South Coast of Iceland

I took a two-day to the South Coast of Iceland, and if anyone is looking for somewhere to go around this time of year for just a short time, I'd highly recommend my journey! N & T and I took two days to travel from Reykjavík to Jokulsárlón and back, staying overnight in a 'Farm Holidays' residence near the famed glacial lagoon. Not too many tourists (yet, just wait until July, so I'm told) and the weather was intermittently horrible, but also sometimes intensely sunny and beautiful.

Our first stop was a new one for me, tipped off by another Fulbrighter. We stopped at Raufarhólshellir, a 1-km-long cave! It had several openings in the 'ceiling' where snow was piling in, and it was really rough going with lots of geometric collapsed rocks everywhere. But when we finally got to a point to go no further, the hike was well worth it- all of these ice formations greeted us with eerily stillness. The whole cave was dripping and melting, and you could even hear icicles crash and shatter from inside the cave.

I of course, was nerdy enough to bring a set of handbells, and T and I played them in amongst the icicles. It was an amazing experience. I recorded part of it- this is a section of the improvisation, without any other modifications- no audio tweaking or anything. I'm sure these sounds will get used for some other bigger work soon.


We stopped again by Seljalandsfoss, which never stops to be amazing that you can walk all the way around the waterfall.
I saw Svínafellsjökull for the first time, and was almost more impressed by these colors and patterns than at Jokulsárlón; the ground up sediment in the water in contrast with the milky blue of the glacier, slowly melting into this lagoon, is really incredible.

We stopped at Vík í Mýrdal and checked out the basalt cliffs and the beautiful coastline there. Man, Iceland loves its hexagons!



We ended up at Jokulsárlón, where the weather wasn't great but the glaciers were still amazing. We stayed at this farm-house converted into nearly a hotel, which was right on a 'beach'- more like a lake where a sandy embankment protected the coast from the pounding ocean waves.

A pretty amazing view for under US $30 a night! Though we did sleep in rooms next to fifteen 12-year-olds from France. They were surprisingly well-behaved. In the morning I had a breakfast as if I were a kid again, in a lion mug with some chocolate milk (and other healthy foods too, of course!)


The glacier views around Vatnajökull this time were much better- in September when I saw them last, there was so much rain and fog that I hardly saw anything! Now I could see all of the glacier 'fingers' coming down the mountain from the big parent glacier which takes up a good portion of Iceland's land on the south coast (and influences the weather for the country!). And, a rainbow.

We stopped at waterfall I had not seen yet, Skógafoss! Legend has it that there's treasure buried behind the waterfall, and someone managed to grab it once, but only could hold onto one ring off the chest. Now that ring is in a museum. I could believe the tale- It feels like you should be able to float through the mists and find a hidden cavern behind the falls.

Another peek at Vík on the way back, this time from a high-rising landmass called Dyrhólaey. The winds were intense up here but the views were incredible. It kind of felt like Aslan territory. That's a Narnia reference right there, yeah, I went there. The sun was shining on these huge ocean waves, all white and foamy, and they crashed on huge black rocks, and the winds could nearly blow you off your feet. It was the edge of the world.

First Guests Guinea Pigs

I had my first guests pay me a visit in Iceland this past week; A&S came over the Thanksgiving (or as I like to say Spanksgiving) weekend. As we don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Iceland, turkey and cranberry sauce was not easily obtained, but I made a nice lamb stew with mashed potatoes, and a berry jelly stood in for cranberries.

I was glad A&S were my first guests as they're very relaxed about staying; they could see things, or they could just hang out. They could go off on their own, or we could shop together. I was also able to test out things like the Golden Circle trip, and certain activities on certain days, and see what worked best and what to change for the parents' visit in January, and then for future guests as well!

Here are some good things I learned or reinforced regarding having guests.

1. When your guests arrive, force them to take a nap. It seems like a horrible idea after all that flying, you finally get to your destination, and then you have to try and go back to sleep, but it was such a good idea to recharge the batteries and reset one's clocks to Icelandic time without too much jetlag. The sun is so low and limited in the winter that at 11:00 in the morning you feel like you should just be waking up anyway, so that was convenient.


2. Snacks. Always good to have on hand for long walks or waiting for the bus.

3. Down time for the host. Very important! I got to send S&A out on adventures and that made my time with them more fun. Plus, Reykjavík is so small that unlike pushing someone out the door in Boston or New York, you could basically find your way back without a map, or just by walking along the seacoast trails.

4. General plan versus spontaneous. I liked having a general idea about what to do on certain days, and let guests decide what would be good for them. I knew one day should be spent to rent a car, for example, so we traveled around the tourist sites. And look at some of the amazing things we saw in just one day!




kerið, gullfoss, and þingvellir are represented here, all covered in a beautiful sparkly frost.

I wasn't hot about horseback riding, in fact I was quite skeptical (see said skeptical face below). But the gals really wanted to spend their other big day on this, and they offered to pay for me, and whaddyaknow I actually had a great time! My horse Högni was super cool. The sunset light was amazing. We stopped and took a break and I took a picture of the farmdog.


The biggest bummer is that I was sore the next day in me'shoulders and me'hipz, but a goodhot tub soak fixed that. It didn't fix my chafed asscheeks, though. Still working on that. Next time, perhaps a soft layer of thermal underwear under the jeans, protecting the plenitude of hair down there.

5. Duty free Saviors. Buying liquor and wine at the Duty-free saves me and my guests a lot of money, being able to have wine with dinner, or before going out. And so much cheaper than wine here in the city.

6. Sleep. Go to bed early, it is totally worth it. Then, party late one night to take in the Icelandic weekend. Also totally worth it.

7. Surprises. I do like surprising people with a great view, or perhaps an unusual food feast. If something doesn't work out, like the several times that a store/church/venue was closed, we could be pleasantly surprised by the spontaneity of something else random around the corner. I did not expect these incredible views at Geldinganes, a peninsula/island outside of the city center, but the timing was great and S got to take a million pictures with her fancycam. These are just from my crapcam.



Thanks to visitors, I got to see so many things I wouldn't really see being here and doing my day-to-day activities. I stopped into a lot of shops, ate at new places, cooked foods for more people than just myself. I got to have my friends wear my new jewelry creations out on the town. And I began to feel more at home here than I had felt up to now. A great feeling. Takk fyrir komuna, ameríksur vinir minir!

Names of Places

Short list of places I would like to visit purely on the pronunciation of its name:

Addis Ababa
Kyrgyzstan
Saskatoon
Missoula
Boise
Tuvalu
Sacramento
Cote D'Ivoire
Oman
Nuuk
Taipei
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Honshu
Saskatchewan (obviously)









I know that these names are totally random, some cities, some countries, some islands. Some of these places I even blogged about before, as I'm fascinated by places that are scarcely populated. But once you go, you get the pleasure of having the story around the dinner table, "Remember that time I went to Baffin Bay just because I thought it sounded good? That was a good time."

We've past the 20,000th visitor! Congratulations to whoever you are. Perhaps I'll have a party on the internet for the 25,000th patron. You'll get a slice of internet cake, your choice of flavor. (Insert joke about delicious "bytes" here.)

Photo: skyline of Nuuk, capital of Greenland. Courtesy of Wikipedia.