500 Taco Summer: Days 2&3

The quest continues! After a strong opening day of 12 tacos I slowed the pace a bit, but have still gone well over par. Starting day two I quickly whipped up a couple of chorizo and egg breakfast tacos. They were a nice little snack before work, and I did most of the cooking on them the night before to make it quick and easy to jam down my taco hole early in the morning. Taco count: 14

Two chorizo and egg breakfast tacos.

Lunch time rolled around and that meant time for tacos! I brought with me left overs of the chicken tacos from day 1 dinner. I'm really loving how cheap and easy tacos are, bringing them with me to work meant not buying something for lunch. Three more chicken tacos down. Taco count: 17

3 chicken tacos.

After work I planned on making some plain ole ground beef tacos but... I went out and got drunk instead. Hmmm beer. After stumbling home I drunkenly heated up some more of my chorizo and eggs, topped them with some feta, an odd choice but booze does tend to lead to less than great decision making... it tasted good enough for drinky Stan. Taco count: 20

3 chorizo and egg topped with feta. I also poured some of that whiskey down my gullet

Morning brought me one hell of a hangover... damn the perils of alcohol! In the afternoon, after finally dragging myself out of bed Travis picked me up so we could head to Ballard to find us some tacos and pick up my comic books. Bret, the comic shop guy suggested we give a place called Malena's a try. I was still suffering from my hangover so I only ordered two with a side of rice and beans, good thing two, they were pretty good sized tacos. Travis ordered six of them, and managed to eat all six, I barely managed my two pork tacos. They were quite good though, and the size makes the place a pretty good deal. Taco count: 22

2 pork tacos, side of rice and beans. 

We followed that up with another chaco taco. Hmmm chaco taco. Taco count: 23

Chaco!

Leaving Ballard we caught a showing of Super 8, which was a great summer movie. I would like to watch it again while eating a taco... I came home, whipped up some nice, simple beef tacos four more down, left overs ready for work lunch tomorrow. I finished day three with yet another chaco taco... I need to be careful I don't get myself addicted to chaco tacos, I do love me ice cream tacos. Taco count: 28

4 beef tacos.

Yet another chaco taco... 

Day 4 here we come! My goal for tomorrow is 6!

500 Taco Summer: Day 1

The first day of summer marks the beginning of a glorious time, 500 Taco Summer. Between today and September 23 I will be consuming 500 tacos, that averages out to 5.319148936170213 tacos per day. Easy.

Right now, you're either wondering, 'why the fuck would someone do this?' or 'why the fuck am I NOT doing this?' If you're in the first category and you don't understand... well, I'm not going to try to explain it, you'll never get it. If you're in the latter category you'll probably want to know the rules.

Its pretty simple, eat 500 tacos during the summer! There's a few more specific rules, but they're pretty simple; it must actually be a taco to count (no taco flavored stuff, no taco salad, no gyros, burritos, etc.). A single taco served on two tortillas can be split in two and counted as two tacos. Apparently an occasional taquito is OK though I think I will avoid those as I'm not a huge fan. Choco tacos are, in fact, tacos.

How did I stumble into such a glorious challenge? Credit for that goes to my good friend Travis who will be joining me in this great venture. I've managed to convince at least one other friend, and possibly a few others to join us, as well. Now, on to the filling of this taco adventure! Day one taco reports.

I was going to awake early this morning for some chorizo breakfast tacos, however I was scheduled for work at 8 and didn't wake up until 7:20, not leaving much time for taco prep. I was out the door and craving delicious tacos until lunch time at 12:30. The four and half hours of work were torture, I counted every second to 12:30, when I ran upstairs, clocked out and made my way to the taco truck across the street on the corner of 145th and 15th. I ordered 2 pastor, 2 carne asada, 1 cabeza and 1 double-decker carne asada (free with 5 regular tacos!). Soooo good, only $8, too! As per the rules, I split the double-decker in two, I could have done so with all 6, but I felt they were better as singles. Taco count: 7

2 pastor, 2 carne asada, 1 cabeza, 1 double-decker carne asada.

Afterwork, Steve my friend from work whom I've included in this adventure reminded me of the chaco taco rule, so we went to the freezer section of the store we work in and were successful in finding chaco tacos! $2.50 for a box of 4, SOLD! Taco count: 8

Chaco, mother-fuckin', taco!

One nice thing about the taco is its versatility. Leaving work, I was in such a chaco taco induced euphoria I forgot to do any shopping. No problem, though, I had most of a roast chicken that needed using in my fridge, so, guess what's for dinner? That's right, chicken tacos! Chop that chicken up, add some onions and seasoning some water and oil and simmer that shit for about an hour. The result, four delicious chicken tacos! Paired that with a nice summer beer, Boulevard Brewing's Boss Tom's golden bock. Taco count: 12

Homemade chicken tacos on the deck in the sun!

I think that's about all I'm going to do for day one, I feel 12 was a good opener. Not too glutinous, but still well above par. My plan for day two include actually having some of those chorizo breakfast tacos! Tomorrow's goal is a reasonable 8 tacos.

Quickly Recapping the Last Few Days of Iceland

Wow, I really did manage to get way behind with this blog... Turns out blogging is more work than I expected. But here we go, a recap of our last days in Iceland.

Leaving Skaftafell we drove west again, backtracking the route of the last two days (at least to Selfoss). By around noon we stopped in Selfoss for gas and a hotdog. The weather was overcast and a bit rainy, but the temperature had climbed to around 5 Celsius, not bad at all. Gassed up and ready we headed for the Blue Lagoon, the famous hot springs characterized by deeply baby blue water. Approaching the park you drive past a somewhat less than attractive geothermal power plant but are soon greeted by pools of the wonderfully blue water amongst the rocky lava fields.

The entrance to the spa facility takes you through a long path cut through the lava rock to a very attractive building housing a cafe, restaurant and gift shop as well as changing rooms and spa areas. The weather was pretty cold and rainy at this point, so after changing the drill was to basically run to the hooks for towels and bathrobes, hang them up and run into the water as fast as possible. The water was warm, though not as warm as I would have liked, but it was still comfortable. Its filled with all sorts of minerals and algae they say is good for the skin. Around the edge there are buckets of goop you're supposed to put on your face. Doing this I managed to get some in my eyes, which felt about like having sand rubbed in your eye. I immediately dunked my face in the water and got myself a big mouthful of it, which is salty as hell and tastes terrible.

We floated around for a little over an hour or so, pruning ourselves up nicely before we decided that was enough and headed for the showers, not before applying our algae masks... A lot of people seem to be super excited for the Blue Lagoon... my take on it though, was pretty much that it was a super expensive hot tub that made your hair all rough feeling and your skin all dry. Not really my thing, but I suppose its part of experiencing Iceland. I don't really feel the need to do it next time. It is pretty rad to see though, and I'm guessing most people would appreciate it more than I did.

An anti-EU billboard we passed as we returned to Reykjavik.

After our soak we drove back to the city and checked back into Backpackers. We dropped our stuff off and decided to head to an Icelandic History comedy show in the city center that's rather heavily advertised in the touristy spots around the city. We walked down to the city center for dinner, Erin and Lance headed to the Sea Baron to have some of the lobster soup. I didn't really feel like having that for dinner, so we split up and had a boat again. So delicious. The comedy show ended up being pretty hilarious, it was a one woman show where she the audience through 1200 years of Iceland's history in a rather hilarious manner which included a lot of yelling, audience participation and singing. Good stuff, highly recommended to anyone who visits.

We left the show and headed out for a few drinks, we hit a couple of places and ended in The Dubliner, an Irish pub in the heart of the city where a group of musicians played rather decent traditional Irish music. Didn't really expect to be spending my time in Iceland in and Irish pub, but it was Thursday night and fairly quiet, so our choices were limited and that place turned out to be rather fun. That group was followed by a duo who played rock covers and reminded me of an Icelandic Tenacious D. They were quite funny and played some pretty good songs.

Leaving the Dubliner we headed home, but not before grabbing a hot dog, this time at a famous little roadside stand which many consider to be the finest hot dog joint in Iceland. President Clinton once ate there, which they tend to kind of brag about. 300 isk buys you a pretty decent size dog, which is traditionally ordered with everything, which includes fried onions, chopped onions, ketchup, sweet mustard and a sauce... which I can't remember the name of at the moment... Its a cheap meal that's available late for hungry bar goers. It really hits the spot after a few beers.

From there we called it a night, belly full of hotdog and ready to face our last full day in Iceland.

In Seattle...

Just got on the light rail in Seattle. This means I'm still way behind on posting... sorry. If anyone cares. Anyways I'll still be posting a ton of stuff, first up I'll finish my trip recap. Then I'll follow with a massive picture dump.

Stick with me, there's a lot more to come. And thank you to all who have been reading!

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Four... no, Five... Maybe Six Days of Updates, or How Making Time for Blogging in Iceland Can be Difficult. Part 2 or Something

Our next destination was the village of Vik, which lies very near the southernmost point in Iceland. The Ring Road takes you east along the south coast over flat plains which lie at the feet of the volcanoes to the north. The first of which is the, now famous, Eyjafjallajokul, which dramatically erupted last April and caused much disruption in Europe. These plains are strikingly quiet and barren. Few houses and fewer villages dot the side roads that turn off the highway. There are regular sandy washes where glaicial dams have burst and flooded the plains. These a characterized by wide swaths of black sand sporting little to no vegetation with one or more small streams meandering through to the sea.

Vik is a tiny town of around 300 near to the southernmost point of Iceland, approaching the village you leave the coast heading through a mountain pass that, in short order, makes you forget you were just driving by the shore. After a few miles, however, it drops you back down the hill and into the village. We made our way to the hostel, glad to be done driving for the day. This hostel was in an old house that looked somewhat dumpy from the outside, however inside its recently remodeled and very nice. The desk was staffed by an American girl, we asked her if there was anywhere to get dinner, she told us the only place open was the gas station which had a diner. As it was our only option we headed dow, finding a quiet little restaurant serving mostly hamburgers and fries. I feel like its good policy to try a burger in every foreign country and Iceland did not disappoint, the waitress brought us massive, messy burgers with fried eggs on top. They were fantastic.

Starting to see a theme here? The food here is unbelieveably
awesome. I have no doubt I've packed on quite few pounds during my stay. That's OK, I'll be broke when I get home, so I'll be living off a pittance which will likely help me shed some weight.

Anyways, in the morning we arose for a nice breakfast in the hostel then packed up and started our trek to Skaftafell national park, a decent drive to the east. The first stop on the way, however, was the beach at Vik. A long, wide, black beach runs for miles from the huge rocks on the western edge (the southernmost point of Iceland) to quite some ditance in the east. How far they stretched I'm not sure, though it was further than we could see. These beaches are quite breathtaking, though the morning was windy it wasn't terribly cold. The waves break quite heavily and the tide was coming in as we were there, so it made for a fun game of trying for a photo in front of a breaking waves then running from the surf as it rolled in. I was caught by a particularly large one and my boots were soaked. No problem, we would be in the car all day, so I kicked off my boots, stunk up the car and we were on our way to the park.

The drive from Vik to Skaftafell park took us until around lunchtime. We stopped at the visitors center which took us through the history and geology of the region. They offered lots of guided glacier walks, but looking around we chose to head off on our own, the trail was good and led us right to the massive fields of gravel, boulders and streams of water deposited by the glacier as it has retreated. The glacier itself lay ahead and was a wonderful blue color topped by a layer of fresh snow. Soon the trail more or less disappeared, and we were left to our own devices, the only guide being the bootprints of earlier hikers and a sign warning to stick to larger rocks and avoid certain areas of the glacier.

Being prepared only to do some light hiking we stuck to the edge of the glacier. Had we had more time and been better equipped we would have gone further. As it was it was getting late and we headed back for the car, but not before I drank from a stream of crystal clear glacial water (which is said to be completely safe to drink) and Lance contributed to glacial melting by peeing on the ice. Taking our time on our way back we stopped for a while to throw rocks at a frozen pond while Erin made fun of us for acting like children... what can I say, some things are just fun. Throwing rocks is one those things.

We made it back to an empty parking lot, apparently we were the last ones to leave the park, which was a bit eerie. We headed a couple of miles down the road to our hotel for the night, a very nice, if quiet, place called Fosshotel. Being no where near anything we asked at the desk if there was anything interesting to do for the evening. The receptionist suggested that we head to the glacial lagoon about 45 minutes up the road, if we left just then we would make it just in time for sunset. What awaited us there was truly one of the most incredible sights in a country filled with amazing scenery. As the glacier flows down towards the coast it meets a large lagoon, into which massive icebergs break off.

Many of the icebergs are large enough you can climb onto them, we hopped over onto a couple of the larger ones for some pictures pretty amazing photos. Lance then decided to run up a steep embankment, immediately upon getting to the top he shouted for us to get up there and join him. Climbing to the top we turned see the lagoon was far larger than you realize on the shore. The setting sun shone through the jagged blue ice making for perhaps the most incredible sight I've ever seen. Truly something everyone should witness and one I hope to see again.

Minds blown we drove back to the hotel for dinner and to get an early night in bed. The next morning we would be getting up fairly early for breakfast so we could get started on our longest day of driving heading to the Blue Lagoon, then back to Reykjavik.

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Four Days of Updates: Art, Winter Driving, Waterfalls and Glaciers Part 1

Its been a bust three days. I wrote a post two nights ago on our last night in Reykjavik, but somehow it disappeared, which truly is a shame as it was post of great style and significance. Oh well, one can't dwell on the past, onward and upward.

Monday:
Our last day in Reykjavik before heading out for three days in the countryside started slow, Lance needed to sleep in after a long first day in country and we were out quite late on Sunday, so we agreed to meet up fairly late, after breakfast. Though i kind of felt like I was wasting time a bit, it was nice to sleep late and have a lazy morning.

Around lunchtime we met up, grabbed a bite and headed to the National Art Museum. The majority of the museum was dedxicated to one Icelandic artist, though there were several other artists featured as well. It was pretty interesting, if a bit small. I suppose Iceland doesn't have the longest artistic tradition and much of the older stuff (carved drinking horns, wood carvings, etc.) is in the National Museum.

We headed back to the hostel and began planning out our excursion into the country. My original to do list included driving the Golden Circle and taking a ferry to the Westman Islands. We sat down at backpackers, pulled out the map and started plotting our trip. After we discussed everything roughly we started talking to the girl at the hostel about our plan to make sure everything would work as we wanted. Unfortunately she gave us the news that the new ferry terminal to the Westmans was having major issues with the harbor filling with sand and was regularly being diverted to another harbor. Apparently conditions can change from day-to-day and if the main terminal is unusable the ferry runs only once a day each direction, as well as extending the trip from 30 minutes to 3 hours. We decided we had better scap those plans in favor of more reliable conditions. The final course we settled on would take us east out of the city, first to Thingvellir, home of the first Althing and the point where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates are moving apart. We arranged our lodging and a car for the next two nights and three days.

Plans made we sat around for a bit, relaxing before dinner. A bit later Ben and Yuen, the two guys from New York (who originally come from China) whom we had met the previous night. We invited them for dinner and they came with us to get fish and chips down by the harbor. Dinner was great, perhaps not the best fish and chips I've ever had, but very good. We spent dinner chatting with Ben and Yuen about our lives and homes, they're nice kids with pretty interesting things to say.

After dinner Ben, Yuen and I returned to backpackers while Erin and Lance went back to their hotel. It was still quite early and I really didn't feel like sleeping yet so I ordered a beer at the hostel and sat down to read the net some. A few minutes later Paul, the London homocide detective originally from Wales came down. He sat down and we started talking. It was his last night in country and didn't feel much like packing or sleeping. A bit later Ben and Yuen came down after showering and they joined us. It was fun as hell, its always fun to talk to people from different places and backgrounds and this turned out to be a nicely diverse group. At 11 the girl working the desk and bar at Backpackers gave us the news that it was time to finish our drinks and clear the bar. None of us really wanted to as we were having a good time (and starting to get rather buzzed...), but rules are rules. I said my goodbyes to Paul and headed off to bed.

Tuesday:
In the morning I got up a bit later than I had planned, due to a rather quiet alarm on my iPod, which was ok, but didn't give me as much time as I wanted. We had booked our car pickup for 815, so I told Erin and Lance to meet me at 8, calculating that would give me time to walk to the bakery next door for some breakfast. Of course I was ready at 8, but they were about 10 minutes late, leaving me with (what I thought) was too little time to get food. Turns out the rental company had misunderstood that they were supposed to pick us up and when 840 rolled around we had the hostel call them to see what was up. They quickly sent someone up who explained the mix up. No big deal, we got our Subaru Impreza rental and were on our way.

Heading east we soon realized how quickly Iceland goes from large city, in Reykjavik, to wilderness not more than 20 miles from the city. The barreness and quiet were the first things to strike us, followed quickly by the realization that the roads were very slippery after several days of snow. The road we were travelling was well maintained and well travelled (by Iceland standards) but there were very few cars and it was completely iced over. It wasn't long till we came to a car, driven by (damn) tourists that had slid off the road. Luckily for them a large SUV with a winch had beat us there and was already pulling them out of the ditch. After a few miutes they were out and on their way.

Not too far from there we started finding signs for the Thingvellir and our GPS seemed to be leading us in the right direction. That was when it turned us down a road that quickly became far too deep for the little car. Keep in mind, the GPS was taking us to the correct place, but doesn't know road conditions. We powered through and eventually found a turn around. We barely made it back to the main road to turn in behind a tour bus, which we decided to follow to the park. Minutes later we were parking at the historically and geologically significant Thingvellir. Not much to look at in winter, though the cracked earth and deep, crystal clear, springs were impressive.

The road after Thinvellir was much better, though still slippery and a bit treacherous. Fortunately, although the area seems very isolated, its actually very well travelled and it wouldn't take long to find help is need be. Luckily we didn't run into a situation where we needed to find out how hard it would be to find out.

The road took us forward Geysir, a geothermally active area, sporting several geysirs and hotsprings. Geysir itself is the namesake of all geysirs and apparently is a very impressive sight, though it only goes off intermitently. There is another geysir, Strokkur, that goes off regularly. We were able to see it blow several times. Here again we were quite entertained by lack of safety restrictions in Iceland. The geysirs and hot springs proper were roped off, but you could get close enough to the geysirs to be sprayed and close enough to the springs to stick your hands in the boiling water. From what I recall of Yellowstone you're not allowed to get anywhere near as close.

We stopper at Geysir's visitor center for a lunch of Icelandic soup. That had to of been one of the best bowls of soup I've had in my life. Big chunks of lamb, cabbage, carrots, onions, maybe some leek and barley in a salty and strongly lamb flavored broth. The flavor was strong and the bowl was filling, great food for the road.

Just a few kilometers north of Geysir lies Gullfoss, or Gold Falls, hands down the most impressive waterfall I've seen in my life. A huge volume of glacial runoff flowing over several cascades into a narrow canyon. The overlooks were cold and windy, but afforded incredible views of this natural wonder. Again safety eqipment was at a minimum here. Overlooks hundreds of feet over the gorge and falls had no railings, only ankle high stakes with a small rope between them.

Going back south we passed through Geysir park again heading for the town of Selfoss. At around 6,000 people it would be the last town of any size we we see for two days. Here we picked up the Ring Road, the main road that rings the entire country. When you first pick it up, the Ring Road appears to be much like many of the state highways in Washington, two lane but fairly wide. However as you get further east the road becoms progressively narrower, until there's just enough space for a car heading each way, with little space to spare. Never with any shoulder and often with a steep enbankment or ledge on either side. This makes for somewhat more stressful driving than in the US, but the road is very well maintained and our travel was easy and uneventful.
Ack! The droid blogspot app sucks... doesn't want me to continue... stay tune for PART 2!

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New Friends From Around the World

Yesterday afternoon, after Lance's nap we chose a funny little soup restaurant that was decorated with an interesting mix of things on the walls. Annnnd a crazy blackface waiter statue in the corner and all of their menus... obviously in the states this probably wouldn't fly, but I suppose Iceland doesn't have the history of race issues we do. Anyway, the soup was really damn good and served in a massive breadbowl, pretty much the perfect way to eat soup.

We then tool a walk down past the lake in the middle of town which boasts a rather impressive crowd of geese and ducks which all congregate on a patch of open water (the lake was mostly frozen over) on the north end by the town hall. Continuing from there we looped around the lake heading for the National Museum. The museum is very nice and well maintained, boasting exhibits from the earliest days of Icelandic settlement through today. As a history nerd I absolutely love stuff like this, seeing thousand year old Viking artifacts is really amazing. That said I really wish the museum had more of Viking age displays, but it fairly quickly changes over to the Christian era and focuses very heavily on religious artifacts. Interesting, to be sure, but quite lot less interesting than other things. The museum does give a pretty good look at how Icelanders have lived throughout the ages and completely worth the 1000isk.

As we left I bought a board game, based on one played by the Vikings. Lance and I played several games and its a pretty fun game, simple and fairly quick to play. Something my board-game playing nerd friends should enjoy next time I make it to game night.

Dinner last night was rather interesting, next to nothing is open on Sundays here and even less is open after 6pm. We basically walked down the street until we found somewhere open, it turned out to be a restaurant specializing in Danish open face sandwiches. It was getting late for a Sunday and the place was nearly empty. We ordered and I was quickly brought my appetizer of Reindeer pate. Erin, of course, kind of turned her nose up, but Lance and I dug in. It was super tasty and we finally got Erin to cave in and try some, she admitted it was pretty awesome. I followed that with a bacon and Camembert sandwich, and I can say that the cheese here is pretty amazing, as is the bacon.

We headed back to backpackers and met up with a few people we had met at the hostel, after a couple of beers there we had assembled a group of 10 people and we headed out to find another bar. Again, being Sunday, most places were closed but we found a quiet little place which would be closing soon but gave us the chance to get to know the group some. Turns out between the 10 people we hailed from 6 different countries, us from USA, a cow milker from England (living in Iceland), a London homicide detective originally from Wales, two bankers who live in New York City but come from Taiwan and Shanghai, a hostel worker from Czech Republic and a quiet Japanese girl. Everyone got along really well and we shared stories about our homes and lives.

That bar closed at 12 so we headed down the street and found a crowded little club playing pretty awesome music. At this point rounds of shots of brennivin and Opal started flowing and pretty soon Lance and Erin were engaging in arm wrestling competitions with some Icelandic fishermen, the lost horribly. It was all goof fun, though. The bars close early Sundays and they kicked us out at 1, probably a relief for Lance who hadn't slept in many hours.

Now, off to the national art gallery. Onward!

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