July 29, 2014

My European Travel Bucket List

My desire to travel is one that never seems to be satisfied. Even now as I am just returning home from a wonderful two week trip to Croatia I am already dreaming of my next travel adventure. Since I don’t get to spend all my time traveling, I am still working on figuring out how to make travel my full time job! I have a very long travel bucket lists. Picking just a few items off my bucket list to share was more harder than I thought! Here are a few of my travel bucket list items, European version.

Drive all over Scotland
wonderful-Edinburgh-Castle-Scotlandvia
Castles, lush green fields and stunning landscapes, sounds like the perfect place for a roadtrip! Scotland in many ways reminds me of Iceland, (at least the photos I have seen), minus the castles, and I would love to get to drive all over this amazing country and discover its beauty myself.

Visit the German Christmas Markets
Christmas is my favorite time of year and I can’t believe I had never heard of the German Christmas markets until recently. Thanks to some of my favorite bloggers I am now dreaming of my own weekend getaway exploring these markets, admiring all the beautiful crafts and sampling all the delicious food.

Walk through the tulip fields in Hollandtulip-fields-holland-more-great-pics-www-freefbpictures-comvia
When I was an intern in Australia there was another intern in our office from Holland. Her pictures she shared of her visits to the tulip fields were amazing and ever since then it has been on my travel bucket list. Now that I am living a bit closer to Holland I hope to see the tulip fields myself!

Go on a walking food tour through Prague
prague_toutvia
Prague has been high up there on my list of places to visit for a while now and after reading Margo’s post about her walking food tour through Prague it looks like an excellent way to explore the city!

Visit AustriaAustriavia
Ever since watching the Sound of Music when I was a little girl I have wanted to visit Austria. With every picture I see of Austria my desire to travel there increase even more. I have now increased H’s interest in Austria as well so hopefully a trip here is in our near future.

This list is just a very short look into my very long travel bucket list. There are so many beautiful places to be seen and so little time to do it! I am determined to see as many places as possible, I have a lot to cross off my travel bucket list!

Question of the Day?
What is on your travel bucket list?

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Welcome to Travel Tuesday!

Travel Tuesday

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This is my last Tuesday co-hosting Travel Tuesday and I just wanted to thank you all for helping make it such a wonderful experience. I have found so many wonderful bloggers through this link up and have fed my wanderlust with all your wonderful posts. Next week we will be announcing the new co-host, I hope you all keep coming back and sharing your travel posts!

Each week Bonnie, Sammy, Van and I will select one post each from all the linked up posts the week before that we enjoyed especially. I haven’t had a chance to read all yours posts from last week’s link up so be sure to head over to their blogs to see who they picked!

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Ready to link up!

HERE IS HOW IT WORKS:
1. SHARE a post about travel! From road trips to trips abroad and from past travels to dream vacations. You can write about travel tips and tricks, favorite places to stay, or anything in between! Just make it about traveling somewhere!
2. GRAB the lovely button. If you run into trouble, just make sure to mention Bonnie in a link!
3. LINKUP goes live every Tuesday at 0800 GMT.

TIPS:
1. Please only one linked up post per blogger. Save other posts for future linkups!
2. The last Tuesday of every month will be a themed prompt if you want to join in!
3. HOP around and meet new travel loving bloggers! Check back to visit some of the newer travel posts!

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April 11, 2014

Daily Diaries #1

Today I am linking up with Kate for my first Daily Diaries to recap my week. With trip planning, care packages from home and my first work success it has been one great week. Better yet, next week we only have three days of work before a 5 day weekend!

Saturday and Sunday: Saturday H and a group of his guy friends threw a dinner party for all the girlfriends. The event even had a theme and they bought decorations! I am proud to say H was on the committee for planning the event and they did an excellent job. Sunday was a low key day filled with chores like laundry and grocery shopping, woo hoo for being an adult!

Monday: We had our first faculty meeting at work where I was introduced to everyone. I even had my own slide in the presentation with an unnecessarily large image of my face on it for all to admire. My co-workers are all really welcoming and nice, I even met a few who studied at the University of Oregon how random! The best part of my day though, getting this photo from my Mom of Azora and her Blonde Squad at my sisters softball game.
Blonde Squad

Tuesday: I finally registered for my next race, the Midnight Run half marathon this June! I am looking forward to checking off running a race in a foreign country on my bucket list. The run starts at 9:30 pm on one of the longest days of the year so I will hopefully be running on a sunny night! My day got even better when I received a care package from home.
Packages from Home
My mom is seriously amazing and packed so much into this little box. I asked her to send me my “business attire” clothes I left behind and she more than delivered. She used vacuum sealed bags (genius) and was able to send me over 10 dresses, a pair of pants, a few jackets and even a pair of high heels, go mom! I spent the rest of the evening trying on all my clothes, it felt like Christmas!

Wednesday: I have only been working at my new job for a week but I already was responsible for hosting an event for our students. I was stressed all week that no one would show up but was so happy to see lots of our students at the event, first work success! After the event was over I headed off to meet my book club at a local café. I just adore these ladies and we had a great night laughing, drinking wine and catching up, so glad I decided to join a bookclub!
Bookclub

Thursday: I had the morning off from work so I was finally able to check off all the things that have been waiting on my to do list. My morning was spent riding my bike all over town visiting fun offices that remind me of going to the DMV, only in another language. In the afternoon I attended a conference my work sent me to about the future of social media.
How Cool Brands Stay Hot
It was such an interesting conference, the speakers were great and I got a lot of new ideas from them. After the conference the sun was shinning nice and bright (it is staying light until 9pm already!) so I headed off for a run along my favorite pathway. Sunshine + the ocean = happy Kaelene.
Iceland Ocean

Friday: In about 5 minutes I will be headed out the door to work but the day has already started off wonderful! H and I just booked a room for our trip next week to the South of Iceland. This is a road trip I have been wanting to do forever and several of my Iceland Bucket List items will be checked off, I can’t wait!

Happy Friday!

Question of the Day?
How has your week been?

Daily Diaries with Diaries of an Essex Girl

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Filed Under: Daily Diaries, My Thoughts Tagged: ,
February 7, 2014

My Icelandic Bucket List II

Last month I shared my Icelandic bucket list. Since then I have been finding so many more amazing things that I want to do in Iceland so I had to share another list. This may have to become a monthly thing because I don’t see this list ever ending!

Explore Grjótagjá
Grjótagjá
Grjótagjá is a small lava cave in the north of Iceland that up until the 1970s was a popular bathing spot. After several volcano eruptions though the water has become to warm to bathe in. While I am bummed I can’t spend an afternoon soaking in this beautiful cave I still have to see it! And for all you Game of Throne fans out there Grjótagjá is the cave where Jon Snow and Ygritte share their first kiss, it must be a romantic place.

Knit an Icelandic Lopapeysa
Icelandic_Wool
I am sure my mom and grandma don’t believe I am adding this to my list after several failed attempts to learn how to knit from them. Needless to say my patience’s with certain things isn’t the best, but I always like a challenge! The lopapeysa pattern is an Icelandic sweater that everyone seems to own but me. While I could just walk downtown and buy my own very overpriced lopapeysa I want an authentic one that I can say I made myself.

Another incentive encouraging me to attempt to knit myself a sweater, even though I have never knitted anything in my life, is H’s mom. H’s mom is an excellent knitter, she has even published a very popular knitting book here in Iceland, so I will have the best teacher in this challenge. Hopefully my very small level of patience’s for these types of things won’t cause me to give up out of frustration!

Visit the Ice Caves in Skaftafell
Skaftafell-ice-cave-3[6]
The ice caves, found in the south of Iceland don’t even look real they are so pretty! Sadly the ice caves tours are only available in the winter months and are all booked up for this year so I will have to wait until next year. I think it is more than worth the wait though!

Attend Þjóhátíð at the Westman Islands
thjodhatid_brekkusvid
Þjóhátíð is a weekend long music festival at the beginning of August held on the beautiful Westman Islands. The Westman Islands are a cluster of islands off the south coast of Iceland with the largest island, Heimaey, being the only one with inhibitions and has a population of 4,135.

Westman Islands
Every year in the first weekend of August thousands flock to the beautiful islands for Þjóhátíð and after all the hype I have heard about it I most definitely want to go this year!If I don’t get to go to Þjóhátíð I hope to at least visit the Westman Islands, they look so magical!

Þórsmörk Volcano Hikehike from Thorsmörk to Skogar
The Þórsmörk Volcano hike is a 20km hike through the Þórsmörk valley that takes you around the Fimmvörðuháls Volcanoes. On the hike you will see a variety of environmental elements, from lush green fields to the now cooling lava falls, not to mention all the beautiful views of Iceland. Last Easter I had the chance to visit the waterfall Seljalandsfoss, which is one place where you can being the hike. I hope I get to head back to Seljalandsfoss and continue on the Þórsmörk Volcano hike, H has done the hike and from his pictures and stories it sounds truly amazing.

Þórsmörk
I can’t wait to take a road trip through Iceland so I can start crossing off some things on my bucket list! First though I need summer to come so I can spend all day exploring under the midnight sun!

Question of the Day?
What are some of your bucket list items in your country?

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Source: 1/2/3/4/5/6

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Filed Under: Iceland Tagged: , ,
January 10, 2014

My Icelandic Bucket List

This week I have enjoyed reading everyone’s blog post about where they hope to travel to this year. I was right on board with making a travel list of my own and was more than ready to book a trip after reading about all the exciting places you all are planning to visit.

When I was thinking of where I would like to visit this year though I realized that not one place I mentioned was here in Iceland. I think we often tend to overlook our own countries and what they have to offer and instead opt to travel somewhere new. So this year I want to take advantage of whats in my own backyard and explore as much of Iceland as possible. Here is a start of my ever growing bucket list of what I hope to do and see this year in Iceland.

Scuba Dive at Silfra Rift

Scuba Diving at Silfra Rift IcelandSource

I have only been scuba diving one time in Australia and while I found it a bit terrifying H has been dreaming of this place for so long that I am now very intrigued myself. Not only does this dive have one of the clearest underwater visibilities but you will also be diving in a crack between the American and Eurasian continents, how cool is that!

Ride an Icelandic Pony

IcelandicHorseInWinterSource

The Icelandic pony has a bit of “short man syndrome” and prefers to be called an Icelandic horse. Even though they are the smallest “horses” I have ever seen they are the only breed of horse here in Iceland so I guess they can make their own rules on what they want to be called :)

A picture from my first experience with an Icelandic horse. We out on a hike this cute thing took the apple I was eating out of my hand from across the fence. Seriously this horse must have smelled it from across the field and bolted over to get a bite. Good thing they are so adorable, I was starving on that hike!

Icelandic Pony

Take a Boat Tour on the Jökulsárlón-Glacier Lagoon

Glacier LagoonSource

Fun fact, thanks to the James Bond movie “A View to Kill”, which has scenes filmed at the glacier lagoon, the idea of offering boat tours was started. Its about an 8 hour drive from Reykjavik but I hope to take a road trip over there this year and experience a boat tour myself.

Attend an Icelandic Handball Match

Icelandic HandballSource

I know nothing about handball and had never even heard about it until I came to Iceland. Handball is Iceland’s claim to glory in the Olympics with an almost gold medal win in 2008 and another run at the gold in 2012. I am extremely intrigued about this sport that I am always seeing on tv now and as an avid sport fan I want to see a match for myself!

Explore the Beautiful Landscapes of Vík

Vik-MyrdalSource

I want to explore the cozy village of Vík, walk the black sand beaches nearby and go hiking around Mýrdalsjökull, this southern part of Iceland is a must see for me!

Vik-Black-Sand-Beach-And-Its-Trolls Source

Photograph the Northern Lights Iceland Northern LightsSource

The Northern Lights are ridiculous beautiful, just look up some photos and you will be in awe. I have only had the chance to see the Northern Lights once in Iceland but the pictures I captured where quite pathetic. I hope the Northern Lights will give me another chance soon to capture their beauty!

No matter where I travel in Iceland I am always amazed by the beauty that surrounds me. I feel so lucky to have the chance to live in such an stunning country and can’t wait to get out and explore more of it!

Be sure to head over to my friend Alex’s blog where she is letting me take over today and bring you 10 Icelandic Quirks, learn all about what makes Iceland so unique.

Question of the Day?
Do you ever overlook your own country as a place to travel?

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Filed Under: Iceland, Travel Tagged: ,