Day 2 had us getting up and taking a stroll around Michelstadt to get an idea of what it looked like during the day. Very cute little German town. Had a nice big breakfast buffet at the hotel, then loaded up the car (I drove it up to the hotel so no more big long luggage lugging trips!) and set off to our next destination. Rothenburg ob der Tauber would be our home for the next several nights but we decided to drive past it and go to another little walled Medieval village, Dinkelsbuhel.
Dinkelsbuhel was adorable, surrounded by an old wall and ramparts, but obviously still a fully functioning town. There is a decent bit of tourism, which I always assess by the number of restaurants around the town square, but also lots of shops both kitschy and practical. We had a nice late lunch at the Golden Rose across from the church, since it was the only place still open after 2pm. Nothing to write home about but our first schnitzel :) Afterwards we strolled down the town's main street until we arrived at the Christmas Market which was held on the grounds of the town museum. A lovely little open-air village kind of feel, with hay on the ground, plenty of gluhwein and some great stalls. I especially enjoyed the fact that so many of the artisans were truly local; one woman I spoke with has a regular office job but spends her spare time all through the year makign christmas crafty things while watching TV, stockipiling them and selling them at the Christmas market. She said almost everyone comes from the village or within an hour or so drive. Mom and dad got their first mug for their "Christmas Market Gluhwein Mug" collection, and we picked up a couple knicknacks. We also happily bought some tickets from the local school children for their "Tombola" which is kind of like a raffle. We ended up leaving with a Christmas ornament made from ribbon and a Kermit the frog plush from an old Happy Meal. Gotta love people's ingenuity :)
It being December, it gets dark pretty early, so when we finally left around 6:30 it was dark and had been for quite some time. We made the 30 minute or so drive back up to Rothenburg and parked at the parking lot southeast of the old town wall. From there it was a very short walk to our hotel, the Goldenen Rose (same name as our lunch place!) which was a restaurant below with some rooms upstairs. Our "family apartment" was perfect! Very old, "grandma's house"y, with a large bedroom with two twin beds at the front, then a doorway (with a curtain instead of a door) into a bedroom with a large double bed (both bedrooms had wardrobes and a chair), then it continued into a little living area with some threadbare furniture and a lovely little Christmas tree complete with decorations. There was also a small television that we never really figured out how to use; the buttons seemed to at times control the channel, other times the volume, other times the brightness...and often it was stuck on one channel. But everything on German TV is in German anyway so it was oK :) The bathroom was off of this living room, which wasn't ideal but we made do. Nice deep bathtub, and oddly a gigantic painting of a naked man, shown from behind drying himself off. Given my tendency to book gay owned and gay friendly B&Bs when I travel my family giggled and said I had a way of picking them even when I didn't mean to :)
This was a spectacular value, something like 87 euros a night for the room.
The only bad thing about this place is it is VERY far out of the center of the action, if there is such at thing in Rothenburg. Which is nice for the peace and quiet but a little of a pain when you've got people in the party with bad knees, bad back, etc and dont relish walking 500 meters uphill to get to the center. It's waaay far south, which makes it kind of a pain to just run back to the room to get an extra scarf or something while you're shopping, or drop off your bags. But we made do.
We missed the Rothenburg Christmas market; it had closed up before we made it up to the center. So we window shopped in the closed stores for a while, then had a lovely dinner with the best potato soup in the history of the world at the hotel Glock. Found out that at least in this area, potato dumplings are made with mostly raw potato and they're sticky and taste like papier mache.
Nice day.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
Christmas Markets - Michelstadt
This was a trip that my mother (who is 62) has been wanting to do for several years; we spent Christmas in Innsbruck in 1992 and even though it culiminated in her breaking her leg and being hospitalized in Austria for a week, she has such fond memories of the rest of the trip and the wonderful Christmasy feel of the towns and villages. So I was happy to be able to plan this trip for her. I was a little nervous about it becoming tedious, I mean, how many Christmas markets can you see before it gets tedious? I am happy to report, however, that every day brought a new experience, and I never got bored.
Day 1, I drove to Frankfurt from Belgium and picked them up at the Frankfurt airport around 3:00 p.m. Drove approximately 1 hour to Michelstadt, which had been recommended on another travel board. It was right next to Erbach, which someone on the Zine had recommended. We stayed at the Drei Hasen, a Hotel/Restaurant right in the center of the old town, across the street from the church. Location was perfect, price was excellent (90 euros for a double, 54 euro for a single). Due to the Christmas market we were unable to park in the hotel parking area; rather we had to park in the large parking lot on the outskirts of the altstadt. Not a bad walk except that we ended up with a spot waaaaaay in the back of the parking lot which doubled our walking time :) Only a problem if you bring a stupid amount of luggage as my parents did. "Drei Hasen" means "3 rabbits" and it was a lot of fun looking at all the different knicknacks, signs, etc with this motif on it scattered about the hotel and restaurant. Our rooms were spacious, bathroom was small with shower but adequate. We did not get a chance to try the restaurant, but the breakfast buffet was extensive and well done.
We dropped off our bags and wandered around the market, which was spread throughout the old town. Michelstadt definitely was a top winner in the FOOD category, as far as variety per square foot. They had every imaginable yummy German "market food" treat....pork sandwiches with grilled onions, bratwurst, spatzle, some other kind of pasta with sauerkraut, roasted chestnuts, crepes, other sausages, candied nuts, gingerbread, potato pancakes, you name it. The stalls selling things were pretty lame but there were some very nice shops, and many of them were open late into the evening as well. It got cold, rainy and windy as the evening wore on, which made it less enjoyable but as it was our first day we were determined enough to have fun that we enjoyed it quite a bit. We made a dinner out of sausage and spatzle, each sampled a baked good for dessert (gingerbread, macaroon, and a "Rothenburger schneeball" which was unanimously disliked). There was one nice stall selling hats and I got a really cute one; I never did see another one like it on the trip. I felt like Eliza Doolittle, and it was easy to pick me out of a crowd. Another thing to add to our "improperly prepared for inclement weather" souvenirs, including raincoats, jackets, hats and umbrellas from Amsterdam, Paris, and London.
The town itself was a joy to wander around in. Very small and compact, but full of little alleys, courtyards, etc and typical half-timbered houses. We found an interesting statue of santa with 6 reindeer, some with recognizable names and others not so much. There was Blitzen, alongside Willi, Kasimir, and Otto?! A web search resulted in finding this story http://www.kidsweb.de/weihnacht/weihnacht_2004/geschichte/kasimir_das_rentier.html but i'm still not sure what that means, as I do not speak German :)
Things shut down at all the markets a bit earlier than I'd like, since I really like the feel of them at night. Luckily because of the short days it gets dark at like 4:00! :)
Anyway we wound back up at the hotel around 8:00, where we relaxed, planned our itinerary for the next day, and got a good nights sleep under those lovely feather beds. We decided that instead of trying to stop at Wurzburg en route that we would just drive on to our next destination which was Rothenburg ob der Tauber, where we would stay for 4 nights.
2 thumbs up for Drei Hasen, 2 thumbs up for Michelstadt, 2 thumbs down for rainy cold weather.
Day 1, I drove to Frankfurt from Belgium and picked them up at the Frankfurt airport around 3:00 p.m. Drove approximately 1 hour to Michelstadt, which had been recommended on another travel board. It was right next to Erbach, which someone on the Zine had recommended. We stayed at the Drei Hasen, a Hotel/Restaurant right in the center of the old town, across the street from the church. Location was perfect, price was excellent (90 euros for a double, 54 euro for a single). Due to the Christmas market we were unable to park in the hotel parking area; rather we had to park in the large parking lot on the outskirts of the altstadt. Not a bad walk except that we ended up with a spot waaaaaay in the back of the parking lot which doubled our walking time :) Only a problem if you bring a stupid amount of luggage as my parents did. "Drei Hasen" means "3 rabbits" and it was a lot of fun looking at all the different knicknacks, signs, etc with this motif on it scattered about the hotel and restaurant. Our rooms were spacious, bathroom was small with shower but adequate. We did not get a chance to try the restaurant, but the breakfast buffet was extensive and well done.
We dropped off our bags and wandered around the market, which was spread throughout the old town. Michelstadt definitely was a top winner in the FOOD category, as far as variety per square foot. They had every imaginable yummy German "market food" treat....pork sandwiches with grilled onions, bratwurst, spatzle, some other kind of pasta with sauerkraut, roasted chestnuts, crepes, other sausages, candied nuts, gingerbread, potato pancakes, you name it. The stalls selling things were pretty lame but there were some very nice shops, and many of them were open late into the evening as well. It got cold, rainy and windy as the evening wore on, which made it less enjoyable but as it was our first day we were determined enough to have fun that we enjoyed it quite a bit. We made a dinner out of sausage and spatzle, each sampled a baked good for dessert (gingerbread, macaroon, and a "Rothenburger schneeball" which was unanimously disliked). There was one nice stall selling hats and I got a really cute one; I never did see another one like it on the trip. I felt like Eliza Doolittle, and it was easy to pick me out of a crowd. Another thing to add to our "improperly prepared for inclement weather" souvenirs, including raincoats, jackets, hats and umbrellas from Amsterdam, Paris, and London.
The town itself was a joy to wander around in. Very small and compact, but full of little alleys, courtyards, etc and typical half-timbered houses. We found an interesting statue of santa with 6 reindeer, some with recognizable names and others not so much. There was Blitzen, alongside Willi, Kasimir, and Otto?! A web search resulted in finding this story http://www.kidsweb.de/weihnacht/weihnacht_2004/geschichte/kasimir_das_rentier.html but i'm still not sure what that means, as I do not speak German :)
Things shut down at all the markets a bit earlier than I'd like, since I really like the feel of them at night. Luckily because of the short days it gets dark at like 4:00! :)
Anyway we wound back up at the hotel around 8:00, where we relaxed, planned our itinerary for the next day, and got a good nights sleep under those lovely feather beds. We decided that instead of trying to stop at Wurzburg en route that we would just drive on to our next destination which was Rothenburg ob der Tauber, where we would stay for 4 nights.
2 thumbs up for Drei Hasen, 2 thumbs up for Michelstadt, 2 thumbs down for rainy cold weather.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Celebrity lookalikes and supercool morphy thing
Kind of like those little "make a tornado in a plastic bottle" things, its not exactly earth-shattering but I still think it's freaking awesome
does this work?
Its a cool "see me morph into a celebrity" thing but it wont paste into myspace
Drew Barrymore
Lisa Kudrow
See who else I look like!!
does this work?
Its a cool "see me morph into a celebrity" thing but it wont paste into myspace
Drew Barrymore
Lisa Kudrow
See who else I look like!!
Sunday, July 29, 2007
I'm terrible at keeping up with blogs
I don't know if its because i'm such a perfectionist, or if I'm just silly and want to keep things separate (i.e. there's stuff my mom cares about that my friends dont, etc) or what but I've ended up with a big yucky hodgepodge of blogs , alums and trip reports, most of them only half done, and it makes me sad. But what are you gonna do. I'm going to try to enter a trip report from our recent trip to Iceland with a few highlight pictures, and I will also post a link to a shutterfly album with more pictures.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
ICELAND Day 5: On the road again...waterfalls, dirt roads and grass houses
Up early, Robbie, Alexa and I headed to the car parked nearby, piled in and headed for the airport, which was surprisingly easy. Dropped them off without incident, said our goodbyes and I headed back to the hotel, where Mike had already paid our hosts and was ready to go. Laden with leftover food, bags of souvenirs, and suitcases, vowing to "get it all sorted out later", we returned to the car and set out. I had booked us at a hostel for that night at Fljotsdalur, near Hvolsvollur, because it looked charming. It was only about 2 hours from Reykjavik so I figured we would do a bit of backtracking, but for the most part our schedule was an open book. So off we went!
Our first stop was at Hveragerði, Iceland's "Greenhouse town" and home of the Iceland Horticulture School. There really wasn't that much to see, just a bunch of greenhouses, one of which "Eden" had a big tourist center and a Home Depot-like selection of potted plants and a teensy section of gardening equipment and supplies. It was quite anomalous, seeing all this lush tropical greenery in such a barren spot. We traveled out to the Horticulture school and looked around a bit; it was very interesting to see the pipes they used as a conduit to bring the heat from the ground up into the greenhouses. I think we were supposed to see this town the other day as part of our Golden Circle tour but as I've already expounded upon, that didn't happen, other than "down there is a town with a lot of greenhouses where they grow all the vegetables." Pretty much everything that's not imported from overseas is grown here.
Oh one neat thing I didn't mention from our earlier day trip, I think it was the caving one, was the fact that every now and then you would stumble upon this massive group of wooden posts, looking kind of like clothes drying racks only bigger and sturdier. They were fish drying racks! Dried fish is a major export from Iceland; some is sent to Spain and Italy, but our guide told us that a lot is sent to African countries like Kenya. We actually bought a package of "fish jerky," dried fish that's a common snack food, but somehow never got around to trying it. In fact it may be sitting around mixed in with our other souvenirs right now. I'm sure my nose will stumble upon it sometime. :)
Anyway, on we drove, past rolling meadows, horses, and rocks. I pointed out Iceland's largest volcano off in the distance to our left, and Mike asked if there was anything to see. I checked the guide book and found reference to a "Mt. Hekla Museum" that had all sorts of exhibits on previous eruptions and the local people's relationship to the volcano, so we decided to head over there. We missed the first turn but looking at the map it looked like another road a bit further on would also take us there so we just took that road.
A note about the roads: Without a 4 wheel drive, you are prohibited from driving on so-called "F-roads," which are pretty clearly marked on signs and maps as F239, F324 etc. These roads are pretty much kind-of-worn-in tracks, often going through rivers, etc so its understandable that you can't drive on them. I was surprised, however, at the quality of some of the roads that you WERE allowed to drive on. I guess i was thinking they'd all be paved - boy was I wrong :) I made a little video of us driving down this lovely road i selected for us to drive down towards Mt. Hekla, which as gravel and so bumpy I could feel my teeth knocking together. I was a bit nervous and felt very bad for the suspension/shocks/whatever of this poor rental car.
Anyway, what looked like it would be about a 30 minute drive on the map turned into about an hour and a half of puttering down this dirt road, with me being terrified that we were going to fly off into a ditch and Mike being annoyed that I wouldn't let him drive faster. There were a lot of rocks, but occasionally also lush soft grass and pretty rivers. We stopped for lunch by a little brook - i couldn't believe how soft the grass was! Could have laid there all day.
Continued driving until we had pretty much gotten as close to the volcano as you can without hiking, and took a road to get us back to the road we were originally going to take to get there so we could find the museum.
We burst out laughing because THIS road was paved, nice, and smooth! We never were able to find the museum, but we made it back to the main road in like 20 minutes.
Our next stop was the Seijlandsfoss waterfall. It was beautiful, very powerful and a very wet slick path led to a cave area behind the waterfall which was very cool.
We hiked along for a while past a couple other pretty falls, including one that was pretty much completely hidden from the front because it was walled in on 3 sides. There was a little wooden gate that we went through and were able to go straight up to it, isolated from everything else, unable to see the road or anything. With the roar of the waterfall, the smell of fresh greenery....it was so relaxing and peaceful. We spent a long time just sitting and enjoying things, our own little garden of Eden.
I took a zillion pictures - everything was just so green and pretty! Unfortunately, eventually the clouds started to roll in and things got pretty overcast, drizzly and gray. We decided it was time to start going to look for the hostel so we could get an early start the next morning.
Even though the Fljotsdalur hostel was just a mile or two north of us, we had to drive back south quite a ways to get to the road. The road from Hvolsvollur took us through some lovely countryside, several waterfalls, farms, etc Too bad it was so drizzly. We drove alll the way to the end of the road, where we found a sign for Fljotsdalur pointing up a gravel drive with a sign that said "4WD ONLY!". Sigh. So we had to park at the main road and trudge up the gravel drive in the rain :)
We got to the hostel, a tiny, old turf house with a door that was only about 5 feet high. We heard voices, a group of 3-4 middle aged British people joking and cooking dinner in the kitchen. They had us take our shoes off and showed us to a small room with 2 sets of bunk beds. Another couple arrived at some point, a married pair of geologists on a long weekend holiday. We had a nice time chatting. The person who runs the hostel has been running small group adventure tours for the last several decades - they dont have a website so i can't link the information.
Anyway, I asked about a shower (the bathroom I'd seen had only a toilet and sink) and was informed that there was a shower outside in the garden. LOL! Well, I didn't feel like being adventurous in the rain, and I was tired so I just laid down to download my pictures, only to realize that I had left my computer charge cable in the apartment in Reykjavik. Oops. At least I was able to download the pictures and clean up the memory card.
The walls were thin so we could hear people snoring in the next room, and I think we both snored as well because I had a pretty icky respiratory infection brewing...but luckily we had the room to ourself.
We curled up in our little bunk beds and were out like a light after a busy day.
Pictures to be added later.
Our first stop was at Hveragerði, Iceland's "Greenhouse town" and home of the Iceland Horticulture School. There really wasn't that much to see, just a bunch of greenhouses, one of which "Eden" had a big tourist center and a Home Depot-like selection of potted plants and a teensy section of gardening equipment and supplies. It was quite anomalous, seeing all this lush tropical greenery in such a barren spot. We traveled out to the Horticulture school and looked around a bit; it was very interesting to see the pipes they used as a conduit to bring the heat from the ground up into the greenhouses. I think we were supposed to see this town the other day as part of our Golden Circle tour but as I've already expounded upon, that didn't happen, other than "down there is a town with a lot of greenhouses where they grow all the vegetables." Pretty much everything that's not imported from overseas is grown here.
Oh one neat thing I didn't mention from our earlier day trip, I think it was the caving one, was the fact that every now and then you would stumble upon this massive group of wooden posts, looking kind of like clothes drying racks only bigger and sturdier. They were fish drying racks! Dried fish is a major export from Iceland; some is sent to Spain and Italy, but our guide told us that a lot is sent to African countries like Kenya. We actually bought a package of "fish jerky," dried fish that's a common snack food, but somehow never got around to trying it. In fact it may be sitting around mixed in with our other souvenirs right now. I'm sure my nose will stumble upon it sometime. :)
Anyway, on we drove, past rolling meadows, horses, and rocks. I pointed out Iceland's largest volcano off in the distance to our left, and Mike asked if there was anything to see. I checked the guide book and found reference to a "Mt. Hekla Museum" that had all sorts of exhibits on previous eruptions and the local people's relationship to the volcano, so we decided to head over there. We missed the first turn but looking at the map it looked like another road a bit further on would also take us there so we just took that road.
A note about the roads: Without a 4 wheel drive, you are prohibited from driving on so-called "F-roads," which are pretty clearly marked on signs and maps as F239, F324 etc. These roads are pretty much kind-of-worn-in tracks, often going through rivers, etc so its understandable that you can't drive on them. I was surprised, however, at the quality of some of the roads that you WERE allowed to drive on. I guess i was thinking they'd all be paved - boy was I wrong :) I made a little video of us driving down this lovely road i selected for us to drive down towards Mt. Hekla, which as gravel and so bumpy I could feel my teeth knocking together. I was a bit nervous and felt very bad for the suspension/shocks/whatever of this poor rental car.
Anyway, what looked like it would be about a 30 minute drive on the map turned into about an hour and a half of puttering down this dirt road, with me being terrified that we were going to fly off into a ditch and Mike being annoyed that I wouldn't let him drive faster. There were a lot of rocks, but occasionally also lush soft grass and pretty rivers. We stopped for lunch by a little brook - i couldn't believe how soft the grass was! Could have laid there all day.
Continued driving until we had pretty much gotten as close to the volcano as you can without hiking, and took a road to get us back to the road we were originally going to take to get there so we could find the museum.
We burst out laughing because THIS road was paved, nice, and smooth! We never were able to find the museum, but we made it back to the main road in like 20 minutes.
Our next stop was the Seijlandsfoss waterfall. It was beautiful, very powerful and a very wet slick path led to a cave area behind the waterfall which was very cool.
We hiked along for a while past a couple other pretty falls, including one that was pretty much completely hidden from the front because it was walled in on 3 sides. There was a little wooden gate that we went through and were able to go straight up to it, isolated from everything else, unable to see the road or anything. With the roar of the waterfall, the smell of fresh greenery....it was so relaxing and peaceful. We spent a long time just sitting and enjoying things, our own little garden of Eden.
I took a zillion pictures - everything was just so green and pretty! Unfortunately, eventually the clouds started to roll in and things got pretty overcast, drizzly and gray. We decided it was time to start going to look for the hostel so we could get an early start the next morning.
Even though the Fljotsdalur hostel was just a mile or two north of us, we had to drive back south quite a ways to get to the road. The road from Hvolsvollur took us through some lovely countryside, several waterfalls, farms, etc Too bad it was so drizzly. We drove alll the way to the end of the road, where we found a sign for Fljotsdalur pointing up a gravel drive with a sign that said "4WD ONLY!". Sigh. So we had to park at the main road and trudge up the gravel drive in the rain :)
We got to the hostel, a tiny, old turf house with a door that was only about 5 feet high. We heard voices, a group of 3-4 middle aged British people joking and cooking dinner in the kitchen. They had us take our shoes off and showed us to a small room with 2 sets of bunk beds. Another couple arrived at some point, a married pair of geologists on a long weekend holiday. We had a nice time chatting. The person who runs the hostel has been running small group adventure tours for the last several decades - they dont have a website so i can't link the information.
Anyway, I asked about a shower (the bathroom I'd seen had only a toilet and sink) and was informed that there was a shower outside in the garden. LOL! Well, I didn't feel like being adventurous in the rain, and I was tired so I just laid down to download my pictures, only to realize that I had left my computer charge cable in the apartment in Reykjavik. Oops. At least I was able to download the pictures and clean up the memory card.
The walls were thin so we could hear people snoring in the next room, and I think we both snored as well because I had a pretty icky respiratory infection brewing...but luckily we had the room to ourself.
We curled up in our little bunk beds and were out like a light after a busy day.
Pictures to be added later.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
ICELAND day 4: Meadows and Horses and Whales, oh my!
Today was our last day with Robbie and Alexa, and on the schedule....horseback riding!! Alexa was very excited about this. I have to admit I approached it with a great deal of trepidation: instead of a brief 45 minute trot we had signed up for a 3 hour ride. Because a 10 year old who had never ridden horses for that long wanted to. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Alexa kicked butt! We were all pretty much horseback riding novices, but we all held our own. But man, she was hopping on and off of that horse like she'd been doing it forever.
We did our tour through Eldhestar stables, outside of Reykjavik heading southeast on the ring road. We did the "Meadows and Mountains" tour, a 3 hour group ride. They picked us up at our hotel around 9:00 a.m. and we drove the 30 minutes or so out to the farm. There they gave us helmets and assigned us our horses. I was disappointed because our guide didn't know the horses' names. But we all had nice friendly horses. There were a lot of people there, but they were all departing on different day trips, so we ended up in a group with just the four of us and another couple, Swedish I think. Our guide was a very pretty girl from Sweden who was working at the farm for the summer. She set us off through the fields, and soon taught us how to "Tolt," which is a particular gait to the Icelandic horses. Here is a description from an Icelandic horse web site:
For anyone who has ever ridden a horse and ended up being barely able to sit down in the days following you can imagine how nice this is. We were able to trot our horses in tolt off and on (It is apparently more of a workout for the horses so unless you keep the reins tight they'll get lazy and start bouncing you again. We had a difficult time getting the hang of it at first but once you've got it, you know you've got it. :)
The Icelandic horse breed is very pure, having been unchanged since the animals were brought here by the Vikings. No other horse breeds are permitted to be imported into the country, and once an Icelandic horse has left it cannot return.....banished into exile for life! They're small horses, and in the winter they get this luxurious thick coat. They seem like sturdy friendly animals.
We walked, trotted, tolted, whatevered our way through some pastures, past the breeding animals, up a hill, then down some fun rocky paths and across a couple rivers. The time really did kind of fly by. Alexa has a blast, which was fun to see. The meadow part of the ride was a little bit boring, and I was really bummed by the fact that they asked you to not take pictures, even when you were stopped, while you were on the horse. I snuck the camera out a couple of times anyway, but I did miss some nice shots. I would have enjoyed riding these horses along the beaches.
Butts tired but feeling exhilarated, we returned back to town, asking the van driver if she would drop me and Mike off at the car rental place which turned out to be absolutely nowhere near the part of town where we were staying (Duh, "Old Town" and "Downtown" are not the same thing). She begrudgingly complied, and so we went into the Avis office and picked up our car. Like everyone else on the road who hadn't splurged for a 4WD we would be driving a Toyota Yaris. I had requested the cheapest car available, a 2D but she gave us a 4D. I was a little bummed to get a gray one but I was happy to finally have some wheels.
We navigated our way back to Old Town (we had considered going to Hafnarfjordur and doing some "elf hunting" but the time frame just wasn't shaping up), returned to our hotel and met back up with Robbie and Alexa. We relaxed a little bit, then set out back onto the town for some last minute souvenir shopping and our whalewatching trip.
Robbie found some really cute Christmas ornaments representing the "Yule Lads," 12 boys who show up, each on a different day, during the days leading up to Christmas and cause all sorts of trouble. They are the sons of trolls that live in the mountains There's the one who eats all your sausages, the one who comes and blows out all your candles.....I bought an ornament representing the one that comes and peeps in your window; Robbie bought the "Skyr-glutton."
Oooh have I not said anything about Skyr?
Skyr is a dairy product, apparently exclusive to Iceland, which is kind of like yogurt only smoother and less tart. It's actually quite similar to Greek yogurt in consistency. It is available unflavored (about as tasty as you would imagine) and in flavors like vanilla, blueberry, strawberry etc. People make smoothies out of it, or mix it in with their cereal and milk. It's extremely low in fat and high in protein; a fantastic food product! I had it for breakfast pretty much every day and often as a snack as well.
So anyway, with a couple more purchases from the christmas store (You know me and my Christmas ornaments - I got a little lamb made of lambswool with a santa hat, and a beautiful puffin as well, and a little book that tells the story of the Yule lads) we headed back to the hot dog stand for hot dogs and another sack-o-fries, then to the harbor to buy tickets for our whalewatching tour.
I'm glad we went, but man was the weather crap. Overcast, rainy, windy, and cold...and our guide's English was kind of lacking (I think she was German) as was her ability to indicate direction. We saw about 5-6 Minke whales and a porpoise, drank a lot of hot chocolate and spent time just talking to each other about all we had seen. We did get to stop at Puffin Island, a big breeding area for puffins and watch them all fly away in terror as the big boat approached.
One thing you sure don't see every day......diretly across the pier from the docking station for the whalewatching tour are these giant, hulking big ships with a big red "H" painted on the side. These are commercial whaling vessels (yes I found it a bit disconcerting); the "H" stands for "Hvar" which means "whale" in Icelandic. Just seeing the boats brought up images of blood spattered decks and big whale carcasses. Ick. I made it a point never to "Try" whale meat, which was offered as a delicacy in quite a few places. I also never had puffin, although not for ethical reasons, we just didn't really eat anything other than hot dogs and peanut butter sandwiches. :)
The whalewatching boat offered very warm waterproof bundling up gear, which none of us availed ourselves of, and regretted a bit later.
As much as we didn't want it to be, our time together in Iceland was winding down. After almost 3 weeks in Europe, Robbie and Alexa were heading home the next day. We returned to the room and started packing up our stuff. The plan was for us to leave really early in the morning, drop the kids off at the airport, then start on the road to try and catch the bus for the Thorsmork nature reserve in Hvolsvollur at 10 or 10:30. At some point we realized there was no way that all 4 of us plus our bags were goign to fit in this teeny car. So, we decided to forget Thorsmork and that I would drive them to the airport, then return to collect Mike and our bags and we'd get on the road whenever.
We did our tour through Eldhestar stables, outside of Reykjavik heading southeast on the ring road. We did the "Meadows and Mountains" tour, a 3 hour group ride. They picked us up at our hotel around 9:00 a.m. and we drove the 30 minutes or so out to the farm. There they gave us helmets and assigned us our horses. I was disappointed because our guide didn't know the horses' names. But we all had nice friendly horses. There were a lot of people there, but they were all departing on different day trips, so we ended up in a group with just the four of us and another couple, Swedish I think. Our guide was a very pretty girl from Sweden who was working at the farm for the summer. She set us off through the fields, and soon taught us how to "Tolt," which is a particular gait to the Icelandic horses. Here is a description from an Icelandic horse web site:
Tolt is a four-beat gait. There are alternately one or two feet on the ground, the two feet are alternately in lateral and diagonal pairs.
Tolt is a four-beat gait without a moment of suspension. In tolt, a horse has always either one or two feet on the ground. Tolt tempi range ridden from working speed right up to racing speed and a fast tolting horse can reach similar speeds as in gallop. The horse carries itself proudly and gives a very smooth ride, enabling the rider to cover long distances without tiring.
For anyone who has ever ridden a horse and ended up being barely able to sit down in the days following you can imagine how nice this is. We were able to trot our horses in tolt off and on (It is apparently more of a workout for the horses so unless you keep the reins tight they'll get lazy and start bouncing you again. We had a difficult time getting the hang of it at first but once you've got it, you know you've got it. :)
The Icelandic horse breed is very pure, having been unchanged since the animals were brought here by the Vikings. No other horse breeds are permitted to be imported into the country, and once an Icelandic horse has left it cannot return.....banished into exile for life! They're small horses, and in the winter they get this luxurious thick coat. They seem like sturdy friendly animals.
We walked, trotted, tolted, whatevered our way through some pastures, past the breeding animals, up a hill, then down some fun rocky paths and across a couple rivers. The time really did kind of fly by. Alexa has a blast, which was fun to see. The meadow part of the ride was a little bit boring, and I was really bummed by the fact that they asked you to not take pictures, even when you were stopped, while you were on the horse. I snuck the camera out a couple of times anyway, but I did miss some nice shots. I would have enjoyed riding these horses along the beaches.
Butts tired but feeling exhilarated, we returned back to town, asking the van driver if she would drop me and Mike off at the car rental place which turned out to be absolutely nowhere near the part of town where we were staying (Duh, "Old Town" and "Downtown" are not the same thing). She begrudgingly complied, and so we went into the Avis office and picked up our car. Like everyone else on the road who hadn't splurged for a 4WD we would be driving a Toyota Yaris. I had requested the cheapest car available, a 2D but she gave us a 4D. I was a little bummed to get a gray one but I was happy to finally have some wheels.
We navigated our way back to Old Town (we had considered going to Hafnarfjordur and doing some "elf hunting" but the time frame just wasn't shaping up), returned to our hotel and met back up with Robbie and Alexa. We relaxed a little bit, then set out back onto the town for some last minute souvenir shopping and our whalewatching trip.
Robbie found some really cute Christmas ornaments representing the "Yule Lads," 12 boys who show up, each on a different day, during the days leading up to Christmas and cause all sorts of trouble. They are the sons of trolls that live in the mountains There's the one who eats all your sausages, the one who comes and blows out all your candles.....I bought an ornament representing the one that comes and peeps in your window; Robbie bought the "Skyr-glutton."
Oooh have I not said anything about Skyr?
Skyr is a dairy product, apparently exclusive to Iceland, which is kind of like yogurt only smoother and less tart. It's actually quite similar to Greek yogurt in consistency. It is available unflavored (about as tasty as you would imagine) and in flavors like vanilla, blueberry, strawberry etc. People make smoothies out of it, or mix it in with their cereal and milk. It's extremely low in fat and high in protein; a fantastic food product! I had it for breakfast pretty much every day and often as a snack as well.
So anyway, with a couple more purchases from the christmas store (You know me and my Christmas ornaments - I got a little lamb made of lambswool with a santa hat, and a beautiful puffin as well, and a little book that tells the story of the Yule lads) we headed back to the hot dog stand for hot dogs and another sack-o-fries, then to the harbor to buy tickets for our whalewatching tour.
I'm glad we went, but man was the weather crap. Overcast, rainy, windy, and cold...and our guide's English was kind of lacking (I think she was German) as was her ability to indicate direction. We saw about 5-6 Minke whales and a porpoise, drank a lot of hot chocolate and spent time just talking to each other about all we had seen. We did get to stop at Puffin Island, a big breeding area for puffins and watch them all fly away in terror as the big boat approached.
One thing you sure don't see every day......diretly across the pier from the docking station for the whalewatching tour are these giant, hulking big ships with a big red "H" painted on the side. These are commercial whaling vessels (yes I found it a bit disconcerting); the "H" stands for "Hvar" which means "whale" in Icelandic. Just seeing the boats brought up images of blood spattered decks and big whale carcasses. Ick. I made it a point never to "Try" whale meat, which was offered as a delicacy in quite a few places. I also never had puffin, although not for ethical reasons, we just didn't really eat anything other than hot dogs and peanut butter sandwiches. :)
The whalewatching boat offered very warm waterproof bundling up gear, which none of us availed ourselves of, and regretted a bit later.
As much as we didn't want it to be, our time together in Iceland was winding down. After almost 3 weeks in Europe, Robbie and Alexa were heading home the next day. We returned to the room and started packing up our stuff. The plan was for us to leave really early in the morning, drop the kids off at the airport, then start on the road to try and catch the bus for the Thorsmork nature reserve in Hvolsvollur at 10 or 10:30. At some point we realized there was no way that all 4 of us plus our bags were goign to fit in this teeny car. So, we decided to forget Thorsmork and that I would drive them to the airport, then return to collect Mike and our bags and we'd get on the road whenever.
Monday, July 23, 2007
ICELAND day 3: Nikki the silent and the Golden Circle
This morning started early with an 8:00 pickup and a return to the Iceland Excursions headquarters to pay for and meet up with our guide for the SuperJeep Golden Circle tour we had booked.
So, the Golden Circle is a little "triangle" of 3 of the high points of Iceland near Reykjavik. It's a nice little circuit that every tour group makes and if you only have 1 day in Iceland it's what you should see. It includes the hot springs including Geysir (namesake of all other geysers in the world), gulfoss waterfall and Thingvellir national park, an area along the mid-Atlantic ridge and also the site where the Icelandic parliament met once a year until the 1700s. Yes, they met outside, in what is now a national park.
And a "SuperJeep" is a vehicle that has some serious hydraulics, gigantic tires, and all sorts of extras that allow it to drive through water, across rivers, on rocky terrain, etc.
It's like a 4WD on Steroids. In one of these vehicles you're able to go to a lot of places regular buses can't take you, more into nature. We had wanted to do one of these tours but they are really really really expensive (over $200 per person) and so Robbie found a golden circle trip that was done with a SuperJeep where Alexa was half price. Since we were going to do a Golden circle tour anyway it was more economical.
So our guide, subcontracted from Mountaineers of Iceland, shows up with actually a "SuperVan,"
Despite the fact that we were the only 4 on the tour. We were excited about having a private guide for this tour.
Our first stop was at Thingvellir National park. It's sort of touted as a place where you can have "one foot in Europe and the other in America" because it's on the mid-Atlantic ridge separating the European continental shelf from the North American shelf, but that's not exactly true. The "dividing line" is much hazier than that and is several kilometers wide; there's not really any one point where one stops and the other starts. There are plenty of places in this park that make for a good picture if you wanna go with that story though...
After coming down from the glacier we drove back to Gulfoss waterfall to the visitor center there to have a very late lunch (Probably close to 4:00 by now). Robbie had a lamb salad sandwich :) We picked up a few souvenirs and then headed towards the hot springs and the eponymous Geysir.
On the way I made the driver stop so I could take a picture of this amazing river.
Finally we arrived at the hot springs. You can tell you are there from the unpleasant sulfur smell, lack of vegetation, steam and hordes of people.
"Geysir" has been dormant for quite some time now, but we still made a pilgrimage to say hi, and then wandered about seeing all the bubbling hot pots, steaming pools etc. Then we gathered around the most active geyser and waited with everyone else for it to go off.
And...that was pretty much our Golden Circle tour day! We returned back to Reykjavik after a 45 minute or so drive.
We really really enjoyed the trip up on to the glacier. It was definitely worth the money.
But
Our guide absolutely sucked. One part of traveling in a small group vs. a big tour bus was supposed to be more personalized treatment, you know, you could ask questions, he could talk about more of what we were interested in etc. I dont know if it was because GreyLine paid for the "cheap" version of the trip or if we just got a miserable guide, but getting this guy to talk was like pulling teeth. We would ask questions and he would respond with one word or one sentence answers or ignore us completely. When we got to these amazing sights he would just drop us off at one end and tell us he would meet us at the other. We were so disappointed as it was one of our only chances to really spend time with an Icelander and we were all so interested in the folk tales, history etc as well as life in modern Iceland. The only time he talked animatedly about anything was when talking about the van mechanics ith Mike and a little bit when we talked about the cost of living in Iceland. The ride back to Reykjavik most of us actually just slept.
If I had to do it over again I would just drive myself around the sites and pay for a snowmobile ride separately. Or do a different tour. This tour was waaaaay to expensive for us to be gypped as we were on the quality of the information given and can not be recommended. Because the guide was actually from Mountaineers of Iceland I can't recommend them or the SuperJeep tour through GreyLine/Iceland Excursions. We had an amazing time despite the guide, though.
Arrived back in Reykjavik around 6:00. We did some more souvenir shopping, ate some lobster soup and hot dogs and called it a night.
So, the Golden Circle is a little "triangle" of 3 of the high points of Iceland near Reykjavik. It's a nice little circuit that every tour group makes and if you only have 1 day in Iceland it's what you should see. It includes the hot springs including Geysir (namesake of all other geysers in the world), gulfoss waterfall and Thingvellir national park, an area along the mid-Atlantic ridge and also the site where the Icelandic parliament met once a year until the 1700s. Yes, they met outside, in what is now a national park.
And a "SuperJeep" is a vehicle that has some serious hydraulics, gigantic tires, and all sorts of extras that allow it to drive through water, across rivers, on rocky terrain, etc.
It's like a 4WD on Steroids. In one of these vehicles you're able to go to a lot of places regular buses can't take you, more into nature. We had wanted to do one of these tours but they are really really really expensive (over $200 per person) and so Robbie found a golden circle trip that was done with a SuperJeep where Alexa was half price. Since we were going to do a Golden circle tour anyway it was more economical.
So our guide, subcontracted from Mountaineers of Iceland, shows up with actually a "SuperVan,"
Despite the fact that we were the only 4 on the tour. We were excited about having a private guide for this tour.
Our first stop was at Thingvellir National park. It's sort of touted as a place where you can have "one foot in Europe and the other in America" because it's on the mid-Atlantic ridge separating the European continental shelf from the North American shelf, but that's not exactly true. The "dividing line" is much hazier than that and is several kilometers wide; there's not really any one point where one stops and the other starts. There are plenty of places in this park that make for a good picture if you wanna go with that story though...
Alexa started sort of freaking out because she saw a bee and there were some gnats around, but other than that we all had a nice time walking through the park.
Our "guide" dropped us off at one end and told us he would meet us with the van at the other end. He did tell us a little about the Parliament, and how they would come and set up a big tent village in the summer to get all the legislatin' done. Mike thinks all governments would be a lot more efficient if they had to conduct all their business outside in Iceland. something to think about.
After Mike and the guide had a spirited conversation about the van's hydraulics or transmission or something, and a few more pictures of the beautiful scenery,
we hopped back in the van and headed towards Gulfoss (actually that was supposed to be a later stop, but the weather was nice as we passed by and so our guide decided to have us do it then rather than risk rain later.)
Not a ton to say about Gulfoss, other than it's pretty. "Gulfoss" means "Golden Falls," and on some days there's a persistent rainbow in the mist which looks beautiful in pictures. No rainbow but still lovely, and powerful, and inspiring. And this isn't even the biggest one in Iceland!
Robbie and Alexa headed up after the initial obligatory shots but Mike and I wanted to get closer.
A video from up next to the waterfall. It was wet.
Then it was time to hop back in the monster van and go on to the fun stuff.....kick the SuperVan into gear and go drivin over the rocks to the edge of the Langjokull Glacier for...dum dum dummmmm....snowmobiling!
I was really impressed by how much fun Alexa had. Thought she might be scared, but she thought it was a blast!
After coming down from the glacier we drove back to Gulfoss waterfall to the visitor center there to have a very late lunch (Probably close to 4:00 by now). Robbie had a lamb salad sandwich :) We picked up a few souvenirs and then headed towards the hot springs and the eponymous Geysir.
On the way I made the driver stop so I could take a picture of this amazing river.
Finally we arrived at the hot springs. You can tell you are there from the unpleasant sulfur smell, lack of vegetation, steam and hordes of people.
"Geysir" has been dormant for quite some time now, but we still made a pilgrimage to say hi, and then wandered about seeing all the bubbling hot pots, steaming pools etc. Then we gathered around the most active geyser and waited with everyone else for it to go off.
And...that was pretty much our Golden Circle tour day! We returned back to Reykjavik after a 45 minute or so drive.
We really really enjoyed the trip up on to the glacier. It was definitely worth the money.
But
Our guide absolutely sucked. One part of traveling in a small group vs. a big tour bus was supposed to be more personalized treatment, you know, you could ask questions, he could talk about more of what we were interested in etc. I dont know if it was because GreyLine paid for the "cheap" version of the trip or if we just got a miserable guide, but getting this guy to talk was like pulling teeth. We would ask questions and he would respond with one word or one sentence answers or ignore us completely. When we got to these amazing sights he would just drop us off at one end and tell us he would meet us at the other. We were so disappointed as it was one of our only chances to really spend time with an Icelander and we were all so interested in the folk tales, history etc as well as life in modern Iceland. The only time he talked animatedly about anything was when talking about the van mechanics ith Mike and a little bit when we talked about the cost of living in Iceland. The ride back to Reykjavik most of us actually just slept.
If I had to do it over again I would just drive myself around the sites and pay for a snowmobile ride separately. Or do a different tour. This tour was waaaaay to expensive for us to be gypped as we were on the quality of the information given and can not be recommended. Because the guide was actually from Mountaineers of Iceland I can't recommend them or the SuperJeep tour through GreyLine/Iceland Excursions. We had an amazing time despite the guide, though.
Arrived back in Reykjavik around 6:00. We did some more souvenir shopping, ate some lobster soup and hot dogs and called it a night.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Icelandic Names and Language tidbits
As an aside, typing Jon Gunnar Aranson's name reminded me that I should mention the peculiarity of Icelandic naming customs, which persist to this day. People's last names consist of their father's given name plus "son" or "dottir" depending obviously on whether it's a boy or a girl. Hence, given this scheme, I could be Carrie Bobsdottir, whereas Robbie would be Robbie Bobsson. Dad would be Bob Ottosson (or Otto Ottoson) and Mom would be Anna Williamsdottir. Alexa would be Alexa Robertsdottir. Mike would be Michael Larrysson. So you could easily have a household with a mom, dad, son and daughter who all have different last names. In the phone book people are listed in alphabetical order of their first name, not their last, and as you probably have a lot of "Jons" "Gudmunders" and "Snorri's" you end up with a lot of Jon Jonssons, Jon Gudmundersson, Snorri Jonsson etc. So they also helpfully will add information like the person's profession to help you figure out who it is you are looking for. Also, I found it interesting that in Icelandic, the way to say "What is his last name" is "Whose son is he?"
Icelandic is a Germanic language, and it is sort of like the Old English, or the Alligator of the Scandanavian languages. It's stayed the same while Danish, Swedish and Norwegian have gone off to become their own languages. They are even more uptight than the French if that's possible about the allowance of foreign words into their vocabulary. It is an *absolute* no no. They just either make up new words (THere is an "Icelandic Language Institute" to advise on such things,) or use old words to say new things, i.e. the word for "telephone" is an old fashioned word that used to mean "string" or "wire", and a fax machine literally translates as a paper-phone (or Paper-string I suppose). This doesn't mean they are anti-English. In fact everyone speaks English. Just that English is English and Icelandic is Icelandic.
English is the third language they learn in school, after Icelandic (Islenska) and Danish (since it wasn't even completely independent from Denmark until the 1940's). However, a teacher told me that English is beginning to replace Danish as the second language. People then go on to learn a FOURTH language of their choosing (Spanish, French, German, etc)
Icelandic seems really hard to master. It's full of things I dont understand, like genitive verbs, inflections and declensions and they have about 12 words for the number three. Plus the fact that they have 4 letters in their alphabet that look like nothing in our alphabet, one of which sounds like the "Th" in "Thing," and one of which sounds like the "Th" in "This," while the letters "TH" together sound like the "Th" in "coathook"
Icelandic is a Germanic language, and it is sort of like the Old English, or the Alligator of the Scandanavian languages. It's stayed the same while Danish, Swedish and Norwegian have gone off to become their own languages. They are even more uptight than the French if that's possible about the allowance of foreign words into their vocabulary. It is an *absolute* no no. They just either make up new words (THere is an "Icelandic Language Institute" to advise on such things,) or use old words to say new things, i.e. the word for "telephone" is an old fashioned word that used to mean "string" or "wire", and a fax machine literally translates as a paper-phone (or Paper-string I suppose). This doesn't mean they are anti-English. In fact everyone speaks English. Just that English is English and Icelandic is Icelandic.
English is the third language they learn in school, after Icelandic (Islenska) and Danish (since it wasn't even completely independent from Denmark until the 1940's). However, a teacher told me that English is beginning to replace Danish as the second language. People then go on to learn a FOURTH language of their choosing (Spanish, French, German, etc)
Icelandic seems really hard to master. It's full of things I dont understand, like genitive verbs, inflections and declensions and they have about 12 words for the number three. Plus the fact that they have 4 letters in their alphabet that look like nothing in our alphabet, one of which sounds like the "Th" in "Thing," and one of which sounds like the "Th" in "This," while the letters "TH" together sound like the "Th" in "coathook"
ICELAND day 2: Luckily they didn't have to resort to cannibalism
We took this welcome opportunity to sleep in, which we hadn't gotten to do for almost a week. Got up and around about 10:00 a.m., at which point Robbie said " did y'all hear all that music last night?" To which I responded, "Umm, yeah, and the fire juggling masked caped men on the balcony?" He was so bummed! He and Alexa had closed the blackout shades and gone to sleep and never even gotten to see them. He really thought I was joking until I showed him the photo evidence.We walked around Reykjavik town a bit and had some lunch (sandwiches at the hotel) and were picked up around noon by the Iceland Excursions bus. They go around town picking up everyone who has signed up for a tour, and then drop them off at the main office where you pay and get your voucher and wait for your actual bus/van/whatever.
The activity of the day (selected by Robbie and Alexa) was "Iceland from Below." Climbing in lava tube caves! Our guide was a Canadian guy named John who has lived in Iceland since the 1960's. The group consisted of the 4 of us, a woman from New York exploring Iceland on her own while her family visited family in Italy, and a young German woman who had apparently been shadowing John for several days. Tour guide in training? I don't really know.
We piled into a van and headed out of town (which happens very quickly). We stopped at the Eldborg crater somewhere northeast of Reykjavik (haven't been able to pinpoint it on a map) to give us a chance to "get used to walking on uneven surfaces."
Unfortunately it started raining and I, planning on being in a CAVE, had not brought rain gear. So the hike was a bit more hurried than I may have liked. We walked up to the rim, walked about 1/4 of the way around, and then back down. Pretty darned neat. If wet.
The rocks in the lava field surrounding the crater were all covered in this thick green moss. It's really difficult to describe what it felt like to walk on it, other than to say that it was like walking on a giant sea sponge. I took a video of it later on in the trip to try and illustrate just how squooshy and thick it was. As a result you really had to be careful and try to stick to the path if there was one, because there was really no guarantee that there was actually a rock or anything solid underneath that moss. Not that difficult to fall into a hole and break your ankle.
While we were hiking up to the top of the crater John was preparing our gear for the caving trip. We looked pretty snazzy.
So what we were hiking into is called a lava tube. I have a hard time understanding the mechanics of it all, but basically they occur when the surface of the lava cools before the lava underneath, so the lava continues to flow underneath the hardened crust. The flow kinda spreads out as it goes, so the tubes get flatter and flatter until they just kind of peter out. Geologically I'm sure it's fascinating, but it kind of went in one ear and out the other.
Decked out in our orange jumpsuits, gloves and head lamps (John had mentioned as an aside that we were free to bring an extra one just to be safe but nobody paid him any mind) we headed into the cave. He drew us a little diagram of what to expect as we went in, which we all looked at in the van and promptly left there.
The floor of the cave was pretty much all big slabs of rock. There were several piles of rock that looked pretty obviously like they had fallen from the ceiling at some point, which wasn't all that reassuring. I was extremely grateful for the hardhat because I kept whacking my head on the ceiling. I don't know how Robbie managed. Even though it didn't hurt it got really annoying after a while.
The best word to describe the cave would be: Dark.
Amusingly there was a really really old skeleton of a sheep waay back in the back of the cave. Difficult to tell whether he wandered in and got lost, or if he was just standing chomping on some moss when the floor fell out from under him and he fell in....
So, after we got to the end of the cave, we marveled a bit at the little stalagmites on the ground (It was only now after looking up lava tubes on the internet that I realize that those are actual lava stalagmites, not mineral accumulations after the fact. One web site called them "Lavacicles" which I thought was cute. They happen simply from lava dripping down from the ceiling as it's cooling.) Then we turned around and went back vaguely the same way we came in, meeting John back at the entrance. Then we were to choose whether we wanted to see the other part of the cave, which makes a loop around and comes out at a slightly different place. I asked if there was a big payoff, like a gorgeous multicolored cavern or sparkles or something, and he said no, it was just more of the same, the reason to do it would be to just say you did it. So I passed, opting instead to wander around outside the cave and do some birdwatching. The others wanted to go. So off they went, and John stayed at the cave exit to meet them as they came out.
It was so quiet and peaceful....a couple of birds seemed very interested in our presence there, probably because they had nests nearby Here is a Curlew who hung around keeping an eye on us:
I told John what our general itinerary was for the week, and where Mike and I planned to head after R&A left. He gave me a couple of tips of places to check out and emphasized things we shouldn't miss.
He had said that it should take them about 20 minutes to start coming out. At about 30 minutes he walked a bit into the cave to listen to see if he heard voices. He yelled out and didn't hear anything, so we figured it was maybe taking a little longer since they had Alexa. After another 10 minutes he went back into the cave exit and said he heard voices so they should be coming out soon. After another 5 minutes with no sign of them he yelled out again and heard something back. He continued to yell and they slowly started coming out one at a time.
Apparently they had somehow gotten sort of turned around or stuck, ending up at a dead end then backtracking but then sort of losing track of where they had some from and where they were going. And then their headlamps started dimming out one by one. They were yelling, apparently, but the noise wasn't carrying through the cave like you might think it would. Of course afterwards both Robbie and Mike said "well, some of them were panicking but I knew everything would be okay" but I'm not sure if I believe them. The guide said that 1 hour was his cutoff when he would have gone in and go them, and they beat that by about 5 minutes. None of them really realized that everyone else's lights were going out as well. I know objectively it's obvious that getting lost in a cave that's completely navigable within 20 minutes, with a trained guide outside waiting for you isn't really that big of a deal, but I can imagine sitting in the dark with no idea which way is left and which is right that I would have probably gotten a little freaked out as well. Very glad I didn't go.
Alexa had a bit of a meltdown but as far as 10 year olds go she did a good job given the circumstances. But she was definitely not all smiles on the way out.
After trudging back to the car...
We went to a horse stable to drop off the girl who had been shadowing John. She was off on an 8 day horseback tour of Iceland!
We got to chill out and pet the horses for a little bit, then we stopped and took some pictures at a corny "Viking Village" restaurant that was covered with viking symbols and carvings and stuff.
(Incidentally I found this cool slideshow while looking for the name of this sculpture. It's Here on flicker and it's a compliation of a bunch of people's unique photographs just of this one statue. I thought it was really neat. And obviously most are better than mine. BUT.....is mine more impressive if I tell you I took it from a van moving at about 40 mph?? :))
We just missed the last whalewatching trip of the day, so we wandered around town a bit more. We walked down to the lake in the center of town and watched all the locals with their bags of stale bread that they picked up at the bakery on the way over, feeding the ducks. We also walked around a bit, scoping out the souvenir shops and plotting our future purchases.
We had a lot of fun playing "spot the superlative" while shopping. All told, we saw "Icelands Largest Souvenir Shop," "Shop of the Year," "The Cutest Store in Town," "The Largest Selection of Giftware in Iceland," and "The Oldest Store in the Heart of Reykjavik," and we never strayed out of a few block radius!.
We went to the grocery store called "10-11" which as far as I could tell was open from 8 to midnight or 24 hours a day. Either way, the name is odd.
Dinner was spaghetti with butter for Alexa, tomato sauce for the grownups, and some pepperoni for protein :) Next day was an early start so we headed to bed. No fire juggling tonight.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
ICELAND: the Blue Lagoon ain't so Blue
So for our first day in Iceland, we began in London, getting up at about 4 am to get to the airport for a 7:30 a.m. flight. Took a taxi to Victoria station to catch the first Gatwick Express train which was supposed to leave at 5 a.m. We went to the appropriate platform, got on a train that was leaving at 5 a.m. and going to Gatwick. It was not, however, an "Express" train of any sort. Instead of a direct 30 minute train ride, it was about an hour long and stopped about 15 times, letting off various grotty sorts of the type you would expect to be taking the train home from London at 5am on Saturday morning. We didn't have much choice but to stick it out, though, as the next train arriving to take us BACK to Victoria station would have been so late it would have made things worse.
We finally arrived around 6 a.m. and had to go to the other terminal. when we arrived in the departures hall it was absolute chaos and mayhem. See, we hadn't been warned that this was the first Saturday of the summer break, and apparently every family in London was showing up at 6am to take a cheap flight somewhere. When we tried to get in the line that snaked across the gigantic hall, we were told to go use one of the automatic checkin kiosks and that the line was just to drop the bags off. Although why the line to drop bags off was that long I have no clue.
Well we used the automatic kiosk, and Mike was smart enough to think to use his passport, since mine never works on those things because when I changed my name after I got married they didn't give me a new passport, they just typed something in the back. Which means that my passport doesn't really match the name on the tickets. his passport worked fine though. BUT, they asked for the credit card number used to make the reservation for confirmation, and we guessed wrong and entered the wrong credit card number. And were directed to the "check in assistance" line, which was only mildly shorter than the bag drop off line and apparently just as slow. We stood there for close to an hour, the whole time thinking "ok there is no way ALL of these people typed in the wrong credit card number on the machine, what the hell are they all doing here?"
About 30 minutes before our flight was supposed to take off someone came by calling for people who were on the Reykjavik flight, and they pulled us out of line and we got checked in. Then through a moderately painless security check and a separate "shoe screening" station which was odd, and then to our gate. Oh, forgot to mention that since we were "the last people to check in" we had to sit in separate rows, so Mike was in the first row of economy and I was way in the back. Lucky butt. He got in one of those rows with only 2 seats.
I cringed as we boarded with a whole group of high school students on a class trip or something, but a combination of it being 7 in the morning and the fact that the last Harry Potter book came out that morning made them all very nice and quiet. I also read about Harry's last exploits which made the trip go nice and quickly.
The flight took off on time and landed on time, and the Reykjavik airport was perfectly painless. I looked around in their little grocery store/duty free whatever shop, having been advised to "stock up" on stuff because things were so expensive. I figured the selection at the store would give me an idea of the things to be prepared for a shortage of.
Cigarettes, Booze, toys, and candy. Lots and lots and lots of candy. Seriously, like a crazy amount of candy.
So, we set off, comfortable with our little cache of granola bars, fruit and dried sausage that we picked up at the store in London the night before.
We landed around 9:30, and Robbie and Alexa were arriving that afternoon around 3:00. We had agreed that we would just meet at the Blue Lagoon and head into town together, although after arriving after about 3 hours of sleep I was seriously racking my brain trying to remember why we thought that was a good idea. We were able to get a bus to the Blue Lagoon around 10:45 (confusing the driver terribly, as they always sell combo bus/Entry tickets and I had booked a massage whose price would include entry to the lagoon so i only needed the bus part. He finally figured out how to sell me just a 1 way airport-blue lagoon ticket and told me to buy the ticket to reykjavik when the bus came to pick up.
After driving over the surface of Mars for about half an hour......
The pools outside the lagoon were definitely gorgeous
But when we paid our entry fee, changed, showered, etc and went out to the lagoon you actually get into, it was more of a "YMCA green." Apparently its the result of some algae bloom that the web site insinuates happens every summer but I'm not sure if they're just covering their butts and making excuses. I asked if it had anything to do with all the people swimming in it and they said no, but I don't see how that's possible, since all the pools around the big one are still blue. Anyway, kinda like hot dogs, the less I know about the bugs floating around in the water the better. They had all of this goopy silica mud to slather all over yourself which of course we did, and I got the amazing experience of having a massage while floating on a mat in the water. It was soooooo fab. Although I'm sure the copious amounts of massage oil the masseurs were squirting onto everybody doesn't help the water that much either.
Not sure if it was the silica mud, or the massage or what, but my skin definitely felt tighter and smoother, on my legs at least. But it certainly turned my hair into a knotted straw-y mess.
We spent a looong time at the Blue Lagoon. We finally got out to the pool area around noon, pausing briefly for hot dogs with mustard and crunchy fried onions. The hot dogs were harmless, actually kinda bland like they needed salt. Their mustard was more like honey mustard. Actually more like honey. It was so sweet. And yet it was this weird brown color. Not like grainy mustard brown, but like ummmm, dang, I can't think of anything else that's that color. I tried some remoulade sauce and it was insanely sweet too. I'm starting to detect a trend (remember the candy in the airport?).
Anyway, hot dogs, then water (warm, about 110 degrees) and mud, then relaxing and reading for a little bit, then I went to get my massage. Then I took a bit of a nap and went into the pool for a while longer, and then went to wait for Robbie and Alexa. Since the dressing rooms were divided by sex, Robbie wouldn't be able to help Alexa, and I know that if I had wandered by myself into a locker room full of naked European women and mystery lockers I would have been quite confused and a bit intimidated. So I waited for her, and we shared a locker; I showed her a dressing cabin where she could change, and told her she could keep her bathing suit on while she showered even though nobody else was doing it. They expect you to thoroughly shower and shampoo your hair before and after getting into the lagoon, and everyone does, in big communal shower areas.
We went out to meet Robbie and Mike, and Robbie realized he hadn't rented any towels so we had to wait a bit for that. By this time it was probably about 4:40 p.m. We hung out in the pool, took a few pictures, did some more mud slathering (Alexa loved doing it to her dad but didn't like it so much herself), then went to get cleaned up and head back out to meet the bus. Robbie and Alexa still had their bags on the bus, while Mike and I had stowed ours in a locker for the day. The bus was full! And the next one wasn't scheduled to arrive until 9 pm. Thankfully the driver called for another bus to come pick up us poor stragglers and we rode into Reykjavik and were dropped off down the street from our apartment at Room With a View.
I had read about Room With a View on the Fodors.com travel message boards and we had booked the cheapest apartment that could conceivably hold 4 people, which was number 502, a 1 bedroom with a fold out couch and another bed brought in. Imagine our excitement when we arrived and were shown one of the largest apartments in the building! Apparently if it is possible with availability they will upgrade you to a nicer apartment. And boy was it nice. Right off their balcony with the jacuzzi, it had a living area/kitchen and two bedrooms. The whole apartment was so nicely and tastefully decorated, but with some nice kick and modern touches. We can't say enough good things about it. We were able to stay in this apartment for the duration of our stay, and we are so so grateful. It worked out very very nicely for us.
We headed out to explore central Reykjavik. Its a cute little town, somewhere between a town and a city. It was Saturday night and the "main drag" was crawling with groups of teenagers and young adults "cruising." We had hot dogs....Alexa didn't like hers because she said the skin was too thick. Mike taught her that if you try something and it doesn't taste like what you think it should, just give it another name and see if it is better that way. Hence the birth of "Crunchy dogs." See, they're not supposed to taste the same as hot dogs, they're not hot dogs, they're crunchy dogs! Alexa was able to eat a couple of crunchy dogs during her stay. I was a bit hot dogged out so I had a chicken sandwich, which cost more than everyone else's hot dogs combined but it came with a gigantic sack of french fries that everyone happily shared.
Happily we puttered back to our luxury apartment and went to bed, despite the fact that it was barely even a little bit dusky, because it was close to midnight!
While I was getting ready for bed, I noticed some movement out on the balcony, and some music that sounded very close by. I looked out the window and saw two men in black cloaks and their faces painted with black streaks doing some sort of synchronized fire baton twirling on the edge of the balcony. It went on for quite some time, and included them spitting out flammable stuff to make giant fireballs, and all sorts of other neat tricks.
It culminated in a very loud, Karmina Burana-style overture and roaring applause from whoever it is they were doing this for. Puzzled and shaking our heads at those wacky Icelanders, Mike and I went to sleep.
We finally arrived around 6 a.m. and had to go to the other terminal. when we arrived in the departures hall it was absolute chaos and mayhem. See, we hadn't been warned that this was the first Saturday of the summer break, and apparently every family in London was showing up at 6am to take a cheap flight somewhere. When we tried to get in the line that snaked across the gigantic hall, we were told to go use one of the automatic checkin kiosks and that the line was just to drop the bags off. Although why the line to drop bags off was that long I have no clue.
Well we used the automatic kiosk, and Mike was smart enough to think to use his passport, since mine never works on those things because when I changed my name after I got married they didn't give me a new passport, they just typed something in the back. Which means that my passport doesn't really match the name on the tickets. his passport worked fine though. BUT, they asked for the credit card number used to make the reservation for confirmation, and we guessed wrong and entered the wrong credit card number. And were directed to the "check in assistance" line, which was only mildly shorter than the bag drop off line and apparently just as slow. We stood there for close to an hour, the whole time thinking "ok there is no way ALL of these people typed in the wrong credit card number on the machine, what the hell are they all doing here?"
About 30 minutes before our flight was supposed to take off someone came by calling for people who were on the Reykjavik flight, and they pulled us out of line and we got checked in. Then through a moderately painless security check and a separate "shoe screening" station which was odd, and then to our gate. Oh, forgot to mention that since we were "the last people to check in" we had to sit in separate rows, so Mike was in the first row of economy and I was way in the back. Lucky butt. He got in one of those rows with only 2 seats.
I cringed as we boarded with a whole group of high school students on a class trip or something, but a combination of it being 7 in the morning and the fact that the last Harry Potter book came out that morning made them all very nice and quiet. I also read about Harry's last exploits which made the trip go nice and quickly.
The flight took off on time and landed on time, and the Reykjavik airport was perfectly painless. I looked around in their little grocery store/duty free whatever shop, having been advised to "stock up" on stuff because things were so expensive. I figured the selection at the store would give me an idea of the things to be prepared for a shortage of.
Cigarettes, Booze, toys, and candy. Lots and lots and lots of candy. Seriously, like a crazy amount of candy.
So, we set off, comfortable with our little cache of granola bars, fruit and dried sausage that we picked up at the store in London the night before.
We landed around 9:30, and Robbie and Alexa were arriving that afternoon around 3:00. We had agreed that we would just meet at the Blue Lagoon and head into town together, although after arriving after about 3 hours of sleep I was seriously racking my brain trying to remember why we thought that was a good idea. We were able to get a bus to the Blue Lagoon around 10:45 (confusing the driver terribly, as they always sell combo bus/Entry tickets and I had booked a massage whose price would include entry to the lagoon so i only needed the bus part. He finally figured out how to sell me just a 1 way airport-blue lagoon ticket and told me to buy the ticket to reykjavik when the bus came to pick up.
After driving over the surface of Mars for about half an hour......
We arrived at the Fabled Blue Lagoon.
So, the Blue lagoon was what first got me excited about Iceland. It was the first Pit Stop on the Amazing Race a few years ago and I thought it was the most otherworldly, amazing thing I'd ever seen. Basically, it's actually just a collection of runoff water from the power plant next door (power in Iceland is geothermal or hydroelectric, and after utilizing the water for energy it's sent into these lagoons.
The pools outside the lagoon were definitely gorgeous
But when we paid our entry fee, changed, showered, etc and went out to the lagoon you actually get into, it was more of a "YMCA green." Apparently its the result of some algae bloom that the web site insinuates happens every summer but I'm not sure if they're just covering their butts and making excuses. I asked if it had anything to do with all the people swimming in it and they said no, but I don't see how that's possible, since all the pools around the big one are still blue. Anyway, kinda like hot dogs, the less I know about the bugs floating around in the water the better. They had all of this goopy silica mud to slather all over yourself which of course we did, and I got the amazing experience of having a massage while floating on a mat in the water. It was soooooo fab. Although I'm sure the copious amounts of massage oil the masseurs were squirting onto everybody doesn't help the water that much either.Not sure if it was the silica mud, or the massage or what, but my skin definitely felt tighter and smoother, on my legs at least. But it certainly turned my hair into a knotted straw-y mess.
We spent a looong time at the Blue Lagoon. We finally got out to the pool area around noon, pausing briefly for hot dogs with mustard and crunchy fried onions. The hot dogs were harmless, actually kinda bland like they needed salt. Their mustard was more like honey mustard. Actually more like honey. It was so sweet. And yet it was this weird brown color. Not like grainy mustard brown, but like ummmm, dang, I can't think of anything else that's that color. I tried some remoulade sauce and it was insanely sweet too. I'm starting to detect a trend (remember the candy in the airport?).
Anyway, hot dogs, then water (warm, about 110 degrees) and mud, then relaxing and reading for a little bit, then I went to get my massage. Then I took a bit of a nap and went into the pool for a while longer, and then went to wait for Robbie and Alexa. Since the dressing rooms were divided by sex, Robbie wouldn't be able to help Alexa, and I know that if I had wandered by myself into a locker room full of naked European women and mystery lockers I would have been quite confused and a bit intimidated. So I waited for her, and we shared a locker; I showed her a dressing cabin where she could change, and told her she could keep her bathing suit on while she showered even though nobody else was doing it. They expect you to thoroughly shower and shampoo your hair before and after getting into the lagoon, and everyone does, in big communal shower areas.
We went out to meet Robbie and Mike, and Robbie realized he hadn't rented any towels so we had to wait a bit for that. By this time it was probably about 4:40 p.m. We hung out in the pool, took a few pictures, did some more mud slathering (Alexa loved doing it to her dad but didn't like it so much herself), then went to get cleaned up and head back out to meet the bus. Robbie and Alexa still had their bags on the bus, while Mike and I had stowed ours in a locker for the day. The bus was full! And the next one wasn't scheduled to arrive until 9 pm. Thankfully the driver called for another bus to come pick up us poor stragglers and we rode into Reykjavik and were dropped off down the street from our apartment at Room With a View.
I had read about Room With a View on the Fodors.com travel message boards and we had booked the cheapest apartment that could conceivably hold 4 people, which was number 502, a 1 bedroom with a fold out couch and another bed brought in. Imagine our excitement when we arrived and were shown one of the largest apartments in the building! Apparently if it is possible with availability they will upgrade you to a nicer apartment. And boy was it nice. Right off their balcony with the jacuzzi, it had a living area/kitchen and two bedrooms. The whole apartment was so nicely and tastefully decorated, but with some nice kick and modern touches. We can't say enough good things about it. We were able to stay in this apartment for the duration of our stay, and we are so so grateful. It worked out very very nicely for us.
We headed out to explore central Reykjavik. Its a cute little town, somewhere between a town and a city. It was Saturday night and the "main drag" was crawling with groups of teenagers and young adults "cruising." We had hot dogs....Alexa didn't like hers because she said the skin was too thick. Mike taught her that if you try something and it doesn't taste like what you think it should, just give it another name and see if it is better that way. Hence the birth of "Crunchy dogs." See, they're not supposed to taste the same as hot dogs, they're not hot dogs, they're crunchy dogs! Alexa was able to eat a couple of crunchy dogs during her stay. I was a bit hot dogged out so I had a chicken sandwich, which cost more than everyone else's hot dogs combined but it came with a gigantic sack of french fries that everyone happily shared.
Happily we puttered back to our luxury apartment and went to bed, despite the fact that it was barely even a little bit dusky, because it was close to midnight!
While I was getting ready for bed, I noticed some movement out on the balcony, and some music that sounded very close by. I looked out the window and saw two men in black cloaks and their faces painted with black streaks doing some sort of synchronized fire baton twirling on the edge of the balcony. It went on for quite some time, and included them spitting out flammable stuff to make giant fireballs, and all sorts of other neat tricks.
It culminated in a very loud, Karmina Burana-style overture and roaring applause from whoever it is they were doing this for. Puzzled and shaking our heads at those wacky Icelanders, Mike and I went to sleep.
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