed to catch an early train the next morning (^^") 

But I think she was a nice lady, anyway...

The Chapel Bridge is one of the free attraction around. We spent some time strolling there; walking pass cafes and a street market. I got quite carried away watching the white swans swimming on the lake and they would occasionally dive to the bottom.. I still don't know why they do that, though. There was no fish inside their beaks when they surfaced

Then we set off to the Nine Towers, which in reality, only four of them are opened to public. This was where we met a lady who works with the tourist center who had spent much time explaining to us every detail about Lucerne. She was really patient answering all of our questions.. Eyh aku bha pulak yang paling banyak tanya (^^"). She then gave us some pamphlets and some chocolates. There are quite a number of them around; it's easy to tell from their uniform and red bags. We got some more chocolates from another lady as we enter into the clock tower.

The towers gave beautiful view of Lucerne and as we walked further, the towers get even taller and at the last tower, we could see the whole town without any tree branches blocking our view like this one on top..

This is actually the innards of the clock tower which is made to chime a minute earlier than other clocks in the city. They also displayed the many types of mechanism used in clocks in this tower. Ranging from those that uses mechanical pendulum to laser beams. I'm actually easily impressed by these kind of stuffs.

Hebatnya otak manusia!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the view from the last tower.

We were heading towards Laussane on the same day so why not stop at the capital, Bern. 

To our surprise, the town is rather too quite for a Capital.. Talking about Malaysia's capital.. Pheeeeeewwwww....

Melting pot... Dreadful traffic... Everybody always in a hurry...

But Bern is one extremely peaceful capital

We visited one of the Church and the sound of the organ was echoing as we walk around surveying the statues and carvings on the walls. I've never seen an organ in real life before; always in those Vampire or Dracula movies. I was pretty impressed by the size. It was colossal. I mean those silvery rod thingy above the main entrance. I even took a video of the guy playing the organ. Teruja sunggoh!

And then voilla! The astronomical clock. Ok this is my 2nd encounter. It's actually simpler than the one in Prague.. BUT! I only knew an interesting fact about this clock a few months ago..

This is the very clock that Einstein stared at as he was sitting on a tram on his way home from work. And he'd thought about traveling at the speed of light which eventually led to his theory of relativity.

Haaa... aku tengok History channel ok baru aku tau! *NERD!*

And to end this post... If you're craving for something spicy after all the long journey and self-cooked meal in the hostel, there's an Indian Restaurant in Bern who serves the world's best fish Briyani eva! 

Ka kami terlampau lapar??? But really, it was quite costly but since it was like the best eva, we ordered another one and paid hurm.. 50 euros (mind you, we always share to cut cost)

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