Iceland (photos)

Warning: photo heavy.

I think it's a Glaucus Gull? They're beautiful! And they also seemed a bit larger than the seagulls hereabouts.

We just got back not long ago from Reykjavik, and I'm already missing (strangely enough, of all things) the sulphurous smell that accompanies the hot water. I was a bit skeptical at first when my coworker was telling me that one of the things she remembers most about Iceland was that the hot water smelled of sulphur ("... you mean like rotten eggs?" "Yeah, exactly that."), but I actually found there was something soothing about it once I experienced it myself. And I was also surprisingly fond of all the licorice flavoured stuff they have there - this coming from someone who used to absolutely shiver with disgust whenever she so much as heard the word licorice crawl out of someone's mouth! (The hotdogs were also amazing.)

Can't help but think buttcrack when I look at the photo, to be honest.

We were very lucky in terms of weather; every day trip we took (one to the South and another to Snæfellsnes) was more or less sunny, with a bit of cloud and rain for Snæfellsnes, which made for a couple of rainbows - a couple of double rainbows, actually! - at the waterfalls in the South and a fun time all around. Our guide for the Southern tour told us that this was the first time in about a month that he was able to actually talk about the volcanoes we were passing, because they had been hidden from sight all the other times he had led the trip by fog or cloud! My film never caught after I reloaded it during the South tour, and that was for the camera I was using the most that day, unfortunately, so there isn't too much to show for it (including double rainbows at both waterfalls), but apart from that tidbit, everything went pretty smoothly and we even got to go into a cave!

We went with Gateway to Iceland for both trips - they keep the tour sizes small, and the tour guides were knowledgeable and obviously passionate about their work, which is always great to see!

Double rainbow...! Jokes! Film didn't catch till I gave up on trying to capture that. Photos or it didn't happen though?

It was actually even more of a saturated blue than this.

Directly across from where we were living.

Elliðaàrdalur

The rest of the time we stayed in and around downtown Reykjavik, though we did go visit the trail in the Elliðaàrdalur valley (I still can't pronounce it) after visiting Àrbærjarsafn (Àrbær Open Air Museum), where I finally got to see some sheep up close! We got a bit confused along the way to Elliðaàrdalur, trying to match up a map with reality and not realizing that we were looking at the wrong bit of map (the road we were looking at continued with the same name even though it looked as though it was just an intersection), and ended up having to ask for directions. Once we reached the river, my brother and I both saw - but failed to capture! - a fish jumping right up the small waterfall (if you could call it that). Not sure what fish it was, but it had great timing! Although there isn't too much in terms of wildlife that I saw, the bird population we encountered was huge. Birds everywhere, from gulls and Arctic terns (I will never forget the sound of their warning calls or the feeling of the love tap they gave me on the back of my head - beautiful birds otherwise) to ducks and geese to your regular pigeon. We had just gone during nesting season, too, so after that tern attack, I couldn't really fully enjoy Viðey island the same way as maybe I would've been able to before that encounter, especially not after seeing a "protected nesting grounds" labeled on the map. The island was... I don't want to say it's boring, but there wasn't too much to see. It's great for a leisurely hike, and I'm sure we missed out on a lot of the more scenic routes because we tried to avoid getting attacked by birds and stuck to the main road, but I kind of expected more colour all around.

Did I mention the lichen and the moss?

I have no idea what's going on there, but this was in between houses.

The colours that you can find sort of just everywhere in Reykjavik are so incredibly vivid and varied that I was tempted to take photos of basically everything I came across at times - imagine a Hockney-esque panorama of some view or other, even within the city with all the buildings. The roofs of the buildings offer pops of colour left and right, and even the building walls themselves are coloured! I'm not sure why exactly, and from the photos my brother took last time he went (a couple years ago, I think?) from up in the church, it does seem to have dulled a bit in comparison, but it's still very cheerful at ground level to see the variety of colour. Something else that was everywhere: wall paintings and graffiti.

Graffiti

The entire construction wall was graffitied through, ranging in style.

See below.

I thought I saw you somewhere before! (There's also a restaurant called Ugly, though not sure if associated?)

I know we have moss & lichen here too, but there's something about it!

There's also a profuse amount of moss and lichen, the likes of which I want to say I've never seen before, but I'm sure I have and it simply didn't make as great an impression on me. What really got me, though, was the moss. And not even the incredibly bright green moss that carpeted the entire ground on either side as we were driving along the road for the South tour (because it had just rained the day before). It's the thick, light green-grey stuff that's probably inches thick growing on the lava fields. Those are absolutely mind-boggling! How thick and lush they are; how plush! Just imagine lying down on that! (Though you'd get a pretty hefty fine from what I understand if a ranger found you on top of the moss.)

This. Is. The. Dream.

See that streamlined shape in the foreground, that the guy at the side is keeping an eye on? That's an arctic tern (see below).

Aggressive when nesting.

We didn't explore too much around the city itself, going to the same broad areas throughout the week:

• Along the harbour. We ate ice cream at Valdís a couple of times, where I tried a salted licorice ice cream despite my initial misgivings (I mean, it is licorice after all, and you know those boxes of black and brightly coloured licorice candies? That was my first experience of the stuff, so I think it's an understandable reaction). We also went to the omnom factory, where we got most of the chocolate souvenirs.

Along the way to Whales of Iceland

The car roof looks like water!

• The Whales of Iceland exhibit. I think they set this up quite well: the audio guides were small and unobtrusive, the size of an iPod mini, I think, and they provide you the headphones as well. I usually never listen to audio guides, so the fact that I did is a good sign. There were also tablets set up beside each dolphin or whale so you could read a little blurb about it if you chose not to listen to the guide or if you wanted a reminder which is which (with language options between English, Icelandic, and German). There were also interactive displays that gave a bit more information about specific things, such as killer whales, the evolutionary backdrop to whales (and how hippopotamuses are their closest living relative), and another one on mink whales. Then there are the models and the way they were displayed, such that you literally walked among the whales! Pretty cool.
• The only concern I had after watching the documentary they were showing was that the documentary, which talks about Keiko the killer whale, who was set free after a campaign following the Free Willy movie. The documentary shown (that I saw - perhaps there is more than one being shown?) only goes up until the part where Keiko is still in the pen in the ocean, being slowly trained to eat fish in the water instead of having fish being thrown into his mouth. It doesn't tell you that Keiko never integrated into the pod that was closeby, or that Keiko died alone off the Norwegian shore, completely dependent on humans for subsistence for the rest of his "free" life. I spoke to one of the workers there and he told me that they had only just started showing the documentary, so perhaps they will be adding the other one, which follows Keiko till the end of his life - they actually have this documentary in the store, so I really hope they do! - depending on how things go, later on. It would definitely change the views of the visitors who come into the exhibit, I think, and be a bit more thought-provoking, though I suppose that isn't really the point of this particular exhibit.

Outside the bedroom window

Nifty back corridor we took to get to the harbour & thereabouts.

• We walked along Laugavegur a couple times also, taking the bus to Hlemmur and walking back to Ranargata, where we lived.
• City Hall area, which was actually very close to where we were staying, so I'm somewhat surprised we didn't go more often considering how beautiful it is there. That being said, if we had made regular strolls around the city in addition to all the touring we did, I'd probably not have made it back in one piece, so I'm glad we decided that sleep is important and we should probably indulge in that.
• Surprisingly, the 24-hr daylight didn't bother my sleep schedule one bit. I probably slept better there than I have continuously in a while. It might have something to do with how much walking we were doing every day and how many activities we would fit into each and every day, such that I'd be exhausted by the end of it all, but all the same. I loved the constant sunlight.
• Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur. They are the best. I'm not even a hot dog person. I stay away from street meat when in Toronto to the point where I can't even remember the last time I ate one. But these I'm pretty sure I can eat every day. No joke.
• We did get to go visit one of the swimming pools, which was beyond amazing! We went to Laugardalslaug and stuck to the outdoor pool and the hot tubs - I didn't even realize the beach volleyball was accessible from the floor of the pool area - and the lack of chlorine was a nice change from the swimming pools here. There was also the fact that even though the lanes weren't strictly regimented into slow/medium/fast lanes and didn't tell you which direction you had to swim, everybody looked out where they were going and it self-regulated well. But that's not even the best part. The entire system is the best part.
• You get a little wristband after paying that allows you past the turnstile and opens/locks the lockers inside the changerooms. The pool provides towels if you didn't bring your own (already amazing) as well as soap (which pools provide here as well, but the soap was actually soap-like, not the poor excuse for soap they provide at public pools here). There's an open shoe rack outside the changerooms, and shoe lockers right beside those if you want to use them, so shoes are not allowed at all into the changerooms. The floor of the changeroom is also completely dry. Whoa. I'm always tiptoeing left and right around the disgusting muck that is the floor here! Someone monitors who goes into the pool and comes back in, as well as hands out the towels, so if they see you're heading into the pool dry, you'll get stopped and reminded to shower. The pool gets to stay cleaner and you don't step on all manner of dirt and hair on your way back into the changeroom - incredible. There was also a dryer so your swimsuit wouldn't drip all over the place afterwards, although I hear that's been implemented here also in some pools. On your way out, there's a bag for you to dump your towel and the turnstile lets you out only after you return your wristband. I have no words to describe how much I love this system. No words.

Cool.

I was never afraid I'd get lost to the point of no return, and navigating the streets came pretty naturally after the first day, which is weird. I can get lost in Toronto, and it's a pretty rigid grid system in Toronto. It might have something to do with how colourful everything is and how close to the ground everything is. I definitely want to go back - maybe in the winter next time?