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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Puffin, Whale and Rock N'Roll

My quest to consume all the animals of Iceland continued tonight. I looked up a great little Icelandic restaurant called 3 Frakkar which serves traditional dishes in a small but crowded dining room. Starting off I ordered an appetizer of smoked puffin. It came in small strips about three inches long with a mustard to dip it in. The meat is a dark reddsh brown and smoked, but not heat cooked. The flavor was really good, strongly smokey and salty, however, the texture of raw poultry was a bit odd. I enjoyed it quite a bit and even got Erin to try a couple of bites. She wasn't a huge fan.

Smoked Puffin

Shortly thereafter (the service was really fast, despite being crowded) the waitress brought out our main courses. Peppered whale steak for me and a smoked haddock dish for Erin. I was surprised by how much like beef the whale looked at first, though I really don't know what I was expecting. The meat itself was very rare and surprisingly lean (I was expecting it to be very fatty) and rich though fairly mild flavored. I really enjoyed the whale, the meat was tender and tasty and the portion was pretty massive, so much so that slow eating Erin finished long before I did.

Whale Steaks, bummed the picture quality isn't better, it was so delicious.

As I finished the next table over was brought a skyr brulee. Skyr is an Icelandic cheese that's something like a cross between cream cheese and yogurt. The brulee was amazing, one of the most delicious deserts I've ever had. The skyr itself is not terribly sweet, but the caramelized sugar on top and fruit sauce and cream on the side made it absolutely perfect. I can best describe it as a very light cheesecake that's only mildly sweet. Hands down the best (of many awesome) meals I've had so far in Iceland. As yet the cuisine of this country does not disappoint.

Forgot to take a pic of the skyr brulee until after we devoured it.

We then headed back to the main drag that runs past many of the cities nightclubs and bars. On the way we passed the Hallgrimskirja, impressively standing in front of the full super moon. The night was clear and calm and provided some great photos of the scene. By this point it was only 11 or so, still very early by Iceland standards, and not many people were out and about yet. We did find a very neat little bar next door to our hostel which was playing live music. We went inside up some treacherously iced-over stairs. The bands inside played some pretty cood rock, only the first sang in Icelandic. After listening to three bands we walked down to another section of downtown where we found a bar called, simply enough, the Icelandic bar. It was a large but not overly crowded place. In the corner a particularly boistrous group sang, chanted and initiated bar-wide toasts. They really don't mess around when it comes to drinking and merry-making here.

Leif Erikson in front of SUPER MOON!

As lance was coming in early this morning we thought better than staying out all night so we could meet him when he got in from the airport. As we made our way back to the hostel it was nearly 2am and things were just starting to kick into high gear. Groups of drunk people stumbled around everywhere, sing and chanting. This seems to be a pretty average weekend night.

Lance arrived this morning, we go some breakfast and checked them into the hotel. As I write this Lance is taking a nap to recover from his flight. That's all for now, we're meeting up soon to hit some museums this afternoon.

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Day 1 Recap, Lobster and Accidental Mass

Following our short nap yesterday afternoon, we headed out to get some dinner. The hostel recommended a little restaurant called the Sea Baron, saying they had the worlds best Lobster Soup. Walking down to the harbor we found the little shop tucked away down by the fisherman's wharf and ordered our bowls of soup. They were right, it was pretty amazingly delicious, and very rich. We met an older couple from Florida and a couple of girls from Colorado. Something about this place leads people to strike up conversations with everyone around them, people seem very eager to find out about those around them.

After our soup we wandered around the harbor for a bit, the fishing fleet is moored very close to the restaurant and I wanted a look, so we strolled down a peer. Erin, however, made very poor choice in shoe selection and started complaining she was freezing, so we didn't stay long and we headed back into town where the sidewalks were more clear and the wind wasn't battering us quite so furiously.

Walking up the hill from the harbor we found a church that looked pretty cool and seemed to have some other tourists mulling around out front. We walked up to the front door and as we did were hearded inside by a Catholic priest. He was trying to get peopl inside and close up the doors because they were in the middle of a mass... oops. We looked at one another and quietly tried to get out without notice. Of course, everyone turned and looked. It was a bit awkward, but oh well. From there we headed back to the hostel, it was getting a bit late and we were starting to get tired. Only problem is in Iceland no one starts going out until much later at night. So e decided to hang around in the hostel until it got later, get some downtime and perhaps meet some people. One of Erin's roommates was sitting in the bar, so we joined her, grabbing glasses of Polar Beer. Claire, Erin's roommate, is from Newcastle England and currently is living in Iceland milking cows for a living. She's pretty interesting, having been travelling for almost 10 years, milking cows in several different countries. After a few hours and several beers we headed out to a club called Factory, a dimly lit place crammed full of people and pumping loud dance music. Even here the Icelanders were super friendly and eager to talk about pretty much anything and everything. We only had a few more drinks and stayed a couple of hours before heading back to the hostel as we were running on such little sleep. It was about 1am and the party was really only just getting started. People were all over in the streets, despite the snow and cold and there wasn't any prospect of things slowing down. In spite of the noise and activity I was asleep nearly as fast as my head hit the pillow. Erin said this morning that the noise continued well into the early morning, something I was completely oblivious to whilst sleeping very soundly.

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First Taste Of Iceland and Naptime

Before I go any further I feel like I must provide a bit of a disclaimer: I'm typing these posts from the slideout keyboard of my Droid in a blogspot app that doesn't seem to have spell-check and makes formatting with pictures rather cumbersome. Please stick with me, I plan on going back through on a desktop, cleaning things up and adding more photos with better captions. That said, on with the blawgins.

Having checked into the hostel Erin and I ventured out to find some breakfast. It had been some time since our meal at SeaTac so we asked the attendant at the hostel for a suggestion where to get a bite. She said there was a good little place across the street. Neither Erin nor I listened very well as she told us where it was, so we wandered down the street the wrong way until we realized we weren't making any progress. We turned around and quickly found it once we started paying attention. We went in and found a very cozy little café decorated in all sorts of Icelandic memorabilia. The food was delicious, two eggs, fried tomatoes and potatoes a waffle, toast and a pile of bacon that would put a giant grin on any Redditor's face. So good, I hope all of our food lives up to that first meal here.

First Breakfast

The weather continued to be windy and snowy... mostly, again the weather here changes on a dime and can suddenly calm and the sun comes out. We left the cafe and began taking a stroll down the street. Kollafjoder bay lies just a few blocks north of the hostel, so we wandered down to the waterside, where were were pummelled by winds that quickly chill to the bone. We were treated with a pretty incredible view out over the water to Videy, a large island that juts rather abruptly from the water. It didn't take long before we decided we should retreat back up the hill and seek shelter from the biting winds amongst the buildings and narrow streets of the city center.

A bit about Videy

Walking back up the hill we headed toward the most conspicuous landmark in the city, the Hallgrimskirkja church. This large Lutheran church occupies a commanding location on top of a hill, giving it a fantastic view of the surrounding city. Inside the spacious church was dominated be the sound of an organ player filling the building with rather impressive, if a bit imposing, music. In front of the church a bronze statue of Leif Eriksson (the Viking discoverer of North America) stands atop a monument, a gift from the US government in 1930 commemorating 1000 years of the Althing (Iceland's parliament, the oldest in the world).

The church and statue

At this point we both realized it was time for a break so we headed to a café, claiming to be the oldest in the city, where we had a coffee and perused brochures. We've started to build a rough framework of our plans for the next few days in the city. We then decided we had best head back to the hostel and grab a nap and a shower before we did anything else as we were both dragging, having not slept in 20 plus hours. We got back to the Backpackers and laid down for a little over an hour. Getting up to take a shower I discovered the hot water to smell quite sulphurous, a side effect of the geothermal heat used rather ubiquitously here. It wasn't terrible though and I hardly noticed by the end of he shower.

Well, that pretty well catches you up, right now I'm waiting for the sister to meet me here in the lobby so we can continue our journey! Stay tuned.

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Of Rapidly Shifting Weather and Hostels

Upon arriving in the city of Reykjavik our bus pulled into a transfer terminal. Here we waited for a few minutes for our shuttle into the city center. This where we first noticed ho rapidly the weather can turn here. When we pulled in it was fairly clear and calm, by the time we boarded the shuttle it was a blustery near whiteout. The wind really cuts, though the temperature really isn't bad.

The shuttle took us through the narrow and winding streets of town and dropped us right at the door of our hostel, Reykjavik Backpackers. We were greeted by the attendant and a couple of girls who spotted my Sounders scarf and asked asked if we were from Seattle. Turns out, they also hail from the Emerald City. The hostel seems nice and clean, rather spartan as hostels can be, but it will be a nice place to lay our heads for a few nights.

We've dropped our gear, sent a few emails and such and are about to head out into the weather to really begin our adventure. First up, find our first breakfast in Iceland!

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We have arrived!

We have arrived! The seven hour flight was smooth and comfortable. The plane came equipped with in seat monitors that allowed me to watch a couple of pretty good Icelandic films. I'm tired and mentally blocking their titles, but I'll get back with those later.

We arrived to a snowy and blustery Keflavik airport, as of landing it was 24 degrees. The airport is small and very clean, oddly enough the building seemed larger from the inside as it winds you through customs and passport control. We made it through passport control in a matter of seconds as a smiling agent took my passport, glanced at it and stamped. Nice to not be greeted with a blue-shirted, disgruntled looking TSA agent...

As we board the bus (which cost 2,500 isk) to the city light is breaking to the east revealing a quiet, flat and snow covered area. Visibility isn't great, but i can faintly see hills in the distance. The ride will take about 40 minutes. Erin and I both chuckled as an automated announcement told us we were required by law to wear the seatbelt and every American on the bus latched up.

More to come from Reykjavik!

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St. Paddy's in SeaTac

Just met Erin in SeaTac after slogging my way through a rather brutally long security line. We've got quite a while before our flight so we're sitting down for a mini-St. Paddy's day celebration. Beer and a shot, get a little rad before the flight! When next you hear from me we'll be in the land ice and snow.

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The Conquest of Iceland: Prologue.

Tomorrow I leave for Iceland. The trip has been in the works since November and its finally almost here. Originally the plan was for myself, my sister Erin, brother-in-law Lance and my heterosexual life partner Travis to come along. Unfortunately, Travis returned from a trip to Thailand last week with a Thai quadruple super plague, which very nearly killed him. He's still in the hospital, so sadly he won't be coming with us. This has tempered the excitement somewhat and led to a very stressful last week. Travis is slowly getting better but looks to be facing a fairly long recovery. While its sad he can't come, I'm relieved he's improving and it will give me an excuse to make another trip when he's back on his feet.

My gear, pt. 1

We've made little in the way of plans for when we arrive. We have lodging booked in Reykjavik for the first four days. From there we plan to head out from the city and see the countryside some. Where and what we do depends, we plan on talking to locals and find out what they think is the best stuff to see and do while we're there. I've got a few things I would like see and do; see the Þingvellir park, go to the Blue Lagoon and perhaps make our way to the Westman Islands. However, I'm not too stuck on any one thing, if we discover something that locals insist is better, we'll do that instead.  

My gear, pt. 2 (yes, I am taking my dice box, in case a game of D&D breaks out)

As of now I've completed packing and have nothing to do but wait. The adventure begins tomorrow around noon when I'll head to SeaTac to meet Erin (Lance won't be joining us for a couple of days, stupid work). Beings as tomorrow is St. Patrick's day, we'll have to do a bit of celebrating in the airport. So, stay tuned, hopefully I'll be able to post some every day and keep everyone updated on the trip.