Oh that Christy Turlington with her exquisitely flared nostrils; remember when she sat on the cover of Time in the lotus position? Now there's a dame who loves a bit of yoga.

These days everyone's into it, for all sorts of reasons. You have the old-school devotees, the ones who've been saluting the sun since the dawn of time. They're sincerely in tune with the spiritual side things, they breathe deep and delicately. Their posture is so good and upright you'd think the clouds were made of iron and they had magnets on their heads. They could stay in a pretzel pose for a week and the serene expression on their face would not waver.

Then there's those recent converts, who perhaps grew bored with stepping or treadmilling and sought new paths to perky buttocks. Or maybe they saw Christy contorting on Oprah with her designer yoga pants and Nostrils of Tranquility, and thought yoga seemed the hip hop happening thing to do. These people are sometimes seen dashing from the bus stop, with their Gucci yoga mats nestled under their arms, bleating, "Ohmygod if I'm late to class Swami will so kill me!"

There may exist be a third camp, perhaps too shy to speak about their particular motivation. These are the people who rock up to class each week just because it makes them feel dead sexy.

At my gym, the Body Pump class and the Iyengar Yoga class finish at the same time. The Pumpers come out all red-faced and grunting, great slabs of sweat on their backs, comparing biceps with their friends and making plans to meet up later to lift up a few tractors for fun. Then the Yoga kids come gliding out, pink-cheeked with liquid eyes and faraway smiles. Sure, there's all that inner peace malarkey, but maybe there's something else going on?

Perhaps some people find something rather sensual about it. All that deep breathing. All that stretching and bending. All that beautiful slowness. And then sometimes you get to use those kinky strap thingies that help you reach further than you've ever reached before! Woo hoo!

Of course these particular motivations are more likely if your teacher happens to be a Scottish man with a soft, soft accent. One with R's that come rrrrolling in from the wildest highlands rrrrright into your nether regions. One that wanders round the room occasionally to check your technique, and when you're laying there with your legs in the air all wrong like a dead cockroach, he ever so politely nudges your foot into the correct position, which makes you start to plot other ways to screw up so you can be corrected again! And again!

Right at the end there's ten minutes with the lights off, eyes closed and in the corpse pose. Nothing but that lovely voice telling you to just rrrrelax. Let all thoughts leave your mind. Squeeze this, release that. Feel your body floating. Sure, his words are addressed to the whole class, including the alarmingly elastic granny down the front and the weird guy with the headband who takes it all so seriously. But dammit, you reserve the right to daydream that he's only talking to you.

Hmm. Yoga purely as an excuse to get bendy. Yoga with no regard for spiritual enlightenment or fashion or a six-pack stomach, just a vague desire to become a flexible freak. Yoga for a chance to arrange your limbs in a complicated manner without risk of an unpleasant disease or a broken heart. And you get to keep your tracky pants on.

"Butterflies are great," mused the Outgoing Secretary. "In fact, all insects are great. Even wasps. Why do people hate wasps? Unless you shove a big stick at their nests, they don't bother anyone."

"Indeedy," said I, the Incoming Secretary.

"I'm a fan of all the misunderstood animals," she went on, "Wasps, crocodiles, lions, killer whales."

Everyone in the company knew the Outgoing Secretary -- important bosses, worker bees, the canteen lady, the man who put the big snowball bags of CONFIDENTIAL shredding onto a truck. She was weird but utterly charming. It was such a change from the usual bland office slugs. She bubbled along with her loopy stories and jokes, so comfortable in her own skin. She took me around the building for introductions, leaving a trail of smiling colleagues behind us.

She was leaving to study Meteorology. They gave her a cake. And a card. And gift vouchers. And a fancy necklace. After only one year as a temp! She was adored!

They all talked about Weather while I quietly shredded a choc chip muffin and felt inadequate.

"I met a wasp on a scorching day last summer," she was saying. "I was on my way home, running from tree to tree, trying to soak up some shade. There on the grass was the wee wasp. He was in a bad way, so very weak, only the occasional half-hearted flap of his wings.

"I got out my water bottle and poured some into the lid. He must have been so dehydrated, coz he just lapped away at it, schloooop schloop schloop. We just sat there on the grass together for half an hour. It was so sweet, you could have almost patted him! But he was so hot I was worried he'd crumble."

"Ohhh!" piped up the Incoming Secretary, in a stunning display of intelligence and conversation skills. "Cool."

But I had an equally endearing Insect/Summer story. They'd soon be warming up to the Incoming Secretary, yes siree. I was nine years old. My sister and I collected some bugs from around the playground - peeled bark from trees, crawled under the classroom, dug around in flower beds.

Then we put them into plastic cups, filled the cups with water and stuck them in the school canteen freezer. Once they were solid we ripped off the cups and erected our Frozen Bug Museum bedside the monkey bars. They looked beautiful, suspended in their frosty domes. Tiny/red, metallic green/scary horns, brown/weird.

The domes began to sweat under the frowning sun. Despite my lack of medical knowledge (Mel Gibson was yet to star in Forever Young), I was confident the bugs would come back to life once the ice melted. They'd shake the water off their spindly legs and get right back to work.

But then I peered closer. I saw tiny helpless claws and surprised wings. I saw little bug faces, expressions snap-frozen into fear or outrage. My stomach curled up in guilt.

We picked up the icy prisons and pounded them against the monkey bars. We hacked away until there was a pile of a shattered ice and sand and twigs at our feet, with only the core left in our hands, a little chunk with the bug inside. We sat with them cupped in our palms and waited for the melting and the waking-up.

I realised it wasn't an endearing story at all. I was just a cold-blooded killer. I decided to keep that information quiet, eat the muffin, and win them over in the days to come with my staple-removing prowess.

According to its website, the Icelandic Phallological Museum is, "probably the only museum in the world to contain a collection of phallic specimens belonging to all the various types of mammal found in a single country."

In summary: over 150 different penises under one roof. Polar bears, reindeer, mice, minks, Arctic foxes, whales and seals, oh my! How could anyone resist a photo gallery with phallic navigation images? And such charming specimen descriptions:

SPERM WHALE (Pottwhale, cachalot) Physeter catodon.

a) Adult caught by the Hjalfjörður whaling station in 1975. Skin flattened, tanned.

b) An old male beached on the south coast in January 1992. Hollowed , salted, dried, placed on a wooden plaque.

c) Adult beached along with two others on the north-east coast in June 1995. Skin tanned for neckties, bowties etc.

There's even a folklore section:

TROLL Homo gigantus Islandicus. Young boy, thoroughly petrified. Found in N-Iceland in 1941.

"We're going to the Penis Museum!" I announced to anyone who would listen, passing strangers, bus drivers, The Mothership ("Hmmm, interesting," -- The Mothership). But alas, from September to April the Museum has is only open from Thursday to Saturday. We would be out of Reykjavik on the Thursday and would fly home Friday morning. Noooo!

I emailed the lovely old Museum dude explaining that I came all the way from Australia and while not a phallologist by trade, I did have a genuine interest in and appreciation of the subject. He replied very promptly:

Dear Shauna. Yes, that´s right, from September I am only open Thutsday-Saturday [sic] but I could open for you on Tuesday. Would you be ready at about 12 o´clock? Please let me know.

What a top bloke! But then I realised that at 12 o'clock we'd still be sitting in the airport at Glasgow. I emailed back and thanked him for his kind offer but sadly we wouldn't be in the city until a few hours later. But I remained optimistic that it would somehow happen. That night I dreamed we rocked up and the dude was there to give us the grand tour. We gave him a box of Scottish shortbread wrapped in eucalyptus leaves to show our gratitude, and to make some sort of bizarre cross-cultural statement.

On Tuesday afternoon we went by the Museum, just in case. It was on a little street just like another little Reykjavik street, a bright orange building up a little alley, a rusty bicycle slumped against the wall. (What had we expected? A soaring tower on top of a mountain?)

The weather was nasty. Cold and crooked rain spat at us, fierce winds sent the penis-shaped weather vane into a spin. My raincoat was helpfully back in the hostel, so I wrapped my scarf round my head like I'd fled a war-torn country. I was a pathetic sight, soaked to the bone and tapping hopefully at a window decorated with shiny tiny faux-stained-glass penises.

Of course no one was home. Except for the 150+ penises. But we were content to press our noses to the glass and squint and ponder, "Oh, perhaps that's the walrus one".

As a small consolation, we saw this shop on the way back to the hostel...

And I think to myself, what a wonderful URL.

They sat around a table full of muffins and a bizarre Rice Krispie/toffee concoction, cackling and talking about Coronation Street. Once again I was the new kid, quietly and politely sipping tea even though I don't drink tea, but I couldn't just sit there looking like a pussy who doesn't drink tea.

One of them plonked down beside me and peered at me all too closely. The hue of her thick sunbed-toasted face reminded me of the cows on our farm, with deep wriggly crevices like soil erosion. She had cropped bleached hair and her eyes were almost black. She reminded me of someone who would bash you up in the canteen line at school if you didn't surrender your lunch money.

"Have I met you?"

"No! I'm Shauna."

"You're SHOR-NA!" She smirked. "Are you from where I think you're from?"

"I'm from Australia."

"AH-STRAY-LI-UH! Whereabouts in AH-STRAY-LI-UH?"

"I'm from Canberra."

"KEHHHHN-BRUH! Why don't you live in Sydney?"

"Um."

"Ha! How long are you working here for?"

"Just this week. I'm temping."

"Just this WOIK. You're TEMPEN."

"Yes. Yes I am."

"Well I gotta go. NOICE TO MEET YA MATE!"

A few hours later I was waiting for the bus when a young man with equally dark eyes shuffled up beside me. He smiled and mumbled something in a thick Scots accent.

I smiled helplessly. "Sorry?"

"Nniiidddeee?"

"I'm really sorry..."

He rolled his eyes. "Nniiidddeee?"

"You need change? For the bus? I don't have any, honest. I just use my bus pass thingy you see..."

"Noooo! I said, nnniiddeee?"

Did he want to kill me? There was noone else around. I shrugged meekly.

"Nniiidddeee?"

"OH! Nice day? Yes! Yes I did have a nice day. Thanks for asking! God I am so sorry, I --"

"Noo. Noo. I am so sorry."

He rolled his eyes again and disappeared before I could explain about being Australian and particularly stupid.

The next day at work I wandered down the hall to the kitchen when I heard those mocking tones behind me.

"Well well well. It's SHOR-NA from KEHHHHN-BRUH!"

It was a kilt lovers paradise at the Braemar Gathering last weekend. There was action galore - running races, tug-of-war, highland dancing. But best of all were the big boys. They were all at least seven feet tall, great beefy sides of flesh with names like Thor, Killer or Hamish McHammer. They threw huge stones, tossed cabers and hurled heavy objects over high bars.

At times I feared for their lives. With nothing but a kilt for protection, these boys were swinging heavy blobs of metal back and forth between their legs, working up the momentum to fling it over the high bar. Watch out for your danglies, boys! I wanted to scream, Or the highland tradition stops with you!

The caber toss is equally freaky. According to my googling, the caber is about 17 feet long and weighs around 150 pounds. And these blokes just pop 'em on their shoulders and toddle along before throwing them into their air.

I can't imagine anything more difficult, but after a few hours of watching the sport you start to take on that armchair expertise. When one hefty fella messed up, the crowded groaned in frustration. "He waited too long!" I declared, finishing my third sandwich with a little belch. "He should have let go much earlier! Jeez."

All of this excitement took place beneath a perfect sky with lush heathery hills all around. Seeing the Highlands in September makes you fall in love with this beautiful country all over again, you could just hump the hills in delight. At the Gathering, the stands swarmed with kilted folk, whining kiddies and grotty backpackers. Next to me a crumbly Englishman in a tweed jacket nudged his wife and muttered, "Heh heh heh," every time someone fell over.

There were also a strong Down Under contingent, as we discovered during the Two Mile race. On the final lap, a scrawny man with a mullet came powering up on the outside. The announcer howled, "It's the wildcard entry Daniel McBlah all the way from Melbourne Australia, he's moving ahead of the pack!" Heads popped up from random points around the stands, whooping in unison, "GO YOU AUSSIEEEEE!". I'm sure back home they would have shunned this man for his lack of arse and questionable hairstyle, but today at Braemar he was a national treasure!

Speaking of apparent national treasures, The Queen shows up at the Gathering every year. By 3PM we were roasted and grumbling, but determined to wait. Seeing Her Majesty was the one thing the sentimental wrinklies in our family wanted us to do while we we're over here. One horribly digital-zoomed lemon-suited blob later, I had done my duty.

I was not amused by how Not Amused she was by the proceedings. Crikey, Lizzie. How can you not even muster polite applause when a hulky dude tosses a tree? I can understand the drone of yet another pipe band sending one to sleep, but come on! How can one not appreciate all that kilt candy?

   

Admittedly, the candy was of varied quality.

We were on another bus, rumbling past more moss and lava, the local FM radio station piddling from the speakers. The smell of sulphur sneaked through the windows as Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson argued over whose Girl she was. That tedious spoken-word part in the middle never fails to make me shudder.

PAUL:  Michael, we're not going to fight about this okay?

MICHAEL:  Paul, I think I told you, I'm a lover, not a fighter.

SHAUNA:  La la la! I don't want to know!

PAUL:  I've heard it all before, Michael. She told me that I'm her forever lover, you know, don't you remember?

MICHAEL:  Well, after loving me, she said she couldn't love another.

PAUL:  Is that what she said?

MICHAEL:  Yes, she said it, you keep dreaming.

SHAUNA:  Lisa Marie said it too, and look what happened there.

Then Hall and Oates warned that Private eyes! Are watching you! It was strangely comforting, knowing no matter which weird country you ended up in on this planet, FM radio would always have Islands In The Stream and announcers with fat ballsy voices.

Soon we arrived at the Blue Lagoon, which is basically a huge geothermal spa, full of white mud and all manner of healing minerals and algae. We stood at the edge shivering in our cozzies and looked across the milky aquamarine water, steam curling around our feet. The lagoon seemed plonked in the middle of nowhere, hugged by piles of lava rocks with dark hills beyond. Since it was only 10 am the place was near empty and eerily quiet. Oce we got in... heaven! The water was around 36°C and felt like liquid velvet. It's an amazing sensation. Imagine floating on your back... eyes closed, water slurping at your ears, toes and fingertips licked by the cold air above, your mind dissolving in the steam... until your sister grabs your foot and muses, "If you were to fart in here, it really wouldn't matter, would it? All that sulphur..."

We departed with wrinkly fingers and crappy hair for a Golden Circle sightseeing tour. This covers the most popular touristy spots - the honkin' huge Gullfoss waterfall, great vomiting hot springs at Geyser, a volcano crater, and a bit of þingvellir. I usually avoid being herded around on a bus, but we had such a tiny amount of time and money. It was more than enough to make you hunger for more and wonder which bank to rob to finance a return visit.

                       

There's always a tense moment when first entering your room in a youth hostel. What will these intercontinental strangers be like? Will they steal your passport and stash of Peppermint Aero Bars? Will you wind up best friends and strip to your undies for a pillow fight?

I always try to be friendly, so I put on a big smile and my most congenial "helloooo!".

There was only one girl in the room and she did not smile or helloooo back. Instead she said in stern tones, "Do you know about The Door?"

"The Door? No."

"The Door is not good. It does not shut properly. You must make sure you shut it properly or someone will steal your belongings. You will do this, okay?"

And with that she stalked out, slamming the offending object behind her.

Ten minutes later we were back in reception, booking a bus trip for Thursday, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the Door Watcher.

"You."

"Me?" I said meekly.

"You," she repeated, "You did not close The Door as I asked you to."

"Oh I'm sorry, I thought we made sure it was locked."

"It was not locked. You did not lock it. Make sure it is properly closed next time please."

She selected a chair in the corner and sat with her head resting on her knees, frowning, frowning, frowning, watching the travelers stagger in beneath their bloated backpacks.

Later that night we returned to find a new roommate, a sweet and chatty girl from Washington DC. Door Watcher was in the middle of her briefing, perched on the top bunk. "I already told these two about The Door, so don't forget okay?"

"Okay!" Washington said breezily. "So where are you from and how long have you been here?"

(D'oh! I always forget to play Where Are You From And How Long Have You Been Here. I'm such an amateur.)

"I am from Munich," said Door Watcher. "I have been in Iceland two weeks."

"Great! So Where Have You Been? What Have You Seen?"

"I have been all over. Mostly up North. Lava deserts, glaciers, fishing. Lots of willages. It is okay if you like willages. I prefer big cities to willages."

She was brandishing a Nikon with an obscenely large lens, peering down at us through it.

"How did you get around?" asked Washington. "Did you fly or do a tour?"

"No. Hitchhiking."

"Wow."

"It is easy. The longest wait was ten minutes. Quicker than the bus."

"You must have met some interesting people then?" I ventured.

"Yes. Sometimes. They are usually more friendly up North," she said. "Friendly, but stupid. Down South people are less friendly. But still stupid."

I longed to crack this crusty exterior, to see her smile or laugh. But it was impossible. Her routine was to deliver a few lines then swoop off the set. At one point Washington chirped, "I hear that they only get, like, three hours of sunlight in the winter!"

"No," said Door Watcher, "Five hours. Not three hours. Five hours."

Exeunt.

The next night I returned from our delicious meal of Noodle Surprise (two-minute noodles sauteed in peanut butter) to find my digital camera charger had been unplugged from the outlet.

"That is your camera charger?"

The Door Watcher sat bolt upright from the top bunk, making me jump.

"Yes it is."

"I have unplugged it. I have to charge my phone. You must wait ten minutes and then you can plug it back in. Ten minutes."

She disappeared back into the depths of her sleeping bag.

Despite the lack of sunshine, I thought surely a nice warm person lurked beneath. Perhaps it was just her English making her sound a wee bit frosty. But I never got the chance to find out. The next night she was gone, replaced by two Finns with delicate tattoos and incredible legs.

On the bus from the airport into Reykjavik, there was a crazy man beside me with a grizzly beard and crumpled pieces of paper poking out of the many pockets in his camofluage jacket. He sputtered about how he "got done" at Customs for having two bottles of duty-free whiskey too many. Rhiannon rolled her eyes and made her "Well, DICKHEAD!" face.

Meanwhile, a nervous blonde girl was looking blank. She pawed through her swanky handbag, frowning to herself, as if she had no idea how she had ended up in Iceland and the answer was hidden beneath her Evian and breath mints.

"Do you have any idea where I could stay tonight?" she asked the bus in general.

"You've nowhere to stay?" asked Crazy Man, leaning over the aisle. "I can help. How much are you willing to spend?"

"Oh, money isn't a problem," she replied as she slopped on some lipgloss. "I'm here on my own, I've got no plans..."

I heard the voice of The Mothership on my shoulder, "Tell her to shut up! She's giving him waaay too much information! And you know he has a collection of large knives in that duffel bag. She's sushi tonight, I tell you..."

But one look out the window and I forgot to care. All the guide books crap on about the "lunar landscape" of this country, but all the cliches are true. Beneath dark squatting rain clouds was an endless stretch of lava rocks, all weird and clumped and covered in brilliant green moss. The silvery highway slashed through the middle of it, beside a still and inky ocean.

All this contrast and emptiness was overwhelming. Crazy Guy was bragging he'd been here five times before, and was offering to show Blondie around town. I just wanted him to shut up so we could all let this strange place sink in.

Rhi and I spent the rest of the day wandering around Reykjavik. Having squandered our money on the flights and following day trips, it was a case of a lot of looking but not much touching. We turned into painful squealing Oh My God! tourists, cooing over brightly coloured houses and weird boutiques. After pressing our noses longingly against the windows of groovy coffee shops, we ended up at Hallgrímskirkja, to get a view of the city. Just as we got to the top, it began to chuck down and the bells announced it was 4 o'clock. Thrashed by rain and ding-dong-ing, we didn't see much of the view but it was good fun anyway. The wind was so fierce our hair stood on end, mimicking the shape of the church.

Out the front of the church I saw a duck. It's funny how you go crazy over a duck in a foreign land, especially when it's a land so completely removed from your own. I used to roll my eyes at Japanese tourists in my hometown, squeaking kawaiiiiiiiii! over a fat old sheep with a daggy arse. But now here I was crouched beside this duck, yelling to my sister, "You have to come see this Icelandic duck!". I don't know what I expected, perhaps when it opened its beak it would issue weird glacial soundscapes. But no, it just gave me a withering look and said quack in the usual manner. I took a dozen photos anyway.

Next stop was Bónus, where we bought our rations for the trip - a loaf of bread, four apples and a jar of peanut butter (along with the two-minute noodles and chocolate we bought from home, I am proud to say our entire food expenditure was a mere 400 kronur. Rawk!). Again, we embarassed ourselves by running around the supermarket poking each other and saying, "Look at this Icelandic stuff! Hee hee!". I even took an extra four Bónus shopping bags as souvenirs, which is quite sad. I wonder if Icelandic tourists in Scotland save their bags from Tesco? Maybe they would, if they had a little piggy on them, like Bónus.

Anyway. We rounded off our first day just sitting by the harbour, feeling the temperature drop as we ate like savages, dipping chunks of bread into the PB jar. I was just exclaiming how cute the Icelandic PB was when Rhiannon pointed out it was American PB ("Dickhead!"). Of course. Iceland is hardly the ideal clime for peanut growing, nor does it have the economic clout to lord over a country that does.

Still, it was a delicious meal, sitting there in the drizzle with really boofy hair, not quite believing we were up so high on the globe.

It´s Wednesday night and I´m Reykjavik. There was a time when the biggest thrill on a Wednesday night was a trip to Supabarn to get some chocolate, sans underwear. But now here we are, as far north as you can go short of sitting in Santa´s lap, joining the ranks of Damon Albarn as one who crows about this strange and desolate landscape and the invigorating effects it has on one´s creativity. Nah, it´s more just coz we got a cheap flight and a hostel. But do watch out for my upcoming side-project blog, staffed by hipster cartoon characters.

This keyboard has all sorts of crazy squiggle¨s! æ Ö þ þ þ þ

It is fucking amazing here! Beware of bloated What I Did On My Holidays posts when we get back on Friday.