SPRING BREAK 2010: Grand Tour
Day 3 (28 March): Iceland, Day 3
Gullfoss, Geysir, Þingvellir National Park
Figuring I could sleep when I was dead, I dragged myself out of bed early again and ran to the grocery store to grab skyr.is, yummy thick Icelandic yogurt. Once again, I was picked up outside my hostel, this time by a huge tour bus – the Golden Circle is THE thing to do on a trip to Iceland. After my smaller, less traditional tourism the day before, I felt a little like a mainstream sell-out, and not my usual indie obscure self.
Our first stop was the geothermal power plant, Hellisheidarvirkjun. Our short visit started with a quick presentation with lots of amazing data about how green Iceland is. It was so interesting to see a country using green technologies from the outset; the industrialized world’s reluctance to give up the way things are today is such a huge impediment in the environmental movement and Iceland will never have to overcome that if it never knows the “ease” of the harmful ways we do things in the rest of the world. The power plant also got me thinking lots about renewal and giving back to the earth in a much more metaphysical sense, but that discussion is an entire blog in and of itself, and I won’t subject you to my ramblings on spirituality/philosophy.
At this point, we were actually near where yesterday’s hike took place - this is Hveragerðgi, a town known for its greenhouses heated by hot water from volcanic hot springs (remember Hengill, that sleepypants?). Iceland has actually managed to grow every fruit/vegetable/etc. in their greenhouses, but to do so is sometimes much more expensive than just importing.
Iceland is green, Greenland is icy, la la la. Iceland has been putting forth a pretty solid effort at reforestation over the past 50 years or so, in attempts to restore it to its pre-Viking stats of 30% forested. However, the Vikings used wood for EVERYTHING – ships, homes, fire, blahblah, so Iceland eventually lost about 97% of its green. It’s slowly but surely turning around though!
To the left, we have Langjökull, the second largest glacier in Iceland clockin’ in at an impressive 925 km2, or 357 square miles for those of you keeping track at home (literally! I’m here all week – but then I’m peacin’.) To the right, defending champion Gullfoss.
Gullfoss (Golden Falls); the river that flows is Hvítá. This picture is pretty epic, but still does not do this beauty any justice. It was windy as heck that day, so I admittedly ran to the gift shop quicker than I should have (Helgi would have yelled at me that “THIS IS A TIME TO BE SLAPPED IN THE FACE BY THE STRINGS ON YOUR JACKET”) but I did make myself turn around and be legitimately scared by the sheer force of this waterfall. I know Iceland just did that whole Eyjafjallajökull thing and we are all more aware of how little control we have over nature, but imagine how intensely you’d feel that right up next to this crazy girl.
Our next stop was Geysir, which was actually not a rainforest like you were probably thinking. In fact, the word geyser comes from this specific one! Take that Old Faithful, you ain’t got nothin’ on Iceland’s shooters. Which, we will see later, is more true of a statement than you could ever know – especially if you are familiar with my personal feelings towards Wyoming’s greatest.
The area around Geysir is full of lots of little geysers, so the Earth literally smokes. It’s incredible. The character in the foreground of this shot is Strokkur. Now, do yo’ thang, babygirl!
(From this video, it becomes quickly apparent why I am not in Tisch. Awesome feats of nature undermined by horrible cinematography; you are welcome.)
Okay so this pretty much sums up actual Geysir. Boring, maybe. But at least Geysir doesn’t front, and is straight up about how hard he chills (for years at a time, usually) and isn’t like “Oh yeah fa sho come see me and I will go off every 12 minutes but not really you will wait for at least 20 probably” (yes, I’m talking about you Old F-bomb, ruiner of all 9-year-old dreams). Besides, you can’t say you didn’t get a show! It’s kind of like if you have to invite a kind-of boring person to your party because they’ll bring the really cool people – the ones who are hot and funny and have all the booze and are generally awesome guy(sers). You see what I did there.
After a few performances of Strokkur I was cold. I headed to tourist-city and filled up on asparagus soup (and more delicious white bread, you go Iceland) and pretended to read the Icelandic newspaper but obviously not really. The center also had a little exhibit that included a pretty sweet stand-here-to-feel-a-5.1-earthquake (it felt like that Addams Family electrocution game Gattitown used to have and also sort of like my cell phone was on vibrate inside my liver).
Along the way to our next stop we went through this cluster of vacation homes. Some of them are owned by various labor unions, who rent them out to members at prices much lower than they would actually go for, so that workers who couldn’t normally afford a little vacation spot can do so. I am trying to figure out whether I should gain employment in manual-labor, or start selling off organs now and just buy a pad for myself.
Þingvellir National Park encompasses one of the world’s few visible above-ground portions of the Mid-Atlantic ridge, which separates the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. This is the fault-line between the Eurasian plate (on the right) and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (on the left).
On the left of the crev-ahs is the North American plate. That’s right, I actually went back to America! Did you hear me, because I said hi to you, I promise.
Pretty pretty Lake Þingvellir. Again, pictures really don’t do this one justice.
Once back in Reykjavík, I hopped off the bus near Hallgrímskirkja, to scope out the insides and try for a glimpse from the top of it. Alas, there was a concert in session and so I was denied access (especially after they laid eyes on my 6-layered, hiking-booted self).
Poo poo on that, so I went around and snapped pictures from its behind. Architect Guðjón Samúelsson designed it to mimic the lava flows of Iceland’s (now infamous) volcanoes, but he also did some multi-tasking and whipped out a rocket-ship in the process.
If this was San Francisco, I would tell you that these are the Full House houses. But this is Iceland, so they are not. And I would never lie to you, so I will not tell you that. But, if Michelle Tanner became Michelle Dannydóttir*, they would live here. Or at least their TV show would start with a shot of this street.
* In Iceland, last names are “’father’s first name’+’son’” or “’father’s first name’+’dóttir’”; they’ll use their popsie’s middle name if it sounds better and (this is rare but not unheard of) they’ll do the same formula but with the mother’s name if seriously family dramz goes down
Since I was rejected from Hallgrímskirkja, I went around the corner to the sculpture gardens of the Einar Jónsson museum and took a stroll through some of the pieces.
Spring; humans as flowers blooming! I knew I belonged in Iceland.
I continued to gallivant around Reykjavík not unlike a chicken with my head cut off. I followed the sound of church bells ringing up the hill and to the Dómkirkja, the Roman Catholic cathedral. Gearing up for a week in Italy that would start with the Vatican City, I figured I should probably start acclimating myself so I popped in – like the good preacher’s granddaughter I am, the whole Palm-Sunday thing totally slipped my mind. The service was in English unfortunately – how cool would it have been to go to services in Icelandic! – but I guess that worked in my favor since it’s not like I knew what the heck I was doing anyway. The sun shone through the windows and I held hands with the Icelanders next to me and it was a great service. Little did I know that was the kick-off to one of the most incredible Easters I could ever imagine – but lots more about that later.
I had had big plans to treat myself to a nice fancy dinner for my last night in Iceland, but menu-reading to and fro elicited little in the way of exotic Icelandic fare, and I wanted me some whale. So, not to my disappointment whatsoever, I found myself back at Saegreifinn.
And since obviously I couldn’t pass up more of the soup, it was a veritable feast, with a second course of halibut and mink whale. Second time was a charm at Saegreifinn (not that the first time didn’t slam too, of course) – the halibut was the best one of all the ones I had over my two trips, and while I don’t think I’d go out of my way to make a meal of whale again, I’m glad I can say I’ve done it. It was fine, just pretty tough and not really replete with flava-flav.
That night, it was back to the hostel to repack and endure a tearful goodbye to boots that took me through muddy ACL and lots of dancing to Girl Talk and hiked more than a mile or two through Iceland. It was real, yo!
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