Landmannalauger

Today, I booked a last minute tour to Landmannalauger. I haven't figured out exactly what the name refers to, but my day involved another waterfall, multi-colored mountains, swimming in a natural hot spring stream, hiking through a lava field and driving the 4x4 tour bus through some fairly barren landscape.

It's my last night in Reykjavik. Tomorrow, I'm hoping to get in a run along the harbor before I fly off to London. I'm a little worried because the luggage weight limit is lower than it was flying out here... And lower than my bag weighed in at... So I guess I'll have to wear a few more layers to fly into Britain!

Golden Circle (Iceland Part Three)

Iceland is growing on me very quickly, though it's hard to say whether that can be attributed to it's sheer beauty and the amazing people and how much of that is due to my need for "nesting" and the fact that I have been here long enough to know my way around my little corner of Reykjavik.

Yesterday, I had the funnest time I've ever had doing laundry. There is a little cafe called the Laundromat Cafe, and in addition to having a great conversation with the girl seated next to me at the bar after dinner, I met a couple from Edmonton (my home town) and had a glass of wine with them as we all waited for our laundry to dry.

Here are a few pics from biking around yesterday and climbing up the eight-storey, tallest tower in Reykjavik.

Today was an absolute highlight. My aunt had a connection with a tour guide from her recent trip to Iceland, and I joined him and a nice family from Norway to tour Iceland's Golden Circle and snowmobile across a glacier. The tour was given from a luxury 4x4 and included off-roading up crazy hills and driving through glacial rivers. Thanks Svenni!

View at Thingvellir National Park, site of the Icelandic Assembly.

Gullfoss Waterfall

View from my snowmobile

On the middle of a glacier

Strokkur, the geyser, goes off every five to seven minutes

Hot pots in a meadow

Crater lake

More from the Other-World (or Iceland Part 2)

The wonders of Iceland have been keeping me busy and active, but with D leaving today and a nasty cold slowing me down, I've finally gotten an afternoon to explore Reykjavik and sit in a coffee shop and back up some pictures. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to upload the pictures from today's excursions, but I'll post a few from Thursday and Friday - busy days spent horse back riding, lounging in the Blue Lagoon and hiking through Thorsmork.

Icelanders are weird. I say that somewhat hesitantly, being of Icelandic heritage myself, but as I've walked around and observed, I've seen a variety of people in homemade bunny costumes, in whale costumes, and most recently some sort of oddly dressed bachelorette party (I can only assume) in which one girl actually had cups in her hair. Of course, the highlight from my colorful characters of Iceland tour was the young man being towed behind a truck on a platform playing drums... Shirtless with the tan line from a bikini top (I can only imagine it was a spray-on tan). To top off all of these interesting observations, I heard a statistic on a tour the other day that 70% of Icelanders won't deny the existence of the "hidden people" (trolls, dwarves and elves... There are three kinds.).

Of course, they are also very endearing, and I haven't met one yet who wasn't friendly and accommodating. When my tour bus driver forgot to pick me up on Wednesday, one of the staff from the tour company ran from his office to collect me at my guesthouse and walk me over to the harbor for my whale watching tour.

In a Word - Wow! (or Iceland Part 1)

Iceland has a beauty that is haunting, surreal and volatile. As one of my professors told me before I left, Iceland is different than anywhere else in the world... This was reinforced as my tour guide pointed out some "fake crater" formations and mentioned that this is the only place you can find them on earth... But you can find them in Mars!

I could wax poetic forever about Iceland, but instead I'll post some pics from my trip yesterday out to Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon.