Vantro

We had our first day of Summer a day after everyone else in Iceland and took Friday off instead of Thursday. As it is now my last week we organised a paintball game for Friday afternoon, followed in the evening by a meal, a party at Lilja's and finally drinking in town until the wee hours. The paintballing went as usual except the last two games. In the first of these two I was allowed, as my leaving present to stand in one spot while the rest ran around in front of me with no guns. The guy in charge then told everyone to stop running and stand still, whilst I blasted them to oblivion. I was laughing so hard I was crying. That was my goodbye present to everyone he said. Then it was their turn to give me a present, which basically consisted of dressing me in a rabbit suit and forcing me to run in front of everyone else whilst they blasted away at me. Three times. I have curious shaped bruises up and down both sides of my body, which will last longer than my time left here in Iceland...

Paintball bruises, not mine, but imagine this multiplied by 1,000,000 and you have an idea what my back looks like...

Over the weekend I watched 'Metallica, Some Kind Of Monster', the documentary following the breakdown of the Metal band Metallica. It was fucking hilarious, but what struck me was after listening to two hours of listening to Lars (Ulrich, Drums) spouting Psychobabble the most interesting thing I found myself concentrating on was Kirk (Hammett, Guitars) eating a Burrito. It was amazing. He spread the nachos out on his plate in a little crescent, even neatening them up so they sat around the edge of the plate. Attention to small details which is definitely shown through his high paced and intricate soloing on songs such as 'Dyers Eve'. He then took the burrito and cut it in half with a knife. From one half he spooned out a small amount of some unknown substance and smeared it into the other half. Brilliant, compulsive viewing. In all semi-seriousness, it struck me as interesting because it isn't often you get to see big stars doing mundane actions, such as eating, taking their kids to ballet and the like. To me, growing up, Metallica did nothing but play METAL and drink BEER. I never considered the fact that they need to eat to live.

Even Metallers need to eat...

It was the Icelandic Elections this weekend, the first since the Independence Party led coalition government bummed the entire country into debt. I was out on Saturday night in Dillon and there was a computer set up showing the results as they came in. I got chatting to some guy and he was explaining what the different colours represented. Now, call me stupid, but I would have thought that if a party like the Independence Party had fucked the country up so Royally as they did, then people would have lost faith in them. But oh no, not the fucking sheep that live in this country. The Independence Party ran in second place all through the election, they were only beaten by the party they were in a coalition with when they bum fucked the country. I have lost complete faith in the Icelandic population due to this result, not that I had much anyway. It's the same as a school bully throwing a rock in your face then demanding that you pick it up for them to do it again. Revolution was in their grasp and the idiots let it go...

Vote for the Independence Party!!

Valgalderkvad

I wasn't privy to the following conversation but I was informed of it by someone else. I forget who, I thought it was Jo but she says it wasn't. Anyway a new German girl has begun work with us. She's a historian and wants to see how we arrive at our conclusions about the past by digging up middens. Bjarki (and myself included) has a passing interest in the Second World War and the new girl was working beside him in the tent the other day. During a quiet moment he turned to her and asked her 'What did your Grandfather do in the Second World War?' Being German and understandably touchy about this subject she implied she wasn't keen on talking about it. Bjarki, being Bjarki, pushed the subject. 'Why? Are you not proud of what he did?' To his line of questioning she responded quite unfavorably and there was a quite uncomfortable silence for a few minutes in the tent. He then turned to her and asked:

'What did your other grandfather do in the war?'

What Bjarki thinks all German Granddads did in the war...*

Saturday was the annual festival held for the company employers. I've been going around calling it Fun Day, an there is an earlier post all about the troubles we've had leading up to it here. Anyway, I went out Friday night to help Roz's brother settle into the Reykjavik nightlife and was out til 4.00am, so I wasn't feeling the best when I awoke about 10 the following morning to go Paintballing with the crew. But I've got to say, I'm glad I did and that it was the best Fun Day EVER! After paintballing we went bowling and then headed over to Vala's for dinner cooked by a couple of chef friends of Bjarki's. The evening got messy, we were shown an excellent video made by Atli, Lilja and Bjarki about the madness on site. The impressions of everyone were spot on... The night was wrapped up by Jo and I duetting on Singstar until we were coughing up blood.

Is this me Paintballing? You'll never know...

* Is this too far? I wasn't sure if this was in bad taste