6/5/13 - 6/9/13, otherwise known as Adventures in North Iceland, Part 2

6/6/13, Thursday

Ran again, this time back and forth along a number of the bridges that cross the river in Husavik, and then up a steep slope under a ski lift. It turns out the lack of hills in Selfoss has made us go soft. There was walking involved. I took my time on the way up and when I caught up with Laura, I found her trying to help a baby sheep get back over the fence to its mom. She was unsuccessful.

We ran down toward the bay to meet Benedikt and Christian in order to pick up a sensor, but our slow hill-climbing and sheep-rescuing made us a little late, woops!

Then came all-day conferencing with some epic coffee breaks wherein we ate more pastries in a single day than previously in any given month.

Completely conked out for an hour when we got home (lack of sleep + excessive pastry eating?), went out for dinner with the conference people, and then had drinks while Benedikt and some other knowledgeable Icelandic people edited out map for the trip back to Selfoss, adding cool things we missed and suggesting different routes and places to stay.

And finally, an 11pm trip to the playground inspired by the midnight sun.

6/5/13 - 6/9/13, otherwise known as Adventures in North Iceland, Part 1

6/5/13, Wednesday

After the epic journey to Husavik and our first evening of midnight cheese tubbing, we sleep in. This will be the only time we do this for about a week. We visit the riverside house of Eysteinn Tryggvason, a big shot in the world of geophysics and seismology, and set up a seismometer. This needs to take measurements for at least an hour, so we kill time by going on a somewhat long driving tour of Husavik. The town really isn't that big, and so the tour involves a lot of weaving around and bumpiness. All of this while holding up various iPads with geological and topographic maps of the area. Slightly overwhelming and almost car sickness-inducing.

We stop at a cafe run by one of Benedikt's cousins (or something) to read conference abstracts. He seems to know someone, or multiple someones, in every town. We pick up the seismometer and redeploy in a beautiful house with a very friendly dog ("hundur" in Icelandic). We worry about its excessive tail-wagging as a possible source of vibrations.

Next we go to the Husavik hospital, climb a ladder, and spend some quality time on the roof in the warm North Iceland sun (no joke, I may have gotten very slightly burned).  We check out the Canterbury Strong Motion instrument that Benedikt installs, then take a little time to lounge, do hand-stands (Laura is a maniac), and plank.

Back to the coffee house. After picking up the sensor yet again, this happens:

Then we go out to eat at the restaurant of one of Iceland's most famous chefs, although I don't think I ever asked his name. We check out the lovely view, and then check it out again wearing each others' eyeglasses. Laura starts her search for a tall, attractive Icelandic man to cook her some "rug bread" (Rúgbrauð, bread cooked in the warm Icelandic soil!). There's an apple cobbler on the menu that promises to lure travelers into staying permanently in Husavik, and we order a bunch of it. We'll see what happens..

The view:

Benedikt wearing my sunglasses:

Later that evening, Laura and I go on a fairly adventurous run along the river (through snow at times!) and up to Botnsvatn (a lake above Husavik). Or at least that's where we attempt to go. Somehow we lose the trail and end up in what seems like an endless field of what we've taken to calling "mush mush". Basically it consisted of mounds of hay-like vegetation, with lower-lying parts of varying degrees of mushiness. Maybe this becomes swampy in rainier seasons? We debate about going forward or turning back, and going forward obviously wins out. There are alien-like noises coming from the sky (apparently they were not so alien, and were actually emitted from this bird: Snipe! Hit play next to "Common Snipe song" and you'll hear the weird noise toward the end of the clip). We survive, reach the lake, and find that there actually is a nice trail (drivable, even) we could have taken. Fail. 

On the way back down, we wish we had our cameras because it is absurdly beautiful. Amazing view of the mountains across the bay and the midnight sun (it's about 11:30pm at this point). We pass a potential paintball course, run up a wiggly path (we must have been missing SF), see some horses doing this, then arrive at the cheese tub. We are later joined by Camille, Benedikt, and Christian. Cheese tub lap swimming, cold water spraying, and general story telling ensue. First rule of the cheese tub is that you must always talk about the cheese tub. Second rule of the cheese tub is that no story can be told or listened to fully clothed. 

This is Laura and Camille's reaction when getting sprayed by cold water (I am the only one to actually hop back in the hot tub to escape it..). I'm not sure it's very effective:

You can never have enough midnight sun (beautiful picture courtesy of Laura Weyl):

AY-uh-fyat-luh-YOE-kuutl-uh

We drove by Eyjafjallajökull (AY-uh-fyat-luh-YOE-kuutl-uh) this weekend.

Newscasters around the world trying to pronounce it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jq-sMZtSww

Enjoy! 

(Actual updates to come.)

Yule Lads

Thanks to Laura, pictures of the Lads themselves. (Also here.)

Cool Earthquake Videos!

pool oscillations during an earthquake

dog senses earthquake 10 seconds before people do

Monday, 6/3/2013
-Went on a run with Laura. Didn't get lost this time. We are improving.
-Met up with Max and Dan of the Hveragerdi hot creek. They introduced us to a bakery that's basically across the street from our school. Having lived there a week already, we probably should have been the ones introducing it to them. We're all busy and cheap though. :-D

 
-We had our first guest lecturer of the class, Sólveig Thorvaldsdóttir, who talked about disaster function management.. basically, the planning that occurs pre-event and the things that need to happen once an events occurs (including learning from your experiences). The structural engineering and analysis part is really just a small portion of the whole process. I think I'd like to do some work in the post-event stages at some point in my life..
-Went to the university to finish up last bits of homework and were met there by Elijah and Jeff, friends of a friend. Made a big dinner + lots of cookies and Schtroumpfs for 6 (the 4 ladies and our visitors), then tried to find the one and only bar/club of Selfoss. It involved a midnight walk across the bridge. As it turns out, the one and only bar/club of Selfoss is not open on Monday evenings, but it was a lovely adventure nonetheless. On the way back, we discovered that the gas station has a 24 hour shop, and we helped push the car of someone whose car died.

 
-Bedtime.


Tuesday, 6/4/2013
-Travel day. Starting early. Apparently this means 9:45. Reason #287 why I love Iceland.
-Benedikt and Christian arrive to pick us up and we are informed that the party music is ready to go. We wonder about this. Enter Gus Gus and their song Selfoss!
-Not too long into our journey, we come to a stop and are told we are going to check something out. We are distracted by the intense wind and moderate rain until we look ahead and notice the following crator:

 Minds blown.
-Back in car. We come to a stop again, this time there are sheep on either side of the road, looking as if they want to cross. We wait a bit and try to cheer them on, and eventually they make their move. Icelandic lesson of the day, sheep = "kind" (pronounced something like "keend").
-Gus Gus suddenly transitions to everything from 50 Cent to La Bamba to Outkast to Walk Off the Earth to CARLY RAE JEPSEN. This is when we realize that our instructor has amazing taste in music and that we must obtain his party mix. Also The Immigrant Song, which captures the very essence of Iceland.
-We learn a lot of Icelandic on this trip. Bridge = Brú. Next time you cross one, try to repeatedly say "brú" until you get to the other side, all in one breath. Very challenging.
-Waterfall = Foss. We pass many of these.
-Þingvellir National Park, where the Mid Atlantic Ridge comes above ground. Again with the intense wind and rain. Iceland, the land of go big or go home. 

 (We all seem to be really be into either red or black jackets.)

-Then the 3ish mile long tunnel under a fjord. Dark and windy (curvy, not blustery.. is there any way to distinguish between these words in writing??). A dance party breaks out in the car. We think Benedikt and Christian are wondering what they got themselves into with this road trip. 
-Benedikt tells us he plans to stop at a bakery in about a half hour for lunch. Our responses are mumbled because we are stuffing our faces with cookies and smurf candy. Fail. Bakery is good though. We pick up "love balls" and kleina (essentially bow tie shaped donuts) and tebolla.
-We stop for a little mid road trip exercise, potentially ignoring some "do not hike here" signs in order to hike into the crater of a dormant volcano. 

(The crator.. you can see sort of a circular ridge. This is where the lava in the center sunk back down a little after the volcano was finished erupting.)

(Baby lava tube.)

We are nearly knocked over by the wind. It also makes it difficult to hear anything besides wooshing sounds. And interesting note: the mossy vegetation that seems to cover all of Iceland is very sensitive. Apparently some kids came to this volcano and spelled their names in the moss by ripping up some parts of it. Despite many efforts, the names are still there. I guess that makes it easier to track down the perpetrators..

(A windy, scree-filled hike back down the volcano.)

-Our last stop is in the town of Akureyri for dinner. This is Iceland's second largest urban area after Reykjavik. While we walk around and explore, Benedikt educates us on Icelandic lore: elves, trolls, fairies, and the 13 Yule Lads and Yule Cat of Christmas. The Yule Lads are mischievous and may also eat children. The Yule Cat eats children who don't get new clothes for Christmas.

Here are some of the mischievous activities these lads engage in: (Yule Lad 1) Harasses sheep, but is impaired by his stiff peg-legs. (Yule Lad 3) Abnormally short. Steals pans to eat the crust left on them. (Yule Lad 8) A Yule Lad with an affinity for skyr.

Iceland seriously just gets better and better. Evidence.

Also, dinner is good.

And we may have found the Loch Ness monster's Icelandic cousin:

This place is pretty: 

-And then one final detour before arrival in Húsavík. The night before we left Selfoss, there was a landslide on the road between Akureyri and Húsavík. The road is closed, but we do some more ignoring and drive down it a bit until we can see the landslide.

-Arrival in Húsavík is celebrated with driving up and over a very exciting ramp, and our first midnight trip to the cheese tub. (Note the sun.)

And now the updates get shorter (but with pictures!):

Friday 5/31/13
-Ran with Laura 5ish miles to the north along the river and the Selfoss golf course. 9:30am class.
-More issues with installing Matlab and getting it to work with my Mac.
-Because of this, class ran over a bit with the lecture and Christian explaining our first homework. Then we did some planning for our trip to Northern Iceland. I got very hungry and ran off to get food at home. On the way there, downpour occurs. The others followed soon after and caught the full rain storm. Turns out the weather in Iceland changes very rapidly. That was fun. Front and back of pants ended up completely different colors from being soaked, haha. Looking into more intense rain gear..
-Recovered from the intense soaking for a bit, then headed back to the university for a homework part, complete with Smurf candy, which I am now obsessed with.
-Finished around 11pm and we all went back to the apartment to watch Stick It and drink Viking beer, which is basically not beer since it's approximately the same alcohol percentage as non-alcoholic beer. :-P

Saturday 6/1/13
-Tried to go on 4.5 mile run around the perimeter of town with Laura. Failed. Ended up going 8.1 miles around the perimeter of Arborg after we missed a turn. Highlights: running on various media (sand, gravel), going by a farm called Björk, lots and lots of horses, and not being able to hitchhike successfully.. no one would pick up the two unthreatening girls! (Turns out Iceland is one of the safest/best countries to hitchhike in.. it's considered a legitimate way to get around!: http://hitchwiki.org/en/Iceland)
-Power went out in our apartment :-/
-Went with our TA Christian to Hveragerdi (a town about 15 minutes away) to get some supplies and check out this earthquake exhibit. They have a Cal Academy of Science-style shake house and an example kitchen post-EQ (dishes broken everywhere).. but the coolest part: There is a see-through section of the floor directly above a fault they discovered! You can literally see a gap in the ground, and they have a sensor down there for recording future earthquakes. It was amazing! I hope we can convince the instructor to take us down into the basement to check it out up close..

-Hot creek hike in Hveragerdi. Amazing views. Random steam coming out of bubbling pots of water/mud in the ground. Horses. Mossy ground. Very soggy shoes. A waterfall at the end! And then the hot creek, which we spent a very long time lying around in and making friends with some other travelers. And then it started raining and we hiked very quickly back to the car. Oh yeah, and spending too much time standing in the rotten egg-smelling steam to take pictures.
-Our first night out in Reykjavik! Went to see Hallgrimskirkja (really big church). Tried fermented shark (smells HORRIBLE).. our TA made us do this and fully documented the experience.

Then got a bit of a driving tour, and finally tried to check out the main street. Turns out things don't really happen there til after midnight.

We did find these things though:

We found an English pub though and got one expensive drink, before hurrying to the bus stop, missing the last bus of the night, and then chasing the bus with our TA driving like a champion. We managed to look up the bus schedule and pull ahead of the bus at its last stop before it got too far from Reykjavik (basically cutting it off), then hopping out and quickly jumping onto the bus, cracking up, and potentially making all the sleeping passengers hate us. But it was fun. And we arrived back in Selfoss around midnight. While it was still light out. I'll never get over that.


Sunday 6/2/13
-We realized at the hot creek that we failed at reading and only did the first two (of three) parts of the homework. Decided that we should be studious and take care of that rather than trying to conquer Mount Ingólfsfjall. We also wanted to get some laundry done before we leave on Tuesday for Húsavík.

Mount Ingólfsfjall

-Homework homework homework. Kind of fun. Deriving equations! :-D
-Met up with our friends from the hot creek at the Selfoss pool. Apparently every municipality (or every town?) in Iceland has a heated pool. And ours has a waterslide! Note: you go much faster on your belly. It's about $4 per visit, or you could get a 10-pass for cheaper, which we are considering. It would be like we actually live here!

-Then we went out for some Icelandic pizza at the local Domino's :-P The grocery stores close around 7 here and we didn't have enough left over to feed 6.
-And finally more internet-ing at the university. (This time we stayed until 11:25.. we couldn't remember when the doors became alarmed and decided to just see how things went, and I think we're all good, no alarms appeared to be going off!) Getting excited for when we finally have it at the hotel, although this has been a good break. It's making me realize how much time I waste online..