Sunday, July 25, 2010

PETA Would Definitely NOT Approve.

This looks like something my brother would do...

It's disturbing, yet really awesome at the same time

On Friday, BrewDog, a brewery in Scotland, released its "End of History" collection - 12 bottles of what they dubbed, the "strongest, most expensive, and most shocking beer in the world."

At 1,000 bucks a pop, the 55% alcohol blond Belgian ale was infused with nettles from the Scottish Highlands and fresh juniper berries. The best part? Each bottle was served in its own personal stuffed squirrel or stoat cozy.

Seriously.

My dad totally would have been all over this situation... if not for the squirrels.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

A Treehotel!

In keeping with my last post about places to sleep, I thought I'd share with you all this amazing hotel I discovered yesterday. It's called the Treehotel and it's located in the village Harads, which is about 60 km south of the Artic Circle, in Sweeden.

The Treehotel is made of six different super eco-friendly rooms in the middle of a forest. Each one was designed by a different well known architect or designer to be in harmony with nature. The six rooms are the Mirror Cube, The Cabin, The Bird's Nest, The UFO, A Room With a View, and The Blue Cone. You can check them all out on the Treehotel website.

Below you'll find pictures of one of the rooms, the Mirror Cube, which was designed by Tham & Videgard Architects. It is made of light weight aluminum and plywood boxes hung around a tree trunk. The whole thing is covered in a mirror to make it virtually invisible to everyone but birds, which apparently can see the infrared film that is laminated into the glass panes to prevent them from colliding with it. Inside there is living space for two people, a double bed, bath, living room, and roof terrace. To get inside, you cross a rope bridge. Cool, huh?

External views


Internal views


All this crazyness can be yours for the low low price of 4,200 SEK. I'll be there tomorrow.

A Place to Lay Your Head

This is where Mitchell slept last night. Kinda neat huh?


The two pictures above are the view from outside the hostel Mitchell slept in the other night

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Better Late Than Never

I found this picture in my email last night. It's from quite awhile ago, but I thought I'd post it anyway cause I think it's pretty.

This is looking over a sander below Skaftafell

Monday, July 12, 2010

Why Do They Call It "Swiss Miss"?

Yesterday Mitchell and a Swiss couple he's currently hanging with got waffles and hot chocolate at (I think) this hut.
The hot chocolate was Swiss Miss hot chocolate, which apparently baffled the Swiss couple who, according to Mitchell said, "We don't know why it is they call it, what is it, Swiss Miss? We do not know marshmallows, we do, but not enough for this to be Swiss."

I have the answer! Swiss Miss, originally Brown Swiss, was named for a popular breed of Swiss dairy cows, responsible for the milk part of the hot chocolate. It wasn't very clear why they decided on the name change, but I think Swiss Miss is way catchier than Brown Swiss. Thank you Wikopedia, which by the way, has a very very long and boring bio on the history of Swiss Miss.

Mitchell went horseback riding for two hours today. He also informed us that he had eaten puffin. On further inquiry, mom found out that he had bought it, not killed one and cooked it himself as my dad had suspected.

Dynjandi Falls

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Puffins!

Yesterday Mitchell took a trip down (or up, I'm not sure which) to the west fijords. He saw puffins. I want one.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Way Better Than Twilight.

I hate to admit it but after seeing the trailer for the final installment of the Harry Potter saga (below), I'm more than a little excited for November 19.

In book form, I've been a fan of Harry Potter from page 1. The same, however, can not be said for the movies. In fact, I pretty much hated the first two and the fourth one. My favorite movie by far is the third one, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, although that could also be because it was my least favorite book.

Anyway, this one (well two actually, since they are splitting the last book into two movies) looks pretty spectacular. Below you'll find the trailer that was featured on the MTV movie awards, which is slightly different than the one they've been showing on TV recently. Enjoy!