Almost done with Iceland :-(

6/18/13, Tuesday

Class.

6/19/13, Wednesday

Laura and I run to Ingólfsfjall after class and hike up the crazy boulder-y slope. It rains a bit and the top is covered in this really thick cushy moss. Good times.

6/20/13, Thursday

Run in the morning, then have a guest speaker in class from the Bay Area! Really good. We realize we'll have to take all of our stuff out of the rooms and bring it with us to class/the exam tomorrow, and so Thursday night is full of doing laundry and packing, on top of the studying and finishing up last bits of homework. It's a long night and I start eating peanut butter straight out of the jar. Laura is pleased with this development, as I am beginning to become more like her:

(All pictures courtesy of Laura!)

6/17/13, Reykjavik National Party Day

Another slow morning of crepes, but then we make it out of the apartment around noon. Today promises gymnasts and a strong man competition. We aren't really sure where these things are going to occur aside from "by the lake", so we head in that direction and hope for the best. This is when we encounter a parade of all of Iceland's children and their parents. We join the parade and walk past some super cool old cars:

And then a bunch of bouncy castles and a go-cart race:

And then some people on stilts dressed up as recycling:

And this weight lifting competition?:

These girls modeling sweaters on ladders:

And finally, these children inside transparent balls floating around on the lake.. I really want to be a kid in Iceland!:

We also got some tasty chocolate and orange ice cream and ran into Dan!, one of the guys from the hot creek in Hveragerdi. I guess when the country has only 300,000 people, it's not hard to run into the one person you know. :-D

Sunday 6/16/13 in Reykjavik

A slow day. We all sleep in, then make a bunch of crepes. We muster up some strength to go souvenir shopping. We come back to Christian's apartment and watch 2.5 movies. (1) Easy A, (2) Dan in Real Life, and (3) we all fall asleep during 10 Things I Hate About You.

Good day.

Sleeping angels :-P

Get Lucky!

Get Lucky dance tutorial. Study up!

Saturday, 6/15- Trapped in a Closet, Chapter 1

Monday is Iceland's national day, so we decide to go to Reykjavik for the long weekend and experience some nightlife. Christian has been talking up his "giant walk-in closet", and thus far, the plan is for all of us to sleep in this closet. Why? Because he doesn't have curtains, and the sun never sets. :-P

So we grab our comforters and blankets from Fosstun, and head for the bus. Benedikt has said that he'd try to get mattresses from his in-laws, but we aren't sure if he's been successful, so we want to make sure we have something to sleep on. We arrive at Christian's apartment, and find out we will indeed have mattresses. Yay!

We spread them out on the floor, upping the beds-to-other-surfaces ratio by a lot, and watch The Longest Yard. If you haven't watched this movie, I highly recommend it. Adam Sandler assembles a prison football team.

But anyway, during the movie, I begin to feel awful for no apparent reason. I move my mattress into the dark closet and attempt to go to sleep. The situation worsens in an unpleasant fashion, but the others are very sweet and bring me various drinks and foods and generally just take care of me. I proceed to spend the rest of the day and night in the closet and watch The Holiday.

 The others go out, as was the initial plan, and every one of them is wearing something of mine, aside from Christian (which is probably a good thing). Laura- dress and tights, Camille- dress and tights, Loudi- shoes.  At least my clothes get to go out!

I wake up to their return to the room around 5:30am. Reykjavik nightlife: check!

Friday, 6/14 - HORSE DAY!

Went to class as usual, but then got to go horse back riding in the evening! Abi rejoined us after her ring road solo adventure, and we went over to Simon's (researcher at the earthquake center) place to hang out with his dog and his horses.

First of all, we're all kind of in love with the dog. Her name is Skota (or some variation on spelling), and it means "tail." Check her out:

Secondly, the horses were fun. We rode Tígull, which means "diamond." Some highlights..

Baby horse and mom :

Laura and Abi ride together (last four pictures courtesy of Laura):

This horse rolling around:

How Abi's hair matches Tígull's hair:

The horse tongue on the left and Horse Bon Jovi in the middle:

And finally, Simon running alongside his horse:

Monday - Thursday (6/10 - 6/13)

We had class, not much else happened.

Iceland likes this song a lot

Get Lucky

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

6/9/13, Sunday: Travel Day 2!

We sleep surprisingly well at the guesthouse despite our lack of sheets, then have a slow morning before heading out on the final leg of our trip back to Selfoss. Loudi takes over as DJ/navigator and gets us to our first stop, Jökulsárlón (Ice Lagoon!).

We stage another sleeping picture and some other tourists find this amusing. We have no idea what they are saying, but one of them comes up to me and wraps her shirt around my neck like a scarf and tells me to go back to sleep. We are a little confused, but this is amusing, so we go along with it and take some more pictures.

Then we try to skip stones, get stones to land on the little ice floes heading out to sea, and do a little souvenir shopping before rolling out for the next stop (aside from a quick dinner pit stop in rainy Vík).. Eyjafjallajökull!!

We decide we really want to see Strokkur (geyser!) and Gullfoss ("golden falls"), which are kind of near Selfoss, but a little out of the way, so we head that way and don't stop for any of the smaller fosses along the way. They are nice. Strokkur requires a bit more work for staging a sleeping picture. It goes off approximately every 10 minutes, but it's not exactly clockwork. This leaves me lying on the wet-ish sand for...a while. Then we shop a while at the 66 North store and head home..

..but not before convincing Christian to do this:

6/5/13 - 6/9/13, otherwise known as Adventures in North Iceland, Part 4

6/8/13, Saturday: Travel Day 1!

The midnight sun starts to take a toll. Apparently staying up past midnight in a cheese tub and then conferencing all day and travel in general can result in illness. 

We leave at 9am and after packing I sleepily decide to walk to the party van in my socks. Putting on shoes while wearing my backpack seems too challenging. However, I get too comfortable in the van (I managed to claim the whole back seat) and forget about the critical step of going back into the guest house to get my shoes, which is a shame, since they are my new bright green running shoes. Sad.

Laura tells me Camille got no sleep due to walking alone on the beach all night and Loudi hit her head on the van, tweaking her neck for the rest two days. I think I must have been asleep already because I have no memory of this. The party van is seeming more sickly than party-like.

Next thing I know it, we arrive at Goðafoss. When it's time to vacate the car, I realize I have no shoes. (Not totally true, since I have another pair of sneakers and some flip flops, but they are not really ideal for hiking.) We walk across a lovely bridge, check out the waterfall, then Camille and I fall asleep. Christian embarrassingly/hilariously falls over and pretends he wanted to be on the ground in the first place. We depart from the falls, I call the guest house and they say they'll mail my shoes to Selfoss (yay!!), and then I go back to sleep just a little bit happier.

Bridge:

Waterfall:

 Nap:

The second stop is Myvatn, a big lake with cool craters around it. Turns out Myvatn translates into "fly water". This might have been good to know. There are swarms of flies all over the place. We walk a short distance around the lake, until I give up first and run back to the car. Laura follows soon after, and then the others. We devise a system of getting back in the van where one person whips a towel around to shoo the flies away while the others very quickly open the door, hop in, and then close it again. It is mostly successful. The front of our van is another story... I have no words, only this picture (credit goes to Laura):

 Maybe the lake was worth it?, not sure..

We drive a short distance to Dimmuborgir, home of the Yule Lads. (We do not see them.) I get some ice cream and feel a bit better. Loudi gets some too and continues her streak of photo bombing by inserting into one of Laura's pictures. This stop is otherwise pretty uneventful.

Back to sleep in the car. Next stop is Myvatn Nature Baths. They are nice:

Camille befriends the other french smokers outside while we have lunch overlooking the steaming blue pools.  They aren't quite tempting enough to justify the price for an hour or so since we can't stay long.  Luckily, smoking pays off occasionally (or knowing someone who does) since Camille learns that there are hot pools inside some nearby caves that are free.  We find the caves just a few miles back along the road beneath a surface fault trace (where I plank for the second time in Iceland and then promptly fall asleep on a sunny rock).  The water is clear and strikingly blue, but also strikingly hot according to those who actually touch it.  Pool one is too hot, but pool two proves somewhat more manageable.  Loudi dips her toes in while Laura and Camille slow cook themselves (note Laura's legs below).

 

I fall asleep again in the van and wake up at Námaskard.  I've never seen anything like it, but picture a hard packed dirt desert with bubbling steaming mud pits scattered about and an excruciating rotten egg odor (or just look at the picture).  Since I can't find any acceptable ground to pass out on, we decide to fake my first sleeping picture (it turns out the others had been taking pictures of me every other time I was legitimately sleeping up to this point), quickly starting a theme for the trip of me sleeping at various tourist attractions around Iceland.

  

Internet is not working and so Laura navigates us by memory a little bit too hastily to the left and we arrive at Viti crater rather than Dettifoss.  It turns out to be quite beautiful and provides a humorous snowy bed for the next sleeping photo shoot.  

 

On to Dettifoss for real this time, but our group communication breaks down at this point and I awake from my nap ready for another "20 minute stroll to a viewing lookout and back to the car" in my jammies and flip flops.  Turns out it was more like a 20 minute hike over snow and little streams. Perhaps the icy moat and water surrounding the now inaccessible bathroom and trailhead should be have been a clue. 

 

 Cold feet, mist, more of the flies, and some mud are all worth the view of Europe's largest waterfall (by volume)!  More miscommunications on the return to the car and we are off to see another fall (with the same name as our settlement: Selfoss!) rather than returning to the car!  Waterfalls photographed and feet totally numb we hit the road again and I take over as co-pilot/DJ for a while.  

 

Dettifoss!:

We pass some cool waterfalls, but don't stop again until the town of Egilstadir (which lies along a river where the Icelandic sea serpent may live) for a long bathroom/snack break that quickly becomes our dinner stop where we debate pizza toppings for far too long. (We settle on blue cheese and pepperoni on one half and pineapple and ham on the other half.)

Back on the road by 9ish and heading for our hostel in Höfn we take a short cut suggested by Benedikt with the warning BE CAREFUL! The road seems fine, a solid dirt road and not denoted a 4WD road on the map like most of Iceland. However, mere minutes into our shortcut-ing the fog rolls in and it's thicker than any fog we've seen before. We inch along, sure that no one is meant to drive in these conditions.  But we are soon passed by a car with an old grey-haired couple! We follow them as long as we can, but they are too fast, and by the time we emerge from the fog they are out of sight! 

 

The rest of the road to the hostel is green, lush, full of fjords, and rainy until Loudi spots REINDEER!!!  Peeing and reindeer photographing ensue before the final stretch to our hostel on Havannah St. (Hotel Höfn on Hvannabraut).  We finally get the key to the co-ed dorm around midnight and all decide to forgo the extra fee for bedding.  Christian opens the door, and excited to see a small room of bunk beds exclaims "Yessss!" while flipping on the light (he has clearly never stayed in a hostel before).  The man asleep gurgles some obscenities while pulling the covers over his head.  The light goes off again immediately and as we clamor around in the dark, Christian climbs up to the last bed which is above our new friend.  As he crawls onto it, the bed breaks beneath him, severely frightening both Christian and the stranger below for the second time in 10 minutes!

6/5/13 - 6/9/13, otherwise known as Adventures in North Iceland, Part 3

6/7/13, Friday

Camille got up early for a phone interview for a Masters program while Laura, Loudi, and I went off to pick up and redeploy sensors. Then again with the conferencing, this time with video cameras! There was a crew there making a documentary I think about one of the seismologists, and we may have made it into the Icelandic evening news. How exciting :-D (We show up around 16:15.)

Also exciting: Camille found out during the conference that she got into this really selective Masters program that she wanted. This prompted a post-conference trip to Vínbúðin and the grocery store for supplies. We also picked up our final sensor and made fun of Christian's sense of direction a bit, then showered, dinner, more apple cobbler, and WHALE WATCHING!

There were plenty of whales to be seen, and Laura tells me one even jumped out of the water a bit, but I only caught the first hour of the 3-hour whale experience since I fell completely asleep for the last two hours. I've gone whale watching 3 times now and have never lasted for more than the first half. :-P It was good though, and we got to wear these exciting warm safety coveralls. (Picture courtesy of Loudi.)

We tried to end our last night in Husavik with a final trip to the cheese tub, only to find that it was empty. Very sad. But probably a good thing that they clean it each night.

Sad picture courtesy of Laura: