More sportswoman of the year awards?

Gosh, got a phonecall, actually, Valdi got a phonecall. If I'd like to put together a little presentation with pictures of me. For the Sports-woman-of-the-year-awards in Hafnarfjordur, Iceland. That's the town where I always teach climbing.

So, does that mean another price?

Would be really cool...I'm almost nervous now :)

Too bad though, I'm in Holland now and the awards-thing is tomorrow, in Iceland...

Here the presentation (not much though, I feel a bit arrogant, putting pics of myself together...)

Snowy Christmas

Here in Holland there is snow. Even much more then in Reykjavik now. (Weird)
A couple days ago I went for a walk with my dad, we talked a lot and practised our hobby (and my dad's addiction). Photography. We saw some classical Dutch winter-views and took some nice pictures. Here some "raw pictures", with an edge around it and some adjusting they look really nice...I'll show them later on the website zoom.nl
Afterwards we went for a climb in the gym in Bussum. I was proud of having my dad as a belayer!
Now, Valdi is in Holland too, so we can have some fun together.
He's been really lazy today though: slept till 12 'o clock. I hope he'll be active enough to go for a climb :D or at least play belay-bitch, tryggjatik, zekerteef.

Petzl picture

So sweet: on the Petzl website there is a nice competition. You can win your own weight in Petzl gear.
And of course I'd love to get a new headlight or some! And actually I really do need a new headlight (lost mine, guess somebody borrowed my light...hey dude, could you please give back my light?)
So...please all vote on my nice northern light picture :D
Ow yes, and there is copyright on this picture, so don't use it yourself for any commercial shit...

Byebye Iceland, hello icy Holland

Yesterday around 10 local Dutch time I finally arrived in the Netherlands!
I left 7 o clock in the morning from Iceland after a short but fun stay in our Van at the Reykjanes peninsula.
Due to the two flocks of snow in London and the two and a half in Holland, it took me a record time to get to Holland.
The pilots of IcelandExpress were joking about the 2mm snow layer in Icelandic, but were really serious in the English comments about the landing times and possible cancellation of the flight.
I was lucky and could get my flight to Amsterdam, but on the screen I saw more and more canceled flights.
My parents and brother we so happy to see me again. The last time I visited the Netherlands was more then 9 months ago. So I really had to catch up a bit.
Today I went shopping with my mum in a close by town called Bussum.
We bought a pair of trousers together, yes together. We apparently have the same size, so we share.
And of course we did some Christmas shopping. Getting more and more presents under the tree.
After that all we went to Albert Heijn, my favorite Dutch supermarket. They just sell all the food you need and it's tasteful, much better then most Icelandic vegetables, bread and diaries.
Be bought the ingredients for 'boerenkool' (farmers cabbage) a dish made with a green lettuce likely cabbage cooked with mashed potatoes, brown sauce from meat (not the fake tasteless stuff from a package) and a 'rookworst (smoke sausage). I loved it!

íþróttakona ársins

Sweet, some already knew, but I really had no idea I was respected this much in Fimleikahusid Bjork!
I'm sportswoman of the year over all sporting departments located in FBjork! (Which is, gymnastics, climbing, taekwondo and the general department with adult-gymnastics, fit-kid and more)
I felt flattered by the little speech about me; a summing of the things I've done with climbing and for FBjork last year.
The real feast will be on the 29th of December, when all good sporters in the town of Hafnarfjordur will be rewarded on the sports gala of the year, organized by the town.
Unfortunately I won't be in Iceland on the 29th. I hope Sjofn will take the credits for me.
(Oh, yes, and I still have a blue eye...)

Blue eye baby

Went to gymnastics yesterday. (As I always do 3 times a week).
I did a flip, flipped too late, because my start was wrong and landed with my knee in my eye in the mattress.
The result is free make-up on one eye, beautiful...

Nailed tires

Changed the tires on my bike, but actually don't know why.
It's around 8 degrees (celcius) here, no snow, no ice, not even close to being winter :(
Luckily I have to study really hard now, so no time for outdoor ice anyway.
Can't wait till next weekend: finished with all studying and freezing cold!

Hedinn, metal-heroes

For iceclimbing you need iceaxes. For speedclimbing you need special weird little iceaxes (I don't understand the sports of speedclimbing)
So how do you get this axes. Option 1: buy them, pay a fortune and realise speedclimbing is not your thing...
Option 2: go to Hedinn and meet exactly the right guy at the right time.
They made me a new model, combined out of a Russian drawing (no joke) and some examples of other axes.
For me, for free.
Thanks a lot Hedinn!

Training

And I was thinking we only had Klifurhusid to train drytooling. (On ancient bad old climbing holds) but it turns out to be that HSSR has way better conditions. One of the Icelandic search and rescue organisations (Iceland doesn't have an army, so all helping activities goes through those organisations)
Here Robbi (one of THE Icelandic iceclimbers) leading on the M6-wall.
I now meet with the real iceclimbers here at least once a week.

First time outdoors

And yes, finally, finally I'll go onto real ice. Gummi, Vidar, Haukur and Ivar took me to Eyafjallajokull (drive inwards to Thorsmork) not the best conditions ever, because the were no frozen waterfalls at all, but it was something...
The glacier was moving a lot, big blocks of ice fell of almost daily and we were climbing in between them (with Hari Berger in our minds)
Gummi was so good to take some beautiful pictures of us all, and I was so lucky to get in the national newspaper! See the article on mbl.is
Thanks for the coffee Haukur!

Iceclimbing

Men, what a funny development here.
I'll go to the World Cup Iceclimbing this January!
I describe myself nowadays as pure sportsclimber who happens to do bouldering as well.
But last winter I got triggered again to go out for a colder climb: iceclimbing.
And now I apparently do so well that I get into World Cup's!
Time to forget my Moonboard for a bit (never leave it completely) and start hanging on my axes!

Iceland food crisis

You know, IceSave and more here in Iceland has quite a big impact. It's pretty irritating how everything goes here. People have massive loans, massive cars, but complain about the taxes. But on the other hand, people like me, no loan, no big car also have to pay those taxes. On the food for example we now have even more tax. So basic supermarket food for one day can cost you over 25 euros per person. Weekly I shop for at about 25.000 kronur just food (around 120 euro's) I don't even think about eating out, or buying other things like clothing. Quite worrying for Christmas though...
Eating out wasn't so good here anyway (except the Italian restaurant in Akureyri) even Mac Donald's has been changed into some sucky "Metro". Bad dry tasteless mini burgers for way too much (fries, coke, burger for 8 Euro's). I really think I'll go to Mac Donald's when I get to Holland.

Ja.is

Just put myself in the Icelandic phonebook with my mobile number and e-mail and my profession: climber
Check out ja.is and send me a text :)

Icelandic Post

Welcome back.
There has been so much going on in the last months that I decided to take a blog-break.
But, now that I'll be traveling a lot, I'll be back here again.
As Icelanders don't complain too much about the rules, I decided to complain. (Great)
I ordered some books from Bol.com for my book about climbing.
Paid, including Dutch taxes, or "BTW" and paid for the sending to Iceland.
Received some books in the last weeks, but not all. I got a message that some books had arrived and had to pick them up at the post-office (I paid for home-sending of the books, not post-office sending)
For one package I suddenly had to pay toll. The other package (with the same amount of books) was toll-free. The previous packages also have been toll-free.
So, I asked, why do I have to pay toll over this sending. The lady (of the post office, so not of the toll) answered...
"Well, you've been lucky with the previous sendings. They pick out packages and sometimes you pay, and sometimes you don't have to pay. It depends also a bit on which toll employee you have, some are nice, some are very strict." I was surprised by her honest answer and remembered my sending with iceaxes, which got me over 1000 Euro's in toll.
I paid the toll, as discussion wouldn't really help.
I asked how to avoid the toll. She told me: "Well, best is to send the package to friends or family abroad, for example when you buy things from e-Bay. Then they can put it in a box and sent it to you as private sending. The toll doesn't check very often private sendings."
I told her, 'waauw, that is actually quite corrupt' and I smiled and walked with the package.
Actually I was just angry, so if I understand it right it's a gamble to pay toll or not, or you have to have friends working at the toll.
Sometimes I really think Iceland is a Third-World-Country...