Testing my iPad

Well, this is interesting. Let's see what it can do.


Aha, I can add pictures! How to get pictures onto the iPad?
Read that book - iPad for Dummies for Seniors!


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The Best day EVER - even though it was POURING!

Golden Circle here we come! There are 3 major sites that comprise the Golden Circle - the national park of Thingvelir where the North American and European tectonic plates are splitting apart, the geysers of Geysir and Strokkur, and the Gullfoss waterfall. You can`t really say you`ve seen Iceland unless you have seen these 3, so Saturday we took off to check them off our list.

Driving through Thingvelir looked a lot like driving through Limehouse - lots of crevices in the earth`s surface. It had been drizzling all morning, but just as we entered the park it really started to come down.

Icelandic horses are short and stocky and have good `braugh`, which means that they give a smooth ride while trotting. They don`t seem to mind the rain, we saw them everywhere.

Entering the area around the geysers we saw this sign. That is pretty darn hot! It doesn`t say beware, you are supposed to know better.

 

Geysir is the original geyser (after which all geysers are named, duh) but it doesn`t spout very regularly any more. Strokkur is much more reliable, spouting every 3 to 7 minutes. It`s hard to get pictures as the spout is very sudden, so I used up almost all my battery life setting it on continuous shooting and waiting almost 6 minutes for it to spout!

We got a little wet waiting for the geyser to go off so we went into the food court and had traditional Icelandic soup to warm up. It was made with lamb and all kinds of root vegetables, and while I am not really a fan of lamb, this soup was delicious because of all the spices in it.

The gift shop had these great hats, made by an Icelandic designer. I would have bought one for fun if they hadn`t been $95.00!

Next stop - Gullfoss. It was a fantastic waterfall. We have determined that `foss`means waterfall, so this is the golden waterfall. On sunny days there is usually a rainbow so perhaps the pot of gold is hiding in there somewhere.

We are getting really wet by now. I did bring a travel umbrella but found out quickly why none of the Icelanders use umbrellas - the wind just turns them inside out!

After the Golden Circle we headed southeast to the southernmost point of Iceland. On the way we passed by 2 more waterfalls.

S.... was tall and narrow, falling down in a sheet. The best thing about it was that you could walk behind it! Some days you would think twice because it is pretty wet back there, but it didn`t really matter to us - I mean, could we get any wetter? Apparently we could!

View from behind.

Skogafoss

There was an interesting sign in the public washrooms at Skogafoss. We were trying to determine if they had just left the sign up from 2010 or if they were actually still getting dust caused by the eruption. There was a lot of lava rock and mud around so we thought that perhaps they were still getting dust (or it was just a good way to get the tourists to clean up after themselves!

There was this cool arch at Dryholaey - you can`t really see it clearly in the picture but it looks like someone just superglued a whole lot of rocks together. My brave idiotic son decided to climb out on it. Remember that at this point the rain is still pelting down and the rocks are pointy and slippery, and that the ocean is many, many feet down!

The rest of the Baidacoffs took the safer route and posed in front of it!

We drove a little bit further (still on the quest for the special rocks I was looking for) and came across this beautiful black beach. Pretty awesome.

There were some rock formations out in the water, and guess what one of them looked like? Yup, you guessed it.

Men are all the same!

Yay! We found the hexagonal rocks. These were SO COOL!

This is a naturally formed cliff at the edge of the ocean.

Jeffrey gave us an excellent explanation of how and why these rocks were formed. When solids are in liquid form, the molecules are just moving around randomly. Now think of the molecules as people in a room. There are 100 people and 100 chairs. If you give the people two seconds to sit down there will probably be people sitting on each others laps and clusters of people in one area with no one in another area. But if you give them half an hour to sit down, the people will be all organized - they will be with their friends, every seat will be taken and there will be no gaps.

So this rock must have stayed in a semi-molten state for thousands of years, allowing all the molecules to organize themselves and form hexagonal rocks.

This part formed quickly as you can see the jagged points.

I was so glad that we made it all the way here. It was an awesome day - mostly because even though we were progressively getting colder and wetter (my coat weighed almost 20 lbs by the end of the day with all the water it was holding!) no one complained and readily jumped out of the car to see the next thing. It didn`t matter one iota that it was raining - it was still magnificent and FUN!

We ended the day having a Viking feast - quite appropriate for these intrepid explorers  :-)

Friday - Hot Pools and Stink!

Included in our package was a guided tour called "Essential Iceland". We had originally booked only the four of us (Jim, me Boris and Liz) and when we added Jeffrey the special wasn't on any more. I decided that I would let Jeff go in my place and have a day to myself.

Here are the intrepid four in front of their jeep.

 

And what a jeep! That black thing coming out of the side is a snorkel, so that the jeep can just drive straight through rivers and the engine won't stall. To be honest I had never heard of any such thing, but of course Jeff knew exactly what it was!

(Blog about their adventures to follow)

Right across from our hotel is the Perlan, a community centre surrounded by hot water tanks for the city.

It is at the top of a hill but the path systems here are excellent and I had a really nice walk up to the top. I had a mission - I had 3 travel bugs (geocaching) to drop off. I found the cache, but the log book was full. I decided to look for the comment Elaine wrote when she was here in Sept. 2010. I found it and wrote my comment underneath!

How cool to think that a year and a half ago she was halfway across the world, standing in the exact same spot I was standing!

After lunch I took the car and headed south of Reykjavik, to see some thermal pools called Seltun. They are right in the middle of the volcanic zone that runs the length of the Reykjarnes peninsula.

The roads in Iceland are pretty good, even the unpaved roads. It occurred to me that maybe it wasn't such a good idea for a single person to head out into the middle of nowhere like this. I hadn't seen another car in about 10 minutes but then a big ol' tour bus came around the corner and I knew I was fine!

You don't need to speak Icelandic to know what this sign meant!

I was just driving along, admiring the scenery, when I noticed a cloud of steam that looked like it was coming out of the mountain. I took this picture, then drove up for a closer look.

The attractions in Iceland are clearly marked, but you seem to just happen upon them anyway. Turn the corner and there it is! This was the first sign I saw. Didn't deter me one bit.

The water (mud) in the pools was actually boiling. I took a video because you can really hear the sound of the bubbles gurgling, but I keep getting error messages when trying to post it. Just go get about 10 to 12 large pots of water and get them all boiling at the same time and you will get the idea.

There was a sulphuric smell but also a few other chemicals, making it smell a lot like a chemistry lab.

On the way back I passed by this lake. Look at the beautiful blue!

Then I noticed a couple of people down on the beach. One of them had a silver/gold sheet in front of him, plastered to his body by the wind, and the other was photographing the effect.

See, no matter where you go in Iceland, even in the middle of nowhere, you see art!

It would be neat to see those photographs in a gallery one day.

Off the the right of the road there were some structures that looked like the fish drying flakes we had seen in Newfoundland. I couldn´t see what was hanging on them from the road, so I decided to drive in. The gate was open and I figured if I ran into someone who told me I wasn´t supposed to be there at least I could ask what it was all about.

There was no one there. No security, nothing. I doubted people would want to steal this stuff but I thought they would protect against vandalism. Maybe it´s not an issue here.

It turned out that it was just rows and rows of dried fish skeletons. Now I really wished someone was there so I could ask WHY?

I took the first picture through the windshield but opened the driver´s window to take this one. Big mistake. If I thought the hot pools smelled bad, this was 10 times worse! Phew! Well, they were fish heads.

I will have to do some research on this. Maybe it´s for fertilizer? Or maybe for some exotic Icelandic dish (that I will skip after experiencing that smell!)

I got back to the hotel at the exact same time as the other 4, and quickly headed out to "The Avengers"

Boy, do I feel old

When we were in the mall looking for beer flavoured ice cream (the store ended up being closed, darn) we saw that The Avengers movie was going to be opening on Friday night. So last night we raced over there to see if we could get into the long line up for opening day.

Well, I guess the Avengers aren't quite as popular over here as in Canada because there was no line up. We just walked up to the window and bought tickets. But the coolest thing ever - you get to pick your seats! they show you the seating plan right at the window.

We had time to go to the food court to grab a quick bite before the movie. While we were sitting around the table we had a very interesting conversation:

Me: I'm looking forward to seeing The Avengers. I used to watch it all the time.

Jeff: What do you mean?

Me: I watched it when I was a kid. I loved Emma Peel and Steed.

Jeff: Who?

(at this point Jim, Liz and Boris start laughing)

Me: You know, The Avengers.

Jim: This movie isn't about those Avengers.

Jeff: It's about Marvel comic book heroes. Didn't you know that?

Me: No. Aw, now I'm bummed.

(everyone is laughing at me now)

Jeff: I wondered why you were so excited!

I ended up enjoying the movie immensely - even if it wasn't what I was expecting!

Iceland - Thursday Evening

After our tasty hot dog dinner we headed back to the hotel for a soak in the pool and hot tub. There were quite a few people with the same idea! There was a steam room and a dry sauna as well as a lounge area around a fireplace. You could sit there and order drinks. Ok, I am never going home!

After the pool - Storytime!
Here we are all snuggled in our chairs with pillows, blankets and our hot chocolate, waiting to hear stories about Icelandic elves, trolls, legends and ghosts.

Our host for the evening was a professor of literature from the University of Iceland. Jeff was suitably impressed - who better to read us stories?

We learned that you can only see an elf if they want you to, Icelandic trolls are much bigger and meaner than Norwegian trolls, and ghosts cannot say the word God. We heard about 5 stories, although I have to admit that I didn't hear too much of the last one - I was trying too hard to keep my eyes open. Maybe going to the pool right before wasn't such a good idea after all. We were warned at the beginning of the stories that it would be ok if we fell asleep but we were not allowed to snore!

Iceland - Thursday afternoon

I am doing something wrong with these photos but I can't figure it out. I spent all this time manipulating them (to make them web-friendly) and now I can't find the copies. Oh well, as long as they show up on the blog I guess it's ok. But I'm warning you Jim, before our next big trip I am buying a Mac laptop. Life is too short for this much frustration! (Flo - you should buy a Mac).

Aargh - I can't even get the text to align where I want it to. Ok, I'm going to wait for the Mac in the lobby.

dum de dum dum.......

Aaaah, that´s better. Now things are working fabulously!

We drove into Rekjavik and started at the Tourist Info place to get some information about touring volcanoes, etc. I was happy to hear that there are no active volcanoes in Iceland at the moment!

We walked down Laugavegur the main shopping street. The windows are full of all kinds of goodies hoping that tourists will take them home. We have noticed that the Icelanders are very artsy, and that they love to make things colourful. It might have something to do with the barren (but beautiful) landscape and the long winters. Look at these fun horses made out of beads:

Liz and I poked our heads into another wool store, mostly to compare prices to see if we got a deal at the factory. We sure did - the same ball of wool cost Isk 260 at the factory and Isk 390 at the store downtown. Look at all the yummy wool - it's like a candy store!

Look at the bright fabric too... (Kaffe Fassett and Amy Butler)

So, can anyone guess what is behind Jim on the wall?

If you guessed an elephant pe*is, you are right!  (I am not a prude but I don't want this blog blocked because I am using the name of certain parts of anatomy,lol) Guess you can tell that we are not prudes because the first museum we visited in Reykjavik was this one!

The museum has preserved pe*ises of every type of animal native to Iceland. It is quite a collection! Jeff and Boris are quite amazed...

Most of the specimens were from sea animals. This one is from a whale of course!

The curator has quite a sense of humour. Well, I guess you would have to be a little bit off just to start a museum like this. Here is his Christmas bow-tie. I don't know what it is made of and I decided that I didn't want to ask!

We did get some souvenirs there but since they are surprises I can't show you. I can tell you though that Jim and Jeff were laughing and saying, "That's SO Steve!"

We walked past a little park on a side street and I noticed that they had rocks in the playground. I know Steve and Jeff would have loved that when they were little but if we had tried to put rocks in a playground someone probably would have said, "That's too dangerous! Children could hurt themselves."

We made our way to Hallgrimskirkja, the church at the top of the hill. It has an observation deck at the top that lets you see all of Reykjavik.

The church was designed to look like lava flowing down the side of a mountain. The statue is of Leif Ericson.

See all the colourful houses?

The mountains in the background look like they are chopped off the top. Apparently they have been "glaciated". Is that a word?

Elaine gave us a mission - we had to find at least one geocache in Reykjavik that she had found on her trip here. I knew she had been to the statue of the Viking ship so that was our next stop. She had warned us that this one was going to be very tricky because of all the "muggles" around.

One of the advantages of being a tourist in the off season - there was no one at the statue! See Elaine?

This would be Elaine's house if she lived here. It was right down the street from the hot dog stand.

Every tour guide says that this little hotdog stand has the best hotdogs in Iceland. We thought the hotdogs were exactly the same as German knackwurst, but it was the toppings that made it taste good. It came with chopped onions, aioli sauce, a brown mustard, and something crunchy that we couldn't determine. Guess we'll have to go back to do more research!

See the sign on the wall? Do you see a phal*ic symbol? We did. We were seeing them everywhere. I guess that museum just got them on our brains!