Iceland 6/7/05
The real purpose of this trip....
ICELAND!!!
Anyway, it's hard to know where to start. Sooo many awesome things that we saw. I guess I'll start
from the beginning. It's amazing what you can see from the plane. You can see the glaciers and
the geothermal pools (they look like a lot of steam in the middle of nowhere). You can even see
the inhabited towns from mid-air. Anyway, once we picked up our car our first stop was the Blue
Lagoon. This is probably the most popular sight in Iceland, and quite rightfully so. You can see it
from afar...there's a bunch of steam coming out from a lava field. It's completely naturally heated
and feels like a hot tub. Along the sides of the rocks, there's silica mud and you put this on your
body and face. It's just so awesome that it's produced right there...in this geothermal area. The
other thing that made us happy about this was that we had our first sighting of sun on our entire
trip at this place. There really couldn't have been better weather conditions for such an outing.
After this, we headed into Reykjavik (their capital- it is pronounced 'rake-yuh-vik'). There is one
tall building...and that is their church. It's actually not the most attractive thing but when you're
there, it actually grows on you and by the time you have to leave, you think it's actually a pretty
cool looking thing. Anyway, we walked around and I wanted to see the sunset. At around 10:30pm
we drove down to the water to watch it. And then it was 10:45pm. 11pm. Michelle and Clarke then
left me. 11:15pm. 11:30pm. 12am. At this point, Clarke and Michelle came back for me in the car
and the sun was just about to set. At midnight! But don't be fooled...it never actually got dark.
Anyway, they have this 'Sun Voyager' sculpture that actually looks pretty cool down there by the
water. Another thing that took a few minutes to grow on me.
The next day it was time to go to Southern Iceland. We were heading to Vik (the southernmost
point) and hitting spots along the way. Our first stop--Seljalandsfoss. Michelle had seen this on
the Amazing Race. It's a waterfall that you can walk behind (this is I guess where the competitors
completed the Iceland leg of the race). It was cool since you are actually right at the waterfall (as
opposed to seeing it from a distance). Next, we went down to Vik. This is where the black sand
beach is. We had never seen one and it was quite cool. Almost had an eerie feeling since the entire
scenery looked as if it was in black-and-white. This is also where the puffins are. What is a puffin,
you ask? Well it's one of the cutest darn birds that I've ever seen! A little black and white guy with
a colorful beak. They flap their wings super fast and hang out in the water and on the top of the
rock formations so they're really hard to see up close. (I guess that's what postcards are for ;) ).
From here, we headed to Skogafoss--one of the largest waterfalls (height-wise). For the record,
the word 'foss' means 'falls'. On our drive we saw tons of Icelandic sheep and lamb and Icelandic
horses. Absolutely too cute for words. Especially the lambies. Their fleece really is as white as
snow! Anyway, Skogafoss was impressive for how huge it was. We walked up to the top and were
able to see the water before it took its final plunge. On our drive we were also able to see massive
glaciers (from afar). Unfortunately, they were much too far to actually get to.
We weren't quite ready to go to our hotel (well, actually a 'guesthouse'--a room in someone's
house) just yet. We stopped in Selfoss to go to the geothermal pools there and just sit and relax.
Then after hitting up a pizza place (I'm going to get to prices in this place later on...), we went to
our 'home' for the night. It was great...with horses and a panoramic view of the entire area.
Because I'm Jen Nathan (and I'm a bit off-the-wall), I woke up to see the sunset (this was around
midnight). It was awesome...especially since there were some clouds in the sky so the colors were
incredible. But that wasn't enough for me...I woke up 3 hours later to see the sunrise. Both were
totally worth it!
Well, I'm sure there's only so much you can take...so I'm going to make the "Iceland" email a
two-parter. Stay tuned for 'Tales from the 2nd Day of Exploration in Iceland'...