Eurohope

As I am off to Portugal (wooooooooooo!) in around 36 hours and won't have the internode at the apartment (how I will manage to function I don't know) I thought I would dip in a very quick update whilst I await my evening's visitor.

Firstly Tickets for New York 90sness are on sale in Spúútnik NÚNA!



The last week has been mostly Eurovision based. Palli, Manny and I watched the first semi final over dinner and absorbed some of the most horrific performances in history. I shall not even go near the Irish turkey puppet...

Some of our joint favourites were...

ARMENIA's Qele Qele



AZERBAIJAN - supposedly in English but had to tell. Love the goth rockpera though.



The second semi final was on thursday and the gay husbands and came again to watch along with Lilja and Magga Sigga. Much anticipation was in the air all over town in support of Iceland's Euroband as the country hadn't made it through to the finals in quite some years.

Although the plastic smiles on the contestants drive me mental the performance was awesome - incredibly camp and incredibly eurovision. I believed we were in a good place to get high up in the finals. Seriously, could this be any more Eurovision if it tried?



Sideways from national duties our ultimate favourite for the win was Bulgaria's incredible entry. How it didn't get in we don't know because we all voted for it more than once, and so it seems did nearly everyone else we know. Any act involving flaming DJ decks and a lazer harp should be in by default in my opinion.



They didn't however come up to scratch with my new hero - The awful leather trousered Lithuanian goth ballad.

AWESOME. not. yet yes.



There was a definite theme throughout the entire competition this year - men in leather trousers and women in silver dresses, and fake tits. So many fake tits and fake tans and hyper whitened teeth, all three sported by Poland's entrant and Sweden's alien. The Swede has had so much work done she mustn't be far off having a pubic beard. My 12 year old neighbour was convinced she was alien spawn from some wrong affair by Michael Jackson and ET.



In joy of Iceland breaking through the gay husbands and I went to Q bar for a dance and some champagne which wasn't a good idea for wallet or head the next day, but much fun at the time. Ási and Ýr were Djing and for some silly reason believed they could make it through the night without playing Euroband. Not on your life.










Afterwards I cycled home past the pond to find a house in it. It took me a moment or two in the bubbly haze to recall it was the Art festival and I shouldn't be remotely surprised. It looked awesome, even more in the still of the 1am daylight. Oh yes, summer is beginning to be here.




That week in general and what has been of this one has been heavily Weird Girls related. Almost everything for Episode 5 is being pulled into place, we have only 6 of 14 pairs of roller skates left to find. I met with the director and we are both very excited to see this one come into place. I collected the costumes from KVK today and Kolbrún has done an awesome job. We had such little budget it was genius to think of getting the fabric from XXXL tshirts from Hanson sports team supplies.



The fundraising is in full swing - we have a CAR WASH on SATURDAY 21st JUNE at OLÍS on Ánanaust from 12-5 with Bergalind Ágústdóttir performing live with us and then on THURSDAY JUNE 26th from 8pm we are holding a BBQ party at Q bar. More details on both to follow.

Back to Eurovisioning... Saturday was The Night. I cooked a huge lamb leg, with various salads and roast potatoes for everyone to pick over. Gaui, John, Magga Sigga, Sunna, Dana and Lilja came over for the excitement. I borrowed Brieve's ultimate video camera to prop in the corner of the room to capture everyone's excitement or disgust and thank god I did for there are some priceless moments I can't wait to edit when I have time, including Lilja crying.. hahaaa.

We all wrote down points for each country and then had 2 countries chosen at random which were to be used for a ridiculous drinking game suggested by Lilja. Each time your two were given points on TV you had to take one sip per point. Sunna and I had Azerbaijan and this meant many sips indeed.




The room became more and more loud and rowdy as the scores were being dished out. I am with Sir Terry Wogan on this, the scoring has become laughable with countries voting politically and this means any eastern European and ex-USSR country were guaranteed 12 points from their neighbours. I thought the English song was wack so have no beef with that one not scoring much, even though I think it should have had a bit more, but the Icelandic song was unbelievably better than a great deal of the drivel which got into the top ten.

Ignoring the Icelandic submission, all of us wrote down our bets against each other for the top 5 places and we all more or less wrote the same countries down, but only 2 came anywhere near. RUBBISH i say. I think the whole event is fun and light hearted but whats the point when you cant even enjoy it in a silly way because the only ones going anywhere are from politics. Even Iceland did the same with Denmark and vice versa.

Ho Hum.

I had a fun night regardless. Downtown was full of horrifically drunk graduation kids and middle aged people stumbling like newly born foals, I left the girls and rode towards Nasa where I was going to pop and say hi to Páll Oscar but he texted me to warn that it was also rammed and so rode on, past vomiting kids and through the streets of sin city to collect Magga and Thelma to return home and watch some Buck Rogers.

Daníel and I have been watching hours of this lately. I remember my dad doing impressions of Twiki when I was a kid and when I found a box set DVD in Kolaport I snatched it up immediately.



Nothing else to report for now. Portugal is next. I shall just leave you with some Lomo shots from the last weeks as I have just had them back and the photos always seem to come out incredibly well for such a cheap little camera. I heart it.

Toodlepip.

Good Life

Sometimes I leave it far too long between posts which is wickety wack for those of you bored enough to be checking back here regularly and also as it takes me about 2 hours to write everything up.

Plot Synopsis: Life is Sweet. The reasons for which include the general friends and family and looking at the mountains every day. The details of which I shall now try and put together and in some sort of order, ever thankful for digitally timestamped photos as that makes memory almost redundant....

Back in early May it was Harpa's birthday so about 10 of us went to the new and amazing Santa Maria - an extremely inexpensive yet impressive Mexican restaurant. I am such a slut for the place I had actually gone there the night before and ended up there again the night after. The fact that it is so busy most of the time is brilliant as often in Reykjavík good places disappear too fast.









The next day it was the Center for Icelandic Arts grant awards gathering. I had only been called the day before to be told that The Weird Girls Project had been given a small travel grant sponsored by Iceland Express. Not only was I incredibly pleased, I was incredibly shocked. The grants are really only for artists who had previously exhibited professionally and besides that, I am not Icelandic nor have lived here long enough. There were around 50 applicants and we were one of only 18 or thereabouts actually awarded. Several of the girls came down to drink a glass of champers and frolic in the sun.















The award puts a small dent in the funds we need to come up with, but every little helps and to be honest the fact the project has been officially recognised is truly fantastic.

To celebrate Lilja and I met up with Nathan, Palli and Manny and Logi for a sunshine beverage and dinner at - yes, Santa Maria. Again.



Afterwards we had a brief cocktail moment or 3 in Q bar before I resisted the demands to stay out until silly o'clock and pootled home.









Friday Davo, Björg, the recently returned Gaui and the incredibly pregnant Sveinbjörg came for dinner. She is truly cooked and may very well be having her little one right. this. second.......



Keeping on the baby theme that very day Curver and Ragga had their little one in New York. Curver sent me the soundtrack, which is typical of him to have recorded it, which made me cry at my desk, and some photos. Super cute. They are still deciding on a name.



Later that night after the pregnant ones had gone home and the other guests headed off, I popped to Alli's for a quick dance and chit chat with other CCPers.







As it was Whit Sunday and there was a day off on monday, we celebrated as any good people would, with Elderflower cocktails and dancing our nuts off to Motown. KGB organised a very last minute night at Organ and I hope he will be doing another one as its been absolutely ages since I have danced as much as this.
























Monday I hopped on my bike. Well, its not my bike, its Friða's but I have adopted it. I am utterly obsessed with disappearing on it all over the place now. In all honesty I was terrified to cycle much in London as you tend to, well, get killed. My thighs are hardening up like bulls and the sense of freedom is amazing. I had utterly forgotten the 'weeeeeeeeeeeeeoooo!' feeling, now I keep finding excuses to get on it.



Yes, I wear a helmet (90% of the time I admit quick rides on pavement round locally are helmetless) and yes I am fully aware of the fact I look like a bell end. But I do not give a flying fuck. My ex boyfriend, the man I have spent more relationship with than any other is currently in hospital recovering from brain damage, the level of permanence is yet to be defined, this was caused because he came off his bike a few weeks ago without a helmet on.

Helmet vs brain damage. Hmmmn. Not much for me to think about on that folks, besides which you may have noticed I give little care about whether I am dressing like a mental patient generally. More about which you can read in this Thursday's Seð og Heyrt magazine it seems.

Anyway my helmet and I spent the bank holiday Monday zipping around town visiting various folks including the Karolinas and Begga.










Wednesday night Daníel and I hung out for a while and before heading down to Organ for last orders where Krummi and Frosti were djing, the crimping iron came out. Its been quite some time I have been attempting to trick Daníel into letting me at his Rod 'do' and somehow, totally sober on a wednesday night before going out to see his friends it happened.

I have never seen something more spinal tap and it was amazing.




Last Friday was a very random day and evening. At lunchtime I called for a last minute picnic downtown in Austurvöllur to revel in the sunshine whilst it was out. Icelandic summer sun is quite unlike any anywhere else. I know of course, that it is the same sun you all have, but it is brighter and different here. Only people who have experienced an Icelandic summer will understand what i mean. You do though don't you?






Straight from work Palli, Manny, Gaui, Lilja, Magga Sigga and I went to the Pop Quiz at Organ where Oli Palli was presenting the quiz. We did fairly well and I was very pleased at myself for getting a few questions right even though it was all in Icelandic *high five*







Afterwards, Daníel joined Magga, Gaui and I for a Shalimar dinner. I HEART SHALIMAR. my word. I nearly always have the same coriander chili cream dish but tasting everyone's means I can swear its all good there.







The next day I had a gorgeous me day. An unbelievably thorough clean of my flat - to the point of washing my curtains and bleaching teaspoons whilst (badly) singing along to Mario Lanza (you have no idea how much joy this causes me), a long hot shower and pampering and a bike ride whilst I had stuffed pheasant wrapped in bacon in the oven, just for me. I also made some chicken liver and cognac paté which is dangerously addictive, I am not much of a sweet cook. Having said that I made Magga a 3 course meal last night also and the Dark Chocolate soufflé cake ruled. Even more for the no butter, no wheat, low sugar input.

The Saturday evening came and so did the Q bar beach party. Most of my photos are on my Lomo though so will arrive later. It was much fun, many people I knew there and boys with no tops on and girls in bikinis. Can't really complain on that count although I was miffed the sand had got canceled.









The wonderful Mæja took these 2 at around 4am outside the bar and I am sure much photoshop must have been used to hide shiny sweatiness.... She has amazing skills with the camera though.




In other news....

The New York 90s party organisation is in full swing, this is going to RULE in a very hardcore fashion. Lauren Flax and JD Samson from Le Tigre are coming to Dj with me. Tickets will be on sale in Spúútnik after 1 June. Its going to get rammed.






Other organisation is being put into the next episode of the Weird Girls. Its going to involve a video to a new Ghostigital track, a demo of which is in my grubby hands and its very exciting indeed. If i didn't have to keep the details secret from the girls themselves I would give you an outline of the video because it will be amazing!

As it is I will put the previous 4 videos here for you to see. But first you should read the 'about' section HERE if you haven't already to understand none of the girls know what's going to happen until the filming.... its not rehearsed...

We are also going nuts in the next few months fund raising. The cost of getting us to the festival in London is immense due to travel and accommodation costs. So far We have self funded over 1,000,000isk on the previous episodes as I used my Dj earnings from my Nasa gigs, but no longer have that so we are going down different routes.

We will be doing a CAR WASH in our SPANDEX SUITS in a few weeks time whilst Begga sings - more details soon. Also bake sales and nights at Q bar and Kaffibarinn.

Then there is the old school begging. Give us all your money. Go on. Just throw a dolar or a pound into the pot. We have a paypal account. Click the banner below. I will heart you forever.