Alright

I've realized that I have so much work to catch up on, and laundry to do, and other countries to visit, that I'm not going to do as in-depth a recap as I was planning. So I'll just do a brief rundown, and then post lots of pictures in a following post. If you can't live with that, then get out of my blog. Immediately.

SATURDAY MAY 3:

Today I went on the "Golden Circle" bus tour, which goes to the three main tourist attractions of Iceland: Gullfoss, this huge waterfall, Geysir, a geothermal area home of the original Geysir, the one that gave us the word "geyser", and Thingvellir, a National Park that has a lot of Icelandic government history in it.

Gullfoss was awesome, just a huge, huge waterfall. We could walk up right on the rocks next to the falls, kind of dangerous, but I guess if no one has fallen off yet, what's the worry! Then we went to Geysir, which was pretty cool, nothing too awesome but it was interesting seeing the geothermal energy of the land in full force. Iceland gets almost all of its energy from the geothermal sources -- in the village I was in, a hot spring gave energy to the swimming pool and the hot tubs, with no needed electricity. The Geysir area was full of hot springs, with water just boiling out of the ground at random points, you had to stay on the paths because the ground was so hot. And a geyser is there, not Geysir, that's retired, but this other one erupts every 5-6 minutes, so I saw it go off a couple times.

Then we went to Thingvellir, which is a great park, it is where the tectonic plates of the American side and the European side of the world are pulling apart from each other, creating a great, rugged looking place.

At night I walked along the rocks by the ocean, very scenic. Then I went home, met some new Couchsurfers from California, we hung out a bit.

On Sunday I went to a big flea market in town, didn't get anything but there was a lot of interesting stuff. Then I went to the Reykjavik domestic airport to get my flight to Isafjordur, where my next Couchsurfer, Ivar, was going to pick me up. After a bit of confusion and weather delays, I got on the plane and had a nice 45 minute trip to Isafjordur. Ivar was there and so were his two pit bull boxer dogs in the back of his jeep. We had about a 2.5 hour drive to his village of Talknafjordur, and it was one of the best drives I've ever experienced -- driving on dirt roads, winding in and out of mountains (actually going THROUGH a mountain at one point, a huge tunnel was built through it) and just the most beautiful scenery possible, even though it was raining.

Got to his house, went to sleep after a long day of travel. Ivar was a super nice guy, I got my own room, and he cooked for me all week and drove me to a few different places. He was kind of a loner, sat at home and watched his downloaded tv shows/movies all day long, but he was really nice. His dogs were super, super hyper, and so hard to turn down -- they had perfected the "puppy eyes" look. But once you petted them even the tiniest of bits, they were so happy that they'd promptly climb on top of you (I'm talking BIG boxers here) and slobber all over you. Gallons of slobber.

Took a big hike on Monday, my "hike" of the trip. A long, slowly climbing trail up a mountain. It was very frustrating because I kept thinking I was finally getting to the top, only to see another layer appear. Towards the top it was mostly all snow, which led to some very cold and wet feet. But after 3 hours or so, I had almost given up, but then put in my iPod and put on some Sigur Ros and decided to go at least to the next "peak." I then had one of The Greatest Moments of My Life -- listening to Sigur Ros as I hit the top of the mountain and see a beautiful bay framed by rugged cliffs on the other side below -- I was beyond happy, it was so, so amazing.

Ivar had a barbeque at his house Monday night, where I met a couple of his friends, so that was fun.

On Tuesday I just took a little walk and sat by the ocean. Then Ivar drove me and we went to the Latrabjarg peninsula, which is the westernmost point of Iceland, and therefore Europe. Absolutely beautiful place, cliffs full of birds and the mist created great views. We also went to Raudisandur, a huge huge sand beach.

Wednesday I tried to find another trail, but ended up just walking a long way down the road and not finding the trail. But it was good exercise anyways. At night I took Ivar's canoe out, that was awesome to be out on the water and see things from a different view. The water was so calm and peaceful, it was amazing.

On Thursday I found that trail, but just walked a little ways into it, spent a lot of time just sitting and looking at the ocean, it was very soothing.

Friday was pretty quiet, it snowed in the evening, which was odd after the week of great weather. We went to the hot tubs at night, so relaxing.

Saturday was my last full day -- I spent the evening with Ivar's friends, thinking I was going to a film festival, but ended up just going out to the hot tubs again, and having a barbeque. I met a lot of other people, so that was great. Talked to someone who knew people on Sigur Ros's tech crew, and someone who had been asked to be their drummer but turned them down. The guy I was talking to was a sound engineer/tech guy in Reykjavik so that was cool.

On Sunday I flew out of Bildadular, a little town by Talknafjordur, to Reykjavik where I caught my flight back to London. BUT in Bildadular, I had my first celebrity spotting. A tiny, tiny airport with only a couple people in the waiting room, and one of them was Brian Cox, a prolific charactor actor, who has been in Supertroopers, X-Men, the Bourne movies, and a ton more. If you look him up on imdb.com, you might recognize him. So that was exciting.

A stray thought: The nightlife in Reykjavik is crazy -- I didn't go out, mostly due to price, (Iceland is also extremely expensive -- a beer would cost about 12 bucks, everything was about triple or quadruple what it was in the U.S.) but anyways, people there don't go out until around 2 a.m., and stay out until 6 a.m. Crazy people, I swear.

Sorry I sort of glossed over the rest of my trip, but the pictures might help, and I have so much to do, not mentioning keeping up my blog on the rest of my trip. I just saw an amazing concert tonight, Man Man, and I'm going to France this weekend, so I'll have plenty to update.