Wednesday Night Whinos has become the premier Main Line ladies social club!

Wednesday Night Whinos, AroundMainLine.com’s very popular Main Line ladies social club, continues to grow in its popularity—and for good reason! Whinos, which launched this past March, has brought hundreds of local women together at restaurants, shops and businesses across the Main Line and surrounding suburbs. Wednesday Night Whinos is free and open to all women 21 and over and has helped local gals meet new friends, make business connections and experience the fantastic businesses, boutiques and restaurants the region has to offer!

Whinos picks back up this month with, not one, but two awesome parties. New AML client Whitney Ayerle Bachrach opened an exciting, chic accessories boutique in Eagle Village Shops on September 1st called Kat Bradley! Join over a hundred local women this Wednesday for a great kickoff to fall fashion. Then, as part of our exciting inaugural Main Line Restaurant Week running September 27th through October 3rd, 2010, we will host a special Wednesday Night Whinos at Dettera Restaurant and Wine Bar. Full details below and, of course, on both AroundMainLine.com Facebook event pages. See you soon ladies!

Wednesday Night Whinos at the Kat Bradley Shop in Wayne

A Taste of Britain, a Main Line Restaurant Week participant, is catering Wednesday Night Whinos’ sophisticated soiree at Kat Bradley boutique in Eagle Village Shops on September 8th.

When: Wednesday, Sept 8th, 2010 from 6-8:30pm

Where: Kat Bradley Shop, Eagle Village Shops, Wayne, PA

Details: Whinos will take place at the Kat Bradley Shop in the rear of Eagle Village Shops. The shop is directly behind georges’ restaurant.

Food: Whinos will be catered by Kat Bradley neighbor, A Taste of Britain. Enjoy delicious, complimentary appetizers courtesy of this popular British tea and lunch spot-who is participating in Main Line Restaurant Week as they launch their dinner menu September 27th.

Prizes: Sign in with a business card, email address and cell number and you will be entered to win our mega Main Line Restaurant Week gift card giveaway! We will be drawing names for $50 gift cards Wednesday night and announcing them on Main Line Restaurant Week’s Facebook Fan Page.

Discounts: Kat Bradley is offering 15% off all store accessories for our Whinos event!

Facebook Evite: Ladies, kindly RSVP here on our Facebook evite or email us at: rsvp@aroundmainline.com

Main Line Restaurant Week Menu: Click here to view A Taste of Britain’s menu for Main Line Restaurant Week and to make a reservation.

Virtual Tour of Kat Bradley: Click here to view a virtual tour of Kat Bradley on their Facebook fan page!

Twitter: Follow Wednesday Night Whinos on Twitter @WedNightWhinos; Kat Bradley @KatBradleyShop; A Taste of Britain @ATasteofBritain

Wednesday Night Whinos at Dettera Restaurant and Wine Bar

When: Wednesday, Sept 29th, 2010 from 6-8:30pm

Where: Dettera Restaurant and Wine Bar, 129 E. Butler Pike, Ambler, PA

Details: Free food and fabulous drink specials await our Whinos! Join us upstairs at Dettera when you arrive.

Parking: Valet parking is available at Dettera.

Special Guest: Birthday Girl Marilyn Russell of 95.7 BEN-FM will be our celebrity Whino for the night!

Facebook Evite: Ladies, kindly RSVP here on our Facebook evite or email us at: rsvp@aroundmainline.com

Main Line Restaurant Week Event Preview: Click here to read our full preview on MainLineRestaurantWeek.com.

Main Line Restaurant Week Menu: Click here to review Dettera’s menu on MainLineRestaurantWeek.com and to make a reservation.

Virtual Tour of Dettera: Thanks to the talents of AroundMainLine.com photographer Courtney Apple, you can view a virtual tour of Dettera on Main Line Restaurant Week’s Facebook fan page!

Ambler photo journalist Laura Kicey continues her three part series documenting her weeklong journey of the mystical country called Iceland. Kicey’s trip was funded entirely by a new, innovative website called kickstarter.com – which specializes in micro-patronage for creative ventures and concepts. For other kickstarter.com success stories, visit their website.

Pictured is a fortuitous shot of The Great Geysir of Iceland, for whom all geysers are named. The Geysir first erupted in the 14th century. It used to erupt every 60 minutes until the early 1900s when it became dormant. Earthquakes in June 2000 subsequently reawakened the ‘sleeping’ giant and it now erupts approximately every 8 to 10 hours.

The Geysir, for which all geysers are named, burbles and steams constantly in between eruptions. The explosive drama of the geyser’s spout against the backdrop of the purple, June-time landscape, surrounded with jewel-toned pools of steaming water, rich blue skies and intense sun was quite rousing. But, the intensity and raw power of our next stop at Gullfoss, the grandiose Golden Falls, dwarfed even Geysir. When you pull into the parking lot, you can neither see nor hear this raging force of water cutting into the land, but after a short walk over the hill, the turbulent wind and mist grab you and start to pull you into the core of Golden Falls. Standing on a ledge a few feet from the edge, separated by only a single thin wire, the wind at your back edging you forward, it would be easy to get swept away by its puissance.

The map, that my faithful navigator Sandra was consulting, appeared to suggest the most convenient route to get back to Reykjavík, passing by Þingvellir (a large national park), would be Route 365, rather than double back the way we had come. As we turned off the main road, the terrain immediately changed as we crested our first (and certainly not our last) blindhædir and entered the most desolate lunar landscape we had seen yet: moss, volcanic rubble, and craggy mountains as far as we could see. When we stopped to take some photographs at one point, when we stopped speaking we realized the air was utterly silent. The occasional SUV was the only reminder we had that the road we were on actually led anywhere: there were no buildings, fences or animals, only the thick dust clouds that rose as passing vehicles disappeared – after forcing us off the narrow roadway, that is.

Part of Laura's challenge was navigating the desolate, and many times dangerous, roads that are par for the course in such a land. “Even on the major roadways, there is a peculiar lack of signs indicating direction or distance to and from major points in Iceland,” explained Kicey.

Miraculously, we emerged on the other side of this no man’s land back on a main road, hurtling towards Reykjavík. After dinner, we ended up taking a stroll through the streets of the city, taking in the last rays of daylight around 11 p.m. We did have to make it an early night, as the trip we had planned for our second full day was going to be quite an undertaking: driving from Reykjavík to the glacial lake of Jökusárlón in the southeast of the island and back again – about 12 hours on the road altogether.

The weather that met us each day seemed perfectly appropriate for the character of the day’s wanderings, and the gray gloom of this day was no exception. Our first stop, about two hours drive from Reykjavík, was Vík (fully: Vík í Mýrdal), which greeted us with some characteristically stunning visual drama – deep black sand beaches, fast-moving gray clouds with a mist of rain, and towering cliffs dressed in lupines and fog. After a quick lunch of soup and bread, we walked the beach, admiring the Reynisdrangar – columns of black basalt said to be trolls petrified by morning light – and the swirl of nesting seabirds, mostly puffins and fairy terns. When we’d had our fill of rolling about on the black sand, we took off towards Vatnajökull and the glacial lagoon. The landscape changed quite distinctly at several points along the Ring Road on the south coast, and frequently hid the ocean from view although we were quite close to the shore. The glaciers of the Icelandic Interior (the remote central highland region that is off-limits most of the year), including Mýrdalsjökull and Eyjafjallajökull, were always visible in the distance, remaining the sole constant as the roadscape shifted from flat, lupine-covered plains to barren black lava fields to placid glacial rivers reflecting the gray sky. We stopped to take a closer look at the moss-covered volcanic rock and found the moss to be incredibly thick and bouncy – closer examination proved even more like walking on the moon than just appearances.

Vik is an Icelandic coastal village, known for its popular offshore spires called Reynisdrangar, meaning ‘troll rocks’, which are actual columns of black basalt. Legend has it the ‘trolls’ became petrified by the sun as they were dragging a boat to shore.

Even on the major roadways, there is a peculiar lack of signs indicating direction or distance to and from major points in Iceland. No matter how far removed you feel from civilization, however, it is rare that another vehicle is all too far behind you as the last disappears from sight. The road dips inland at Skaftafell National Park, close to the Vatnajökull glacier, and turns back out towards the water – and there, suddenly, icebergs are upon you! Sandra and I stopped dead in the parking lot and shrieked with delight in the car: unimaginably majestic, the icebergs were an amazing shade of pale blue-green, with veins of black. They are constantly moving, but ever so slowly, out to sea – breaking, colliding, melting. Being in their presence is peaceful, like watching the ghosts of long-dead giants passing by. Tomorrow there will be all new icebergs, and those I saw will be long gone, but quite unforgettable.

The weather that met us each day seemed perfectly appropriate for the character of the day’s wanderings, and the gray gloom of this day was no exception. Our first stop, about two hours drive from Reykjavík, was Vík (fully: Vík í Mýrdal), which greeted us with some characteristically stunning visual drama – deep black sand beaches, fast-moving gray clouds with a mist of rain, and towering cliffs dressed in lupines and fog. After a quick lunch of soup and bread, we walked the beach, admiring the Reynisdrangar – columns of black basalt said to be trolls petrified by morning light – and the swirl of nesting seabirds, mostly puffins and fairy terns. When we’d had our fill of rolling about on the black sand, we took off towards Vatnajökull and the glacial lagoon. The landscape changed quite distinctly at several points along the Ring Road on the south coast, and frequently hid the ocean from view although we were quite close to the shore. The glaciers of the Icelandic Interior (the remote central highland region that is off-limits most of the year), including Mýrdalsjökull and Eyjafjallajökull, were always visible in the distance, remaining the sole constant as the roadscape shifted from flat, lupine-covered plains to barren black lava fields to placid glacial rivers reflecting the gray sky. We stopped to take a closer look at the moss-covered volcanic rock and found the moss to be incredibly thick and bouncy – closer examination proved even more like walking on the moon than just appearances.

Seaweeds have been used in Iceland for over a thousand years for various purposes including food, animal fodder, fuel, manure, dyeing and medicinal purposes. Humans have been consuming some variations of the seaweed since the year 961. The edible seaweeds were chopped, cooked and then prepared with milk and flour to be eaten as a nutrient-rich thick pudding.

Doubling back again through the alien landscapes, hoping to see Svartifoss (a remarkable waterfall in Skaftafell which inspired Reykjavík’s most impressive cathedral) before returning to Reykjavík, we were told at the visitors center it would be a 45-minute hike each way. We decided that with 4 hours on the road still ahead of us plus a dinner stop, we couldn’t afford it. We carried on through to Vík where we paused long enough to stop at the Strondin Bistro; the service was fairly awful, but the burger that filled our empty stomachs at 10 p.m. could not be matched for divine flavor. The weather was taking a turn for the worse: fog was darkening the skies and the rain was coming down more steadily. Driving up a very steep mountainside cloaked in milky haze, the edges of the road dropped off from imagined cliffs. It was a harrowing drive home, especially for someone who hates driving as much as I do (Sandra does not have a driver’s license) and is unfamiliar with the twists and turns of the road ahead. Still, it wouldn’t be the last of our death-defying driving. We made it back to our Reykjavík base quite late and packed our bags so that we could launch early for the West Fjords and Strandir Coast.

Of the icebergs Kicey viewed melting and heading out to sea: “Being in their presence is peaceful, like watching the ghosts of long-dead giants passing by. Tomorrow there will be all new icebergs, and those I saw will be long gone, but quite unforgettable.”

The drive northwest along the Ring Road was fast-moving, and we paused only a few times to admire the changing landscape before we were abruptly ejected onto one very rough road. We stopped almost immediately at a stretch of rocky beach when I was struck by a rainbow-like array of seaweed and kelp in every imaginable color washed ashore. Unlike every other beach I have ever been on, despite the massive amount of dead and decaying organic matter, it smelled fresh and salty and was a feast for the eyes. When we got back on the road, I was only willing to go about 30km/hr, but we soon realized we might never get to Djúpavík at that speed. The road from there on out was extremely rough, paved with only stones or dirt, and barely one and a half lanes wide. We pulled into Holmavík a couple hours later, which is the last “big” town on that route in the north – about 300 residents. After refueling the car, we stopped by Café Riis, a tiny pub, for some lunch. Expecting a rustic, pub-style meal, we both ordered a roasted bacalao (salted cod) dish with potato cake and salad. We were blown away when we were served beautifully presented platters worthy of a much more upscale restaurant: all locally-produced cheese, fish and shrimp. It was impeccably prepared, with delicate, bright flavors.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

The road heading north from Holmavík was even narrower, and followed the bend of every fjord, making the drive woozily repetitive but ever more harrowing as the roads became increasingly rugged. Although as the driver, it was hard for me to appreciate it fully, the weather and the scenery were stunning. Golden sunshine was chased by brief bursts of showers inland, dramatic clouds played over the mountainsides and ocean views; breathtaking terrain rolled past, dotted with tiny farmhouses and clusters of sheep, and waterfalls appeared at regular intervals.

The last two fjords before our arrival were particularly treacherous, and I had to do everything in my power to keep my cool. Sandra would point her camera out the window to shoot the scenes for us to view later, averting her own eyes as the drop induced a bit of vertigo. The final kilometers of road into Djúpavík hugged a cliff face with falling rock tightly to our left, and went into a sheer drop without a guardrail abruptly to our right. Around the last turn of the fjord, our jaws both dropped when a wide rainbow touched down on the road in front of us. As we pulled into Djúpavík around 9pm, on the longest day of the year, we were both shaken and awestruck. We were shown our room by our kind host, Eva, then unpacked and decided to take in some of the midnight sun.

Laura Kicey is a photographer and artist based just outside of Philadelphia, PA. Her work has been shown in a number of galleries regionally, and has appeared in numerous publications internationally. Laura can generally be found lurking in dark alleys and other places she likely should not be. For more of her work, visit her website at: laurakicey.com. Laura’s email is: lk@laurakicey.com.

To read part one of Kicey’s travelogue, click here.

Several months ago we connected with Ambler photographer Laura Kicey by a cool twist of fate. I was thrilled to learn that Kicey was gearing up for an exploration and photo journey through Iceland. Kicey worked closely with kickstarter.com, a website offering a very innovative and productive way to fund creative endeavors. Through kickstarter.com, individuals across the United States can communicate an interesting, creative idea to a network of people who offer a tremendous source of encouragement and potential funding for the project. Kicey raised all of her funds for her trip thanks to a group of 32 strangers who pledged a total of nearly $3,000. She returned with thousands of images – 260-plus of which are now available on Flickr. Kicey stated she is considering a trip to Alaska next year because “I love cold, icebergs, remoteness, etc…so it is right up my alley.” And, after looking at her captivating collection of photos, we could not agree more. The following is part one of our three part series following Laura Kicey’s Icelandic adventure.

Enjoy!
Sarah Lockard
AroundMainLine.com ePublisher

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Valley Haus
Kicey and her travel companion, Sandra, enjoyed a lunch picnic their first full morning in Iceland overlooking this mountainside cabin and lake.

Every step leading up to my adventure in Iceland meant moving forward without any sense of what was to come. I was not sure I could afford the trip at all, which prompted me to launch an art sponsorship program. Likewise, although we have been friends for years, my travel companion Sandra, (who lives in Stockholm) and I had only met once in 2005. And, despite having seen many photographs and some movies of Iceland, nothing could truly prepare me for what I was to experience. Similar to the all-too-common sign we would eventually see on one-lane roads in the more rural areas of the country – BLINDHÆDIR, which indicated that you were about to crest a hill blind, without any sense of what was approaching from the other side, this trip rested on a hundred leaps of faith occurring on an almost hourly basis. It had been several years since I had traveled beyond North America and the need to venture outside the country was becoming quite strong. While planning for the week-long trip, I realized that even though I had a companion to share the costs and I was going to keep myself to a strict budget, it would still be a financial stretch. One of my friends, joking that she would like to live vicariously through my trip, offered to become my sponsor as long as she could have a print of one of my photos from the excursion. At first I scoffed at the idea. But, soon it started to become clear that I couldn’t afford the trip on my own and might have to take my friend’s offer seriously.

Around the same time, another friend alerted me to the launch of kickstarter.com, a website serving as a platform for users to gain sponsorship for creative projects, so I was one of the first people to sign on and present a project. In return for financial backing, sponsors would receive their choice of a print from the trip. Because of the generally turbulent economic climate, I was not anticipating a great deal of interest in such a project – and was genuinely surprised when I ended up raising close to $3,000. Sure, most people could not afford a huge contribution, but so many people – friends, family, complete strangers, even kickstarter.com staff members – all became intrigued enough to become involved, with the result that the trip essentially paid for itself. The added dimension of sharing my trip and the images I would create with my backers created a certain level of excitement for me, and even posed a challenge to my abilities. Once I reached Iceland, I realized that the beauty of the country speaks for itself; for a photographer, it was more a question of being able to do it justice in the limited time I had.

“Once I reached Iceland, I realized that the beauty of the country speaks for itself; for a photographer, it was more a question of being able to do it justice in the limited time I had.”

While driving to JFK, I received a constant flow of text messages from my traveling friend, Sandra, who had arrived in Reykjavík much earlier in the day than I. Though she had made it quite clear in advance that “Iceland is PURPLE!” – the whole island seemed to be carpeted in purple lupine flowers (the Nootka Lupin or Alaskan Lupine) by the time I was looking out the plane as we landed. As the midnight sun sat low on the horizon, the sky, the mountains, and the earth – everything was truly glowing violet. To all appearances, I was landing on another planet.

The Flybus, an airport shuttle service well-equipped to handle the influx of travelers coming into Reykjavík, ferried me and the other stragglers on the last arrival of the day through a delightfully lavender but scarcely populated lunar landscape to drop off each of us at the door of our respective hotels. As one of the last two riders to be deposited outside Hotel Cabin on the waterfront around 2 a.m. local time, I was able to watch the single hour of Icelandic night pass – more of a twilight than a real darkness – and then track the sun as it went back on the rise immediately. Across the water, I could make out a huge, looming, deep purple mountain, with a thick, cottony indigo cloud obscuring its peak, and a sliver of moon hanging low in the sky… and the air was filled with the scent of flowers. Despite my delirium, I wanted to grab someone off the near-empty streets and dance from the thrill of this sight. Instead, I tried to keep my composure and checked into the hotel to find Sandra sleeping in our tiny room with paper-thin walls. She awoke and we talked excitedly until our eyelids grew too heavy.

We rose in time to catch the tail end of breakfast downstairs: simple but traditional Icelandic fare. Well before I had left Iceland, I had become addicted to the tangy yogurt-like breakfast staple called skyr – actually a traditional Icelandic cheese – so I was overjoyed to be greeted with a full bowl, topped with fruit and cereal, alongside toast with cheese, boiled eggs and cucumbers, and a much-needed cup of coffee. We set off towards downtown Reykjavík to collect our rental car, pick up something for a picnic lunch at the ‘big’ (though by US standards quite diminutive) Kringla Mall, and then indulge in what would be the most touristy of our day trips: the Golden Circle, which includes Geysir and Gullfoss – a full day of geysers, glowing blue pools, and waterfalls in the southwest region of the country, on the Reykjanes peninsula.

“As our time there wore on and we spent more and more time among such landscapes, it became easier to understand why the Icelandic people…believe in what they call “hidden people” – trolls, gnomes, elves, fairies and the like,” documented Kicey.

Travel on the Ring Road, the main highway around the coast of the country, as well as most other roads on the Golden Circle area, is fairly smooth and fast-paced, and gave us our first taste of both the scenery and the experience of driving in Iceland. The roads both inland and coastal are generally punctuated by roundabouts, and on either side you regularly see clusters of tiny native horses, long stretches of flat ground carpeted with the vibrantly purple lupines, otherworldly stretches of lumpy volcanic rock thickly covered with gray-green moss, or distant snow-capped mountains. The contrasts and colors can’t be compared to anything I’ve ever seen, but if I had to draw a comparison, I would liken it to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, the deserts of the West, the moors of England blooming with heather, the surface of the moon, and Alaska, all rolled into one. Iceland offered a cornucopia of vibrant lime greens, chartreuse, black, purples, sage greens, rich blue-greens, hearty rusts and deep reds. As we spent more time among such landscapes, it became easier to understand why the Icelandic people for the most part believe in what they call “hidden people” – trolls, gnomes, elves, fairies and the like. The strange rock formations, the traces of brute natural forces, the flora and the fauna are all so entirely unique and possess strongly anthropomorphic and supernatural qualities, one cannot help but be charmed by the notion.

Our first stop was at a massive crater called Kerið. On the face of it, it seems difficult to muster enthusiasm for a large hole in the ground. When the powerful geo-forces of the island go to work, however, this particular hole in the ground becomes an intensely blue-green pool of water, ringed in gold-white mineral deposits and black rocks, surrounded on all sides by volcanic earth of a warm maroon hue. Neither Sandra nor myself being keen on heights, we redirected away from perilous drops back to the safety of solid land.

Kicey entitled this photo ‘The Comedian.’ The Icelandic horse is the descendant of the horses from the Scandinavian countries, Scotland, Ireland and The Isle of Mann.

In our few hours on the road it appeared that there are no longer any truly wild horses left in Iceland, as every herd we came across was fenced in, along with much of the burgeoning sheep population and scant numbers of cattle. Even from a distance, it was obvious that the demeanor of the Icelandic horse is quite different from your typical thoroughbred or even wild pony from any other part of the world. We pulled over to admire some and they ran off towards their feed trough, apparently expecting us to fill it. When we caught up with them, they were inquisitive and playful, jumping, rearing, scrunching up their remarkably expressive faces, with thick manes whipping in the strong winds. Though we didn’t have time to take a ride this trip, I know I will find time for a tölt (a gait that is unique to Icelandic horses- a fast and very smooth ride) on my next visit to Iceland.

Laura Kicey is a photographer and artist based just outside of Philadelphia, PA. Her work has been shown in a number of galleries regionally, and has appeared in numerous publications internationally. Laura can generally be found lurking in dark alleys and other places she likely should not be. For more of her work, visit her website at: laurakicey.com. Laura’s email is: lk@laurakicey.com.

Continue on and read part two of Kicey’s travelogue.