50/50

When I lived in Reyjanesbær, I rarely took advantage of the free bus service. But now living in Walnut Creek, where only one bus route out of 50 is free, I have put considerable effort into taking advantage of what is a rare privilege. All I have to do is walk a mile and a quarter to the shopping district, where I can catch the free bus that takes me an additional mile and a quarter to the Bart station. Considering that there is a bus that stops literally right in front of my apartment building, I am being really cheap by walking to the free bus. But I am a thrifty girl at heart. Why spend money if you don't have to? I also like the free bus because people are a lot more talkative on it. Lots of locals seem to use it even though it is intended for visitors, and everyone is very chatty. Of course, they aren't talking to me, but I do sometimes listen into their conversations to entertain myself during the ride. Eves dropping was harder when I lived in Iceland, I guess because...

Have I mentioned on this blog that my cousin (3rd cousin) is Brynjar Leifsson, the band leader for Of Monsters and Men? So I am always really interested in the exposure that band is getting here in the U.S.. The song Little Talks had gotten a ton of play on a range of different stations, and now Mountain Sound is getting played on a few stations in this area. Yesterday, after Mountain Sound played, the DJ talked about how this song was from Of Monsters of Men, and how they were from Iceland. So then he asked the listeners if they could name 5 other bands from Iceland. No one could (Bjork, Sigur Ros, and Sugar Cubes) was all that they came up with. So then he said he looked it up online, and there were "63 bands in Iceland". I have no idea were a statistic of this sort could be tabulated, but I should have thought there was a lot more than 63 bands in Iceland.