Abbinn and Omman meet Queen Margrethe II of Denmark

In this photo omman is being presented to the Queen of Denmark by abbinn. Abbinn represented the government in his village Skopun. This is in early 1970's.

Omman is the one in the hat. The queen is wearing a scarf and her husband Henri is next to her wearing the white cap.

Fly in my ear

More to come

Kind policeman

More to come

House on Fire

More to come

Picnic at Hanging Rock

More to come

Uluru (Ayers Rock)

More to come

Nearly kidnapped

More to come

When I went to Greenland

More to come

The first time I saw lightning

This photo was taken in the Faeroe Islands in Skopun were abbinn and omman lived. Abbinn and omman are my grandparents on my mother's side. Grandfather in Faeroese is abbinn and grandmother is omman. This photo is taken before I started school so it is more likely in 1965. When I was around five years old. From left to right these are the kids; Johann my older brother, Karl my brother who is one year younger than me, Hordur the youngest brother, Beinta our cousin and Hera which is me. We all used to have blond hair. We all look like elves with our ears sticking out hehe.
This visit was during the summer. We were all walking home to our grandparents house. Just us kids. There started to be loud noises in the air. I wondered was the noise was. Then boomm a huge light flared through the sky. We all screamed and huddled together and probably thought we were going to die. I am sure people who heard us were wondering what was going on. That was the first time I saw lightning. Iceland normally did not have lightning that we saw. I still remember how scared I was. Now I love watching the lightning.

Guam 2008

I have loved living in many different countries. We have so many wonderful friends. We have lived in many country towns and cities too. I grew up in a city but I have to admit I like living in the country more than the city.

I spent time with my daughter Miriam and her family in Guam in June/July 2008. We spent time with Alexander and Eva was born in there. It was so much fun watching Alexander in the rain he loves the rain. He was running around in his gumboots. He loves little rocks and the beach. His favourite book is about Thomas the Tank Engine. Well that tank engine "lives" in Peterborough where we lived in England.

Daniel and Miriam drove us around the island of Guam it only took one day hehe. Matelita went with me to Guam as my companion. I do not travel long distances by myself due to health difficulties sometimes. We saw where Magellan the discoverer landed in Guam. I was amazed to stand where he stood. Magellan was there in 1521. (http://www.bisitaguam.com/episodes/30/). That is a link about the history of Guam.

They also had some of the cannons the Spaniards used and there were ruins where the soldiers lived. I like history and when I visit places I try to imagine what it was like for the people in those days. I looked out to the ocean and thought about how far away the people were from home for king, queen or country.(http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/pacific/guam/) This is a map of Guam.

The lovely thing about Guam is they do not seem to have dangerous insects or animals. The people there are so polite and nice to you and always smiling. Matelita even mentioned it to me. We live in Australia that has some of the most dangerous snakes and spiders in the world that can kill people. We have had a few snakes in our backyard and huge spiders. All snakes are protected by the government in Queensland Australia. If you are found to mame or kill them you are in big trouble with the law.

The beaches in Guam are so clean and the nice thing about them was seeing all the natives there with their families.

Foliage grows very quickly in Guam. You don't see rubbish anywhere because the foliage grows over it hehehe.

I rode on a water buffalo. His name was Frank. I don't remember the owners name. Frank was very tame and he seemed hairless. I touched his skin and it was soft just like a snake skin is soft. Yes, I have touched a huge snake and it was very soft. I am not afraid of animals but I have learned to stay away from the dangerous ones. Whenever we had furry spiders in our house in Australia I would kill those because I am very allergic to their bite.

Miriam took some photos of me on the water buffalo and they are not very attractive (the photos) I look like I am falling off the buffalo. I was not falling off I am just not used to riding on animals. (I did ride on a camel in Alice Springs Australia in 1990 ) I asked the owner if it was o.k. for me to ride on Frank as I was afraid I was too heavy. The owner said not to worry because he was heavier than me and he rode Frank all the time hehe.

Eva was not due to be born until after we arrived. Well, she decided to be born on the evening before we arrived. We had to fly to Cairns in Northern Queensland Australia from Brisbane and from Cairns to Guam. (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/pacific/australia/). While we were in transit in Cairns at about 7:20 pm Henele called us and said Miriam was in the hospital. We had just landed and when we were walking to the other terminal Eva was born. I had this feeling she was born and then when I saw Miriam she told me when she was born. We arrived in Guam at around 4 am. Daniel and Alexander came to get us from the airport. It was kind of humid but not as bad as Brisbane. It was just nice. Daniel had just picked up Alexander from the babysitter to come and get us.

I had a lovely rest in Guam. Daniel was so worried that we were bored. I told him not to worry we were fine. Our family is kind of boring sometimes. We just like to sit around and talk or watch movies. Yes, we live around the world but at the same time we like to just sit down and relax. Like one of my children said, that we do not know how to be tourists, we only know how to live in the places we see hehe. The first thing I bought in Guam was diet root beer. I like root beer and it has to be diet because of my diabetes. We do not have root beer in Australia we have sarsaparilla. That is what root beer used to be called but it does not taste the same. I also bought sugar free rocky road ice cream. Yum Yum. Australia does not have good stuff for diabetics but America sure does. Guam is a protectorate of USA just like Puerto Rico and American Samoa.
In this store they had brownie mix to make brownies and the package said it had hemp in it. I thought that looks interesting. I did not have the camera on me, but wish I had because when I came to the store again the hemp brownies were gone. I was not going to buy them since the Australian customs would take them off me hehe. Seriously, I just found this to be very strange. Miriam told me that in many ways Guam has its own rules and laws. Whatever that means. Why do people need brownies with hemp? Perhaps its for medicinal purposes hehe.

When we went to church I met a sister missionary who knew one of the missionaries we had in our ward in Brisbane.

I also met Elder Hopoate ( http://www.mormonwiki.com/Pita_Hopoate) ( http://w2.byuh.edu/alumni/genuine_gold/hopoate.php) and his family. Elder Hopoate is a area authority(LDS) who has lived in Guam for many years. He is from Tonga. Sister Hopoate used to teach Henele my husband in Liahona High School in Tonga. Elder and Sister Hopate remembered many of Henele's family and they used to be over the Brisbane area when he was a general authority in the Pacific area. They are such caring kind people and I felt like I was with family. Their youngest son was just called on a mission and he was leaving from Guam the day after we left. He was called to Los Angeles downtown area. He was very humble about it and said those people need the gospel too. He had to learn Spanish for that area.
I was in the minority in Guam. Most of the people had lovely brown skin. I was also one of the taller women there. People did look at me or stared I should say I just smiled at them. Alexander Miriam's son is continually photographed by the Japanese tourists in particular in Guam. Well he is blond and blue eyed. It seems amazing to so many of them to see a child like that.
Many tourist come over there from Asia on their honeymoon. The hotels have honeymoon packages. These people go over there and get married. The hotels have these little chapels that look like mini temples, very mini temples. These buildings are beautiful. Most of these chapels are by the beautiful ocean in Guam. I have been told Guam is like Hawaii is to some people.

The ocean in Guam is so clear and you could see even the smallest of fishes. They are so colorful.
We spent three wonderful weeks in Guam. I would like to visit there one more time.

I really enjoyed the relaxed feeling in Guam especially on the roads. The fastest speed seemed to be perhaps 50 MPH. To me that was just nice. Guam was not in a hurry to get anywhere. Then again they were lacking in road maintenance and other government things like that. I suppose we can not have all the good things in one place on this earth yet.

Countries

I have visited a few countries in my life time. I have lived in a few countries for a few years at a time also. People ask me which country is the best country in the world to live in. That is a good question. I have come to the conclusion that there is not any "best" country in the world. Every country I have lived in has good and bad things to offer. I have lived in Iceland, U.S.A., England and Australia. Each country has some good and not so good things about them. It all depends on what you want from life. I grew up in Iceland and was able to be a free spirited child without fear of being kidnapped and other such dangers we have today. As a child in Iceland I did not even know what fear was when it comes to playing in the streets or going down to the docks. This can be dangerous for children sometimes and I think parents should tell children about dangers in society. I got into some dire straits being a free spirited child. Perhaps later I can share that with the world.

I have spent some enjoyable times in other countries. I had some enjoyable time with my maternal grandparents in the Faeroe Islands. Those time have left fond memories with me. I took a day trip to Greenland when I was a teenager. My friend came over to my work one day and told me she was going over to Greenland with her mother for the day. I wanted to go too and off we went. That was a very good experience but cold and windy. I was fascinated by the icebergs floating around in the sea which were so close to the shore. The icebergs were just sitting or standing there however you say that.

As a child I wanted to see the USA especially a yellow sandy beach. Seeing all those movies I figured the people in America lived on the beach and that is all they did. Of course they ate ice cream and hot dogs. I figured I would go horseback riding like the cowboys. That did not look too difficult. I saw from the movies as a child that all people in America were happy people he he. I did also wonder where Roadrunner and Bugs Bunny lived. Those were the cartoons in my childhood days in Iceland.

I did get my chance to live in the U.S.A. later on but was disappointed that people in America did have problems like the rest of the world and huge problems.

During my childhood and teenage years I had friends who travelled to England and the Scandinavian countries. I did wonder what England was like. I was fascinated by the stories my friends told me of seeing colour television and bugs called ants crawling on the ground. I did imagine in my mind what they looked like. They told me too the people drank the sewer water. I did wonder why they did not just drink tap water. I found out later when I lived in England that the water was recycled water and that is what people drank.

I used to watch a show called Skippy in black and white on television. What a funny thing that was. An animal jumping around and it seemed Skippy understood what people were talking about. Well, I did get a chance to see where Skippy lived outside Sydney in Australia. I lived very close to the park Skippy was from in Sydney. Kangaroos are not very smart. They can be very arrogant. Some of them attack people especially the boxing kangaroo. Then again they are big animals. The wallabies are little and sweet. In Queensland just about every animal is protected. Snakes are protected and you can get into a lot of trouble killing one.

It is very easy dreaming of places to see. We make up a picture in our head of what they look like and how things are there. I have a few places more I would like to see in the world. I want to see China, Mongolia, Russia, Poland and many others. I like studying up on the histories of these places. I would have liked to see Iran before Khomeini. I did see Karachi Pakistan through a window in an airplane I was on. That is the first time I saw men walking around outside in what looked like pyjamas.

As I said perhaps later on I will tell more stories about my travels in life. I went to see my daughter in Guam not too long ago. Guam is a very relaxed place and is a great place to visit for beaches and just total relaxation. The locals in Guam are never in a hurry. They are very polite and nice. Even my teenage daughter who was with me mentioned that to me. I was amazed to see where Magellan the explorer went in Guam. I stood there thinking wow, he was here. I know the story of his travels in the world. Every place I go I ask about the history and wonder how it was when the people were there. We saw where the cave was where a Japanese soldier stayed until 1970's because he did not know WWII was over and no one knew he was there. He was found by accident by two men working in the bush. Guam is like a jungle. The vines and trees grow very fast. That is one beauty of Guam. All rubbish and unsightly things are covered by foliage very quickly.

I never gave myself a goal in life to see all these places. This just happened in my life due to whatever was going on in our family or even my research has taken me to these places. I do a lot of family history and have been researching my husband's British family. This has taken me to New Zealand. I love New Zealand. It kind of looks like Iceland with all the volcanic rock and geysers. I found the people in New Zealand very friendly and it did look to me like not too many had a chip on their shoulders. I feel that here in Australia too many people have a chip on their shoulder no matter where they are from. It seems to me also ,because of this they do not integrate very well. All the different ethnic groups more keep to themselves rather than just be Australian.
I lived in the same country town for six years in Australia. I came across some women that did not speak English. I figured they had just arrived there and had not learned English yet. I found out later that they had been there for 40-50 years. I asked myself how it was possible to live in a country that long and not learn the language. These women went into town and did the shopping etc. It was not like they lived in a dungeon and never came outside.

Australia has a derogatory name for just about any nationality that comes to live here. I don't think they have a name for Icelanders, then again, who knows. I feel when you go live in another country you need to adjust without loosing your identity. Keep the good leave the bad out. We need to find out what is appropriate and what is not. We need to respect their culture no matter what our opinion is of it. Like when we stopped in Dubai and Brunei there were signs everywhere about what can happen to you if you have drugs on you etc. Do not take it for granted that the people will accept your ideas or culture when you go to their country. If you are not willing to abide by their rules and culture just don't go there. Don't think because you are from such and such a country that you have the same rights there as you have in your own country.

My life has been far from boring. I see the future with bright eyes and I can not imagine living in the same place your whole life and not see anything else. I love reading and if I have not read for a day or two I feel that my brain is going to mush. I met some women a few weeks ago. These women came to Australia as refugees from war torn countries. These women can speak at least three languages including Arabic. I was amazed to hear that. Arabic sound so difficult to me. Then the sad thing was these women can not read or write. I thought to myself that I could not imagine how that is like. Missing out on reading about other people and places and just be fed by the television or radio for news. I am grateful for being able to read and that in many different languages. Well until next time.