iceland: cold, wet, and amazing

well, we're still on our trip and not getting home for another five days, but we had some down time in our hotel tonight so i thought i would share some pictures with all you oh so curious readers out there.

the first four days of our trip were in iceland. we checked the weather beforehand and it was supposed to be about 55 degrees the whole time we were there, so we were THIS CLOSE to not bringing any type of rain gear, jeans, or sweatshirts. luckily we did, because it rained/blew/froze on us the whole time we were there. and that was apparently the normal summery weather they have there. we laughed the whole time about how dumb we almost were to almost not bring warm clothes, because we then would have had to spend hundreds of dollars on icelandic sweaters to save us from hypothermia. (and although i did really want an icelandic sweater, i think i'll save that as a souvenir for next time we go there. they were REALLY expensive.)

however, it was SO COOL (in more ways than one, hahaha) to go to iceland and see the land of my ancestors. and i learned some really cool things about it while i was there. mostly i was impressed by the fact that they survived in a place like that. everywhere you drive outside of reykjavik, there are huge swaths of land just covered by volcanic rock, and you can just see where the lava flows were hundreds of years ago. and did you know that even just seventy years ago, iceland was still listed as a third-world country? it's only in the last generation that iceland has actually industrialized/caught up to the rest of us. but don't worry, they're about to shoot past us with their geothermal energy and clean water sources. (we saw a geothermal power plant--coolest thing ever.) their water that they use comes STRAIGHT out of the ground! as in, it doesn't even need to be heated or pressurized. they just bring it up from the hot spots and pipe it right into people's houses, already heated and already clean. it is amazing!

needless to say, ICELAND IS THE BOMB.

and now for a billion pictures:

the first morning we got there (after paying billions of icelandic kronur for two unnecessary taxi rides; we felt so foolish) we went to the blue lagoon, a natural hot spring that has been commercialized and turned into a spa. you pretty much have to go there if you're going to reykjavik though, so we did.

remember how i boasted that we were going to do in-water massages at the blue lagoon? well, turns out you shouldn't boast, because then you'll do something stupid like reserve the massage for the wrong month (like august 26 instead of july 26) and then you won't be able to do it. but we still had a good time at the blue lagoon anyways.

tommy so excited as we walked into the blue lagoon. (he was excited about the in-water massages that never happened. so sad.) look at those volcanic rocks behind him.
they had this mud stuff that comes up naturally from the floor of the lagoon and helps your skin. they let you use it for free at the lagoon and then charge 60 dollars for you to buy some at the end. we just brought an empty container and filled it up at the lagoon for future use. (someone said to on a website we read beforehand!)

this is in front of this nice lake in reykjavik. no caption needed.

in front of the reykjavik bay, right outside of the hostel we were staying at. (first time at a hostel!) we went on a nice walk around it. notice my iceland mittens i'm wearing because it was SO DANG COLD.

icelandic ponies kind of resembled 80s punk rockers.

in front of gullfoss, the biggest waterfall in iceland.

this was at geysir (pronounced gay-seer, as opposed to the american "geysir" or apparently british "geezer" as our tour guide kept pronouncing it). it was pretty much a mini-yellowstone with a geezer and some hot pots and whatnot.

tommy at thingvellir national park, where the first parliament in the world was held. once again, go iceland!

and now, for some icelandic scenery from our day where we rented a car and drove a bit up north to snaefellsnes peninsula to snaefellsnesjokull national park (just try pronouncing THAT why don't you?).

i wanted to catch those sheep (just in a picture!). they were wimps. they ran away everytime i got anywhere near them.

we went on a hike and ended up near this tiny little hut serving fish soup. we wanted to eat the soup. the soup cost more than the car rental. (not. but almost.) but we ate it anyways.

icelanders love leiningers!

THIS is the closest we got to the little island OFF iceland where my ancestors were from. flatey is just in the middle of this bay here, but you can't see it because it's like 100 kms away. there's actually a ferry that will take you to flatey, but we didn't know about it before we scheduled everything and it only goes out and comes back about once a day, so we missed it. but we wanted to drive over and say hi to my ancestors since we were already in the area.

the last thing we did that day of driving around was go to an icelandic shark farm (the home of the people who catch the shark, not that they grow them there) and partake of the icelandic delicacy of harkarl, the aged, rotted shark meat that they've been eating for centuries (or something). when the shark meat is fresh, it's poisonous, so some genius thought of burying the meat for four months and then hanging it up and letting it dry for eight more and then it's edible! who'da thunk? i'd heard many times about this stuff, and had really hoped to get a chance to try it. and we found a place last minute out near flatey and did it.

this is what i thought:

this is what tommy thought:

pretty much icelandic food is all kind of gross, or at least it's just not the type of food you'd regularly choose to eat if you had an option (rotted shark meat, boiled lamb's head, horse, puffin, whale... all those foods you eat when you're a starving nation with nothing else to live off of for centuries). but it was a novelty we had to try.

anyways, that was a massive post. i'll give you a few days to digest until i post about part 2 of our trip.