About

About Firda

Hello!

My name is Firda. It’s pronounced fear-duh. I’m an Indonesian-born Canadian, happily married to Troy, the love of my life and the best travel companion I could ever ask for, whom I met through this blog. We’ve been married since 2005. We live in an over-a-century old, red brick house in a small southwestern Ontario town with over a hundred houseplants, a few hundred vintage cameras, and several hundred over a thousand board games (long story).

I started this blog on February 20, 2000 as a place to share all the neat things I found online, but now it’s mostly just a place for me to talk about the places I’ve been and share the pictures I took. Travel and photography are two of my biggest passions. Travel is also my favourite happy thought when I’m feeling sad.

My first international travel happened in 2004. I flew to Canada from my then home country Indonesia, twice in the same year: the first time by way of England, the second time by way of Singapore and Hong Kong (technically, I’ve been around the world). I haven’t gone back to Indonesia after the second trip, neither have I stopped dreaming about seeing even more of the world since.

For my 40th birthday, my husband took me to Iceland. We did a two-week road trip around the country in May. By the end of the trip, I was so madly in love with Iceland and already couldn’t wait to go back. Hence the many Iceland-related posts all over the blog. I just can’t stop talking about Iceland! Since then, we’ve done a two-night stopover in Reykjavik in October 2016, another road trip around Iceland in October 2017, yet another Iceland road trip in June 2019, and another one in May 2022. I’ve spent accumulatively 2 months (more or less) in Iceland and I still haven’t got enough of it!

I love nature, but I’m not an outdoor type. I don’t do camping, which makes travelling on a budget a little tricky. Luckily we’re not as broke as we used to be anymore. I enjoy hiking as long as the hike is relatively short and easy (not too much climbing — I have bad knees).

Sometimes I get crafty, but mostly in the wintertime. I crochet, knit, and sew, though only mediocrely. I like to create stuff with my hands. I hate cooking but rather enjoy baking cakes and, to a lesser extent, cookies.

I don’t drink anything alcoholic because I don’t like the taste and smell of alcohol (no, I’m not religious). I also don’t drink coffee (low caffeine tolerance). I love Jasmine green tea and apple cider. If I could, I’d have rice with everything I eat.

I’ve had reindeer meatballs in Iceland and a moose burger in Newfoundland. I’ve drunk iced tea with pieces of iceberg in it. I love durian. I don’t like licorice. I only like avocado in smoothie form (I’m sure your guacamole is tasty, but no thanks).

I’ve seen the Northern Lights and icebergs with my own eyes. I’ve been to all of the Great Lakes of North America (Lake Huron is my favourite) and all 10 Canadian provinces. I’ve only been to 6 countries in 3 continents, but what I lack in the number of countries, I make up in the amount of time spent daydreaming about travelling the world.

I’m telephonophobic and socially awkward, but I am friendly and don’t bite. Don’t hesitate to say hello! If you’re travelling to Canada or Iceland, I’d be happy to give you recommendations.

You can also follow me at Mastodon.

About Fjords & Firths

I’ve been keeping an online presence in one form or another since 1997 (remember Angelfire, GeoCities and Diaryland?) but only started posting under the Weblog Wannabe moniker on February 20, 2000. Since then, it’s won a couple Bloggie awards and been mentioned in books about blogging and other medias, both digital and print. And did I mention that I met my husband through this blog? I used to update it a lot more frequently with links to a lot of silly sites on the web and he used to be one of my most faithful readers (I guess he still kind of is).

In March 2021, twenty-one years after I started this blog, I changed the blog’s name. It’s now named after my favourite geological features: fjords and firths!

I’ve been trying to turn this blog into a travel blog of some sort — with a focus on Iceland and Canada — for the last couple of years, and it’s been slow going because I often lose interest in blogging, but I’m sure it’ll get there eventually.

Thanks for visiting! Hope you’ll check back every once in a while! 🙂