Time: 9:15pm
Weather: Hurricane winds. F5 at least.
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| Prickly Pony |
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| Geysir |
*SHORT INTERMISSION*
...and I'm back. Jet lag is a wily foe. Just when you think you've adjusted to the time shift, your internal clock decides to play another round of time roulette. Today we arrived in Nordur Vik Hostel (In the town of Vik) and played some more of our favorite game, scrabbl....
*SHORT INTERMISSION*
Man, I'm the worst at this whole blog thing! Well here's the condensed version of our last days before Finland:
After several hours of driving through the dark/dust storms we finally made it to the Nordur Vik hostel in the town of Vik, southernmost city in Iceland. The town was tiny (300 people) but we managed to take at least 30 minutes to find our hostel as it was on the end of an unlit and unpaved road near the end of the town. It was well past dark by the time we got there so we did the ol' scrabble and sleep routine, one of my favorites. The next day we drove to Jokulsarlon where we saw a frozen lake that was made famous by none other than James Bond himself (Die Another Day).
The lagoon was a little bit wetter than the movie showed (damn you global warming!) and parts of the ice were flowing out a tiny river and into the ocean where the waves broke them on a black sand beach in a truly spectacular fashion. After some seal watching and nearly freezing our fingers off we watched a beautiful sunset and and began the ride back to the booming metropolis of Vik. Due to lack of nightlife/any stores being open after 9pm we adventured to the beach in the dark and had a great time getting lost and finding a random 20 ft statue dedicated to a town in England. Fun facts I learned about Vik :
1) It is the location of the Hanso Foundation's Vik Institute (if you followed Lost)
2) The town regularly practices drills where all of its inhabitants have to run to a church on the top of the tallest hill in the area which is the only place predicted to survive if the nearby Mýrdalsjökull glacier melts (the glacier is sitting on top of the nearby Katla volcano (Hasn't erupted since 1918, nbd)
3) Vik grocery stores (and others in Iceland) carry cooler ranch doritos. Only instead of being called "cooler ranch" they are instead "cool american" doritos. Sometimes I just don't understand Iceland.
The next day we said farewell to Vik and headed back to Keflavik where our flight was leaving at the unreasonable hour of 7:45am the next day. On the way we stopped to climb to the heights of Skogafoss Falls as well as admire the infamous "I'm going to spew ash all over Europe" Eyjafjallajökull volcano.
[Mom - Stop Reading]
We found out the next day that there were two small (2.0ish) earthquakes around Eyjafjallajökull the same day we were there but luckily nothing happened and our trusty Polo got us back to Keflavik safe and sound.
[Mom - Continue Reading]
Repacking that night was lots of fun but somehow we managed and even met a nice Libyan man who owned (?) the hostel and has worked in more countries than I could name. As it was the last stopping point for international flyers, there was a lot of free food at the hostel including at least 4 Nutella jars. We feasted like kings. Five am came MUCH to soon and we ventured outside to the most ridiculous windstorm of my life. After almost getting blown off of the road several times, not knowing how to work the gas pump, and being unable to open our doors because of the wind, we arrived at the airport. The plane was shaking as we took off but somehow we made it and were on our way to Finland!
So many more adventures in Finland so far, but we'll save that for another day.
Moi!
-Matt
P.s. Here are some random pictures of our trip, Picassa album to follow sometime (soon?)
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| Gullfoss Falls |
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| Skogafass Falls |
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| Salvation, Vik style |
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