Summer Adventures!

As you heard in my last video, summer was a very busy and adventurous time for me! We traveled to Iceland, England and France. I thought I would tell you guys a little about what we did in each country:

Iceland
My parents graciously held our long-awaited wedding in Iceland with all of my friends and family, which was a very special day for us. I finally got to spend time with my family after having been apart for nearly 2 years. I also got to meet my beautiful and precious niece, Eva Rós, who has gotten so big! Since we left, she's learned to start walking. I'm a very proud aunt! Thanks to my parents, we also went horseback riding and did the Golden Circle Tour. A must for any person coming to Iceland! My sister also invited me along with her to a luxurious spa, out for lunch at my favorite restaurant and took me out for gelato, an amazing pampered sisters day together as a wedding gift to me, very sweet! We received so many wonderful gifts and are very lucky to have so many loving family members by our side on our special day. I teared up on the way to the airport when we were leaving, but I know I'll see them all again soon.

England
We stayed with my brother, Svavar Orri, who lives very central in London. We're so thankful to him for letting us stay. We bought the London Pass and did pretty much EVERY touristy thing possible in London. We saw Westminster Abbey, Shakespeare's Globe, Tower of London, London Bride Experience, Royal Mews, The Monument, Museum of London, London Zoo, Thames River Boat Cruise, Curzon Cinema, National Gallery and so much more! We would highly recommend  getting the London Pass if you intend to do a lot of touristy stuff in London. It was an unforgettable, amazing trip! On top of all of that, we spent a night in Brighton, which is where we fell in love. Very romantic and a beautiful end to our trip to England.

France
We stayed in Paris for about 4 days, we went to see the Eiffel Tower, The Notre Dame and The Louvre. We experienced the Eiffel Tower light up in the evening, which was magical. We brought along a bottle of wine, sat in the grass and watched. One of the most magical and romantic moments of my life, which I was lucky to share with the man of my dreams.  The Louvre is huge! We walked around for hours and had an amazing time. Icelandic people get in for free, which is great for me!
After Paris, we took the train to Disneyland, stayed at a beautiful hotel and spent the day at Disneyland. We were celebrating our first wedding anniversary. It was everything I hoped it would be! We were there from early morning til closing and the show at the end of the night was spectacular! They really outdid themselves, we even recorded some of it to keep as a memory of that special day.

So Excited For Summer!

The title says it all! I am super excited for summer! Shaun and I have so many fun things planned.

We decided that this summer we would go to England, France, Ireland and Iceland. 

First of all we decided to go to England and spend the summer there, especially because our first wedding anniversary is coming up 30 June. We fell in love in Brighton and want to celebrate our love by going to Brighton. However, it turns out that Brighton is stupidly expensive and the cheapest we could find was a room on airbnb for the same price we pay for a large 1 bedroom apartment in downtown Vancouver. Absolutely ridiculous! So instead we may be looking into staying in London as I know a landlord there that I previously rented from who can hopefully hook us up with a cheap room! :) 

I haven't seen my family in nearly 2 years because I moved to Canada and Icelandair luckily had a special where its free to stopover in Iceland for 1 week with our tickets to England! So we decided to include Iceland in our travel plans. Also since we've been married nearly a year and my family wasn't able to be part of the ceremony we decided to have a wedding in Iceland during this week that we're there. VERY EXCITING! 

I've always wanted to go to Paris, its the most romantic city in the world, right? So what better place to celebrate our anniversary date?! For our anniversary we have decided to go to Paris and spend a few days there and on our anniversary day we're going to head down to Disneyland! I'm so excited I've already picked out my dress that I'm going to wear with my pink Minnie Mouse ears!

How cute is this dress? Gorgeous! 

So as for Ireland, Shaun used to live there and wants to take me there to show me around and I've always wanted to go there too so we decided to throw that in as well :) 

Lots of exciting things happening and we will have the camera with us! So we're hoping to Vlog, blog and take lots of pictures during our trip so you can see what we're up to!

Lots of  Love!

Helga xx

Going Raw/Vegan/Vegetarian?!

Hey everyone!

Sorry I haven't uploaded or blogged in a while. I wasn't sure if YouTube and blogging would be something I wanted to pursue especially as I am the WORST when it comes to video editing and my computer is ancient. But I received messages from some of my new subscribers asking me to keep going which absolutely inspires me! I really do enjoy it and hopefully someday soon I will have better equipment but will make due with have I have for now :)

A lot of things have happened since my last video. Shaun and I are getting married in Iceland on June 7th and we can't wait! We don't want to give all the details away but it will be a very lovely celebration and Shaun is very excited to meet all of my family and friends.

We have also been playing around with becoming raw/vegan/vegetarian. We tried the Freelee Banana Girl lifestyle for a week to see if we would like it, which is a fruitarian diet. We kinda just felt a little "too" clean on the inside and missed eating our favorite foods so we decided to try raw til 4 which worked better for us as we like to have a warm meal for dinner. But again it was a little too restrictive so we went on to try being vegan which is currently what we're doing now, we try to stick with things that are not processed but we do indulge in the occasional tofurkey treat on the weekends. Also I've been experimenting with milk replacements and found coconut milk to be too thick, I tried the sweetened almond milk yesterday which has about 60 calories per cup and that tasted much better and lighter as well. Shaun also likes it so I think we have a winner! So at least we don't support cow rape :)

Personally, I always thought vegans/vegetarians or raw foodists we're all hippies, especially in Vancouver! But I became curious about it and learned a little more on the subject and have made a conscious effort to be more animal friendly, not to say that I am perfect all the time, far from it! But if almond milk tastes just as good as regular milk, then why not? and if I can use Daiya cheese instead of milk cheese then why not use that instead on your pizza or whatever you decide you need cheese on? :)

Have any of you tried experimenting with an alternative diet/lifestyle like becoming vegan/vegetarian or raw foodists?

Anyways, great things have happened as well as some not so great things. I lost all 4 of my best friends a few weeks ago because of something I had no control over. It's always sad when you lose friendships after so many years of being close. But I guess people grow in different directions and have different expectations. But I will be travelling all summer to England, France, Ireland and Iceland so I will have plenty of opportunities to meet interesting new people and can't wait for the adventures to begin!

Lots of love!

Helga xx