The first few shots are of us at the City Hostel in Reykjavik….Jack blogging in the morning while eating his breakfast. Then we went off to the Blue Lagoon which is one of Iceland’s main attractions. The white silt is said to be good for your skin. You smear it all over your face and body if you want to fit in
The water is quite bouyant and Georgia enjoyed pretending to be Stella Queen of the Sea(if you aren’t familiar with the Stella book series you should check them out).
I love this next image as you can see the old lava flow that surrounds us and how high up we were….looking down at the parked vehicles.
Throughout our journey, I have taken shots of plants that manage to survive amongst the rocky wilderness. Such preserverance. Such determination for their seeds to find the fertile spots amongst the harsh lava rocks and survive. I was drawn to that idea very much while there.
I took a lot of pictures of signs while I was there as I found their language to be quite intriguing. So many lettersThis particular sign we saw off to the side of the road while we were driving home from the Blue Lagoon. There was a small parking lot so we decided to check it out. Much to our amazement, there was a ladder going into a giant crack in the earth. It was so cool…and the first of our fabulous finds in this beautiful country. Not in our travel guide, but worth noting for sure.
Lupines are literally everywhere in Iceland. I will never see another purple lupine and not think of our amazing trip. I know there are a lot of images of Georgia in the lupines, but I couldn’t resist.
If there is a forest there, Icelanders make a pretty big deal about it. This is no exception…a small stretch of trees with marked walking paths and picnic areas. One of the few ‘forests’ in the country.
The last few shots are of Reykjavik…rather late at night, but it never got dark there. This was days after the summer solistice. The sun did set, but it sat only just below the horizon and only for a couple of hours before rising once again. While it disappeared, the sky was an odd shade of grey. Almost like it might rain without the threatening clouds. And, the locals paid no attention to time. There really was no need…
So…what do you think of Iceland so far? Pretty special, isn’t it?
~ Dana
PS…Jack’s blog entry can be found here: http://pughville.com/?p=372
To fill the time before we could get into our hostel, we went to Hallgrimskirkja which is Iceland’s most famous church. You can take an elevator to the top and get the best view of the city. The kids called the room up there ‘the windy room’…for obvious reasons. The wind just whipped up a storm in there. It sure helped keep us awake
Once outside, we found these public restrooms and the kids had to try them out. Took us quite awhile to actually get the door to open, but the kids did finally have the opportunity to use it.
One of Reykjavik’s most famous landmarks:
Then we went swimming. We were practically falling asleep, but our hostel was right next door to the city pool(all cities, towns in Iceland have heated pools. Most with water slides, etc). We passed a good part of the rainy afternoon staying warm at the pool. It was weird to us, but we were assured by many locals that this is what you do on a cold day. The pools were lovely and we have been incredibly spoiled now that we are back home and have had to swim in regular swimming pools
Hey all!!! I am back
by Dana
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