Vin's birthday was a few days ago (June 24)

He celebrated by getting a Norweigian parking ticket
(it's in a sealed bag because it never stops raining in Norway).
He pretended he was a Bergen dissident during German occupation during WWII...

And he got to live his Viking dream...

He even found a good book to read:


He really knows how to stop and smell the freaky posies in Svolvaer, our home away from home in the Lofoten Islands)...

yestserday's comments and then some

very nice. did you see the long-winded one by vince about ammenities and food? (all true.) we're fasting--flat bread and water--these days to make up for it...

vin uploaded a few (of the 20 or so) videos while he was drinking that wine and beer last night. see http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=stacy+muszynski&search_type=&aq=f or google "vince cavasin" or "stacy muszynski." (you'll find four videos from iceland. there's PLENTY MORE. we'll upload when we can.)

ps
it's nearly 2am (in svolvaer [sounds like "s"+"vulva"], norway) and the sun is blazing. spain is celebrating its EUFA euro 2008 victory over italy, and we just got back from walking on the rocks along the seashore.

today's highlights: a local fella (imagine tom selleck, shorter) let us share a taxi ride from the airport with him. we climbed in the backseat, said "takk! takk!" ("thanks! thanks!"), and in 15 mintues got dropped off at our hotel. our cabbie wouldn't let us pay! "he's got it." he pointed to the nice fella in the front seat. "this is how norweigans treat everybody," our cabby said. they peeled out before any more thanks yous could be yelled after them. (our friend siw told us that the "northers" are friends, not like norweigians." lovely, we'd say.)

ha det (good bye)

15 minutes

is what stacy said she'd give me to write this (while she, presumably very thoroughly, brushes her teeth). [um, vince here] we are on our second night in the impossibly beautiful and impossively expensive country of norway. and as i believe my love said, it's no iceland. it's kind of weird. norway is a mish-mash of what most people in most parts of the US who go out doors are familiar with--lake and river and mountain and ocean and wood and some medium-sized snow-topped peaks. plus with some neverending days and nights thrown in. actually quite like southern alaska.

but iceland is something i've never seen anywhere else. seeing boiling cauldrons of mineral waters, bathing in a hot river that contains the runoff from them, seeing where the lava from a volcano eruption stopped flowing...or where the continents are drifting apart 2 cm a year--that's something you just don't stumble across on an average vacation.

but then our days in norway are just beginning.

norway, norway, why must you rain

oh but it's romantic.

no story for a few hours. must eat first. entertain yourselves with these images...

pre-ceremony
ceremony
post-apocalyptic party/-ies

a week in iceland is not long enough

before i start blathering on, a quick mention of pics we've been taking of this trip can be found at

http://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=cavasin.

if you like your photos 90-degrees off-kilter and without captions, you'll love these.

of course, vin and i are in a lot of them, but the real star is the landscape--glacier, iceberg, bay, ocean, runaway sheep, hill, mountain, valley, waterfall, a horse named power, the sweetest farm with the coolest couple and their dog named hekla (named for the famed, angry volcano of the island). if you go there (skalafell farmhouse, skalafell@simnet.is), ask about my boots i left there. oops.

who you won't meet in the pics (forgot the camera) is elisabet, from reykjavik, who reminds us that, among other things, it is belief in ourselves and our genuine, loving connection and curiosity, our recognizing *this* moment in the world that helps us see our blessings. and you won't see siw either. she's our new friend and guide from oslo by way of oakland, ca (thanks for hooking us up, laura.) siw who knows where to find good reindeer patties. thanks for the view of the city from atop that crazy-cool opera house. good luck with getting that northface job.

anyway, here's a sampling of what's up in dig-pics so far:

(note: the island only looks empty. there are actually approx 300,000 people living somewhere.):

glacier-walking


glacier-stopping


icebergs in the bay


still amazing


freaky volcanic, mossy soil


rivulet in valley where lava flow stopped


run! run!


stay tuned for pics and movies of other adventures, including...

our saturday "night" on the town. icelanders don't feign a party spirit. those looking for a good time in the capital city, at least, don't sleep on the weekends. they party. and party. and party. "runtur," they call it. ('round tour.) pub crawl. as elisabet (the coolest gal in hilton hospitality) put it as we all sat on sunday night (vin and me nursing hangovers, she relaxing for a sec on the job) watching the sun not setting over the atlantic and over the main drag of reykjavik, "oh, you should see the walks of shame from here."

elisabet, it might be noted, is a renaissance woman. (icelanders seem to be like this, remaking themselves every few years.) i mean, at 31 she's already toured some US cities with her gal punk band, written and published a book, spent a bit of time as a cult of personality on icleandic web and radio. she also proposed to her finance. guess he said yes b/c they're plannning the dealio for 10/10/2010.

stay tuned also for...
our icelandic horseback riding experience. (if vin were awake, he'd tell you his butt cheeks still hurt.)

and also for...
erupting geysirs

and also for...
our hike to where the continents are drifting apart at 2cm per year. (this is the busiest little island, innit it?, with glaciers and earthquakes and volcanoes and continental plates breaking apart and people !)

and also for...
our 3 mile hike to "hot river." that's a river in the outskirts of iceland's capital city whose hills literally pipe steam because of the boiling water barely contained beneath. water roils, in mini cauldons, out of the earth. it's too hot to bathe at the source of the river, so you creep, near-naked back down the river to spots fed by glacier springs... then you sit and watch the steam rise around you. gray mountains, green grass, purple and yellow posies, and you and your honey. it's really stunning.

we're in norway now. thanks to siw, oslo is alive.

and we're blessed.

and, vince thinks i gave him giardia when i made him drink from a cool, clear icelandic glacier spring. (icelanders look askance at tourists who buy bottled water. "they just bottle it from our tap, which comes from the rivers," they say.) yeah, well, vin and i took a drink from one of these clean glacier springs. and just below our lips--a slug! (that's good for us, too. just ask an icelander. ;j)

enough.
stay tuned...

vince, you EVER gonna write something? ;j

on the other side of the moon

there's iceland. keflavik. it's 1am. here's what the universe looks like outside our window:

listen. the atlantic, it's tongue pushing against those black rocks. its breath rushing at our window. the earth giving us a little a prayer, right here in this tiny speck of the world. can you hear it? for laura's mom, anne, who has other things to do and see and be, as of 21 may 2008.

edinburgh's weird, pretty, fun.

it all started on the way here from durham.

see, we left robert and laurie and the wee ones, thinking and feeling all this gooey lovey family stuff. then we’re relaxing at the train station, me falling asleep on vin (getting a cold), then…

we’re on the train. vin discovers strands of windy hair (not ours) on our headrest napkins.

then, i’ve got a cold--raw throat, head like a haggis-stuffed chicken. i sprawl, drooling asleep on the seat. the announcer: “edinburgh! next stop!” vin lauches for the bags. attached to his arse is a string, no, gum (not ours). he drags it across the train car before untangling himself, then we have to scrape up $1.20 so i can use the public loo (before i had "a accident" as june star said). we fall into the hotel. vin tests the ol’ ice and a knife trick on that gum. it works!

we hit the streets before anything else can go wrong.

maybe the girls in the u.k. have it right—take OFF the coat and shoes when temps drop from a gorgeous 68 degrees to a frigid late-night 40. they don't cough or sneeze or blow noses. we (vin and i) share an amontillado after dinner at this little tapas place [la tasca, 9 south charlotte street] with music pouring out the door and windows. but first vince inflicts his homemade joke on our spanish-cum-scottish waiter who has, of course, heard of edgar allen poe. “ever read him?” says vince. “oh yea,” says our waiter. “when i was quite young. something about a crow.” vince forgets to tell the joke. here it is:

Q: what did the raven say when he crossed the road?
A: nevermore.

anyway, our waiter suggests we check out cervantes and neruda. then vin and i walk around in the late night, the castle and the war museum lit up on the hill above us like a reminder of christmas.
[we leave you with a quote from billy bob thorton’s character in the movie we fell asleep to last night, Daddy and Them]: “It was the best time I ever had. It was the worst time I ever had. I believe that was witten by Dick somebody.”

5 days married

we’ve quickly relearned how to sleep in. 1pm never came so quick.

yesterday (thursday, 5 june), it was sunny in london—again! we spent the day and night walking, trying most of that time to pin point that weird little underground thames walk path. we found it:

after traipsing through michael hoppen gallery’s photo exhibit by wonderkind california girl alex prager and what was supposed to be richard avedon but instead turned out to be that fabu photog who shot that one we've all seen, “american girl in italy.” but i digress. the walk path—think ultra-mini-detroit-to-windsor tunnel meets the catacombs in poe’s “the cask of amontillado”—dank, drippy, echoey—with the occasional bike rider whizzing by. about that trek vin summed it up: “well that’s four hours of my life i’ll never get back.” true enough. he’ll be choosing today and tomorrow’s adventures. if our luck holds, i’ll be able to complain bitterly. ; j.

back to the biking…yesterday the whole city seemed to be running or biking along the thames, including a bunch of people on crack. not the drug. the peekaboo-butt-crack that keeps popping up when the back of the pants refuses to. (an eyeful of this and you’ll never again complain about biker shorts that fit.) eesh.

but even london’s crack habit couldn’t kill our appetite. by 10pm we were starving and cranky and bitching at each other just like married people, and we’d just missed dinner hour with “fabulous” kidney pie wth pea gravy at THE GUN, the little pub tucked into a tiny neighborhood that WHERE [LONDON] magazine calls a “must-visit gastropub in canary wharf.” not only did the place look and smell worth its accolades, a local in the know said that from the cozy terrace one can gossip and eavesdrop loudly and happily and catch the greenwich mean time laser that scans the wharf. we plan to head back there when you visit sometime in august and/or september ; j . maybe we’ll also catch david attenborough’s exhibit—THE ART OF NATURAL HISTORY IN THE AGE OF DISCOVERY. (yes, we’re nerds.) the show unites the work of four artists including leonardo—all of whom shared a passion for the unusual aspects of nature at a time when new species and varieties were turning up just about daily. the exhibit runs until 28 september. fyi.

and in case you’re wondering what madonna’s doing on 9/11, she’s in london with her new show, SWEET AND STICKY. tickets prices...ready?? 198 pounds. that’s almost 400 bucks. material girl, indeed.

we ended the day’s escapades by reading aloud THEM by joyce carol oates. well, i read. it’s really good, so vin stayed with me for a few pages. At this rate we should get to WUTHERING HEIGHTS by, oh, our first anniversary.

==
thursday, 5 june

today under muted skies (ah, england!) we’re heading north to durham to visit friends robert and laurie and their wee ones. seems even a pricey train fare doesn’t secure you a seat, though. we spent the beginning of the three-hour ride keeping company with the fire extinguishers between “carriages” (that’s “compartments” for anyone who dudn’t speak the queen’s english). it could be worse. the kids who “forgot” to pay got seats—next to each other even—got charged something like 700 bucks each for the favor. oh to be seventeen, busted, and in love. (but shuh, two outta three ain’t too bad. last night vin and i got caught with our hands in the candy jar--literally--by hotel staffers. toblerone. big bowls of the stuff at the registration counter. who could resist?)

sun’s peeking out. just brilliant.

[vince here: stac just went to bed. here are some pics from our trip to Durham, and this evening at the Cavins':

Man on train next to Stacy demonstrating untoward behavior:

Vince, admonishing stac to use the wrist strap!!!

Bro pats all around!

Robert & kids:

and that, my friends, is family life in northern England. Tomorrow, a quick tour of Durham, then off to Edinburough, hopefully in an assigned seat on the train...

Vince (&Stac, whose sawin' logs)]

walking in the sun in london

st. pancras (yes, vince stood there holding what he thought was his pancreas) church (and local hospitals) have cool sculptures in their tiny gardens. we skipped the thames so we could rush to a production of TWELFTH NIGHT at the Open Air Theatre at Regent's Park. it was fun. good night.

now that we've lit the candle...

we're trying to burn down london town.

actually, we've stopped in london just for a few days before iceland to recoup from the funnest wedding we can remember since...we can't remember--we're still pretty tired.

but we're draggin' our wagons out of bed now that it's 5pm and sunny out. we'll let you know what we find under the thames. (that's where we're headed...we heard we can walk a nasty 1/4 mile under the river to get from one side to the other. how symbolic.)

xo

stac&vin "cavazynski"