The Real Life Fantastic

There really is nothing quite like staying with my grandmother and Lindsay in their house in the Middle Of Nowhere, Australia.

You never know when some interesting animal might decide to pop over for a visit. My grandmother likes to feed the goana lizards that live in the neighbourhood, and they will come up to the porch and practically eat right from out of her hand.



( Animal invasions and other things )

In the evenings, before dinner, a glass of bubbly with some strawberries thrown in is not an uncommon sight. (Beers, or even glasses of Gin and Tonic can sometimes be spotted by the keen observer.)

Avid readers will find themselves in paradise. Books full of murder mysteries, politics, history, Australian wildlife, Icelandic geography, famous literature, short stories, poetry, photographs and anything you could possibly want to read about, abound.

Would-be farmers would be happy here. Last week we were invited to go with Lindsay to the University of Sydney Plant Breeding Institute to observe the annual Field Day. This consisted of eating delicious barbecued food and looking at a lot of wheat. We heard Lindsay give a talk on the history of the different wheat species that the University of Sydney has been involved in breeding, and heard about a lot of different research projects that Ph.D. students are working on. Wheat is being made to need less water, resist disease, resist heat, become more nutritious and generally do whatever we want it to do. It's fascinating!



On Saturdays a market springs up alongside the river in Narrabri - perfect for bargain-hunters. This weekend Þorri and I went with my grandmother to have a look. There was a man with an ice cream machine! He put scoops of vanilla ice cream inside, along with a scoop of raspberries or strawberries or whatever kind of berry that you wanted, and out of the machine came perfect berry flavoured soft serve ice cream! I want one of those machines.

I bought honey from a nice lady who first tried to get me to taste all the different kinds of honey she had for sale, and Þorri bought a lovely straw hat. (No-one tried to make him taste all the hats first.) My grandmother bought some beautiful flowers.

Life in the country is definitely something special. Plenty of animals and plants to keep you company, books to read, naps to take, bubbly to drink and all kinds of activities to keep you occupied.

For example, tomorrow me and Þorri have been invited to see the cotton crops get planted. I've never seen anything like that. (Iceland is not exactly famous for its agriculture.) Apparently there will be huge machines involved. I just hope my hey fever doesn't give me too much trouble.

Right now I am relaxing after a lovely day at the Berlin Zoo. Before I tell you more about that I want to briefly describe my stay in Krakow.

( Krakow )

I went to Berlin early the next day, and was met at the station by a lovely German guy by the name of Veit. He drove me to his apartment (which he shares with a flatmate, an equally lovely girl called Anka) in a very interesting car. It was one of the car-sharing cars of Berlin. They have this program where you can rent a car for however long you need it at the drop of a hat. You have a microchip in your driver's license which activates the car, and when you need to find the nearest car-sharing vehicle... There's an app for that! The people behind the program take care of cleaning the cars and filling them with gas. Amazing!

Anyway, Veit's couch is very comfortable, there is wifi (and a laptop I'm allowed to use) and he took me to the rooftop of his apartment building for pizza and beer on my first evening here. In other words - Excellent host!

My first day in Berlin was full of typical tourist activities. I went to see the East Side Gallery, Alexanderplatz, the Berlin cathedral, the Reichstag building, Brandenburger Tor and the Victory Column. (Among other things.)

>

I spent the evening eating delicious sugary popcorn and drinking cherry coke while watching silly stuff with Veit.

Today I went to the Zoo, as I have already mentioned, and it was epic. I think I must have spent two hours just hanging out with the monkeys and the apes. There were so many! And I managed to catch the feeding time for the Orangutangs and the Gorillas! Also, I saw lions, tigers, leopards, wolves, polar bears, zebras, giraffes and elephants! It was just like a zoo ought to be.



I really loved the gorillas. ♥

Tomorrow I am off to Copenhagen, and currently I am off to take a shower!