Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Iceland as Viewed from a Large Chair

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are yesterday and today mostly in pictures. During that time we have seen some truly amazing icicles right outside our room ... decided that troll marshmallows are too big to eat in one bite or even one hundred (these are called "tractor eggs" in Norway) ... continued to marvel at Mt.Hverfjall ... hiked among snow-covered pseudocraters formed when steam caused by lava running into the lake "erupted" through the earth ... ... seen the first geothermal power plant in Iceland (it generates now, as it did when it was built, a whopping 2.6 megawatts) ... seen a hot rock you wouldn't want used in a massage, discovering in the process that it really isn't the heat but the humidity else why would we feel colder next to this than far, far away from it ... eaten some quite tasty rye bread cooked in a metal container within a geothermal hot spring such as that shown here ... done a bit of birdwatching thanks to these gyrfalcons (Iceland is home to two types of falcon--gyrfalcons, the largest falcons, as well as merlins, the smallest falcons) ... stood with one foot in Europe and the other in North America as they separate--the pipes shown here touched in 1977 but are now several inches apart ... seen the Northern Lights
... seen Icelandic horses similar to the ones we should be riding tomorrow ... and driven by houses in snowy Akureyri that have corrugated metal siding ... all but the Northern Lights viewing in the company of our wonderful guide Jimmy. Since returning to Reykjavik this afternoon, we have fortuitously found ourselves staying in a room once used by the world's tallest man who fit in a chair that we can only marvel at and get lost in. We have also trekked some 18 kilometers out of the city to an outlet store (the yellow building with the red roof in the center of the photo) to obtain two knitting pattern books, yarn for two sweaters, a CD of Icelandic music, and assorted small souvenirs for less than the yarn for one of the sweaters would have cost at home. Still to come ... riding, the Blue Lagoon, and a day unplanned save for dinner. Oh, yeah, I guess we'll need to come home after that.

2 comments:

オテモヤン said...
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Running Amok With An Ax said...

Wow. Just...wow