I made this for our group from clips that I took.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXw6oskoZuQ
Monday, December 1, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
Iceland: Part 3, More Places I Wish I Were Back At
Well I got back home over three weeks ago, but laziness, along with the time needed to post all these other pictures and videos, made it take along time to write about the last third of the trip.
Iceland: Photo Set 3, Videos
We flew in this plane to Reykjavik, facing some of the worst turbulence I've ever felt (video of take-off). Luckily, but maybe unfortunately too, harsh weather makes incredibly rough planes ride quite common in Iceland, and the pilots are pretty good at not crashing. Bjossi said he can't even count on his hands the amount of times he has sworn that this was the last flight he was ever going to take. We went to have a meeting with Landsvirkjun, the national power company, in the top floor of their executive offices. I don't have pictures yet, but you could see all around the entire city. Next we went to the Svartsengi geothermal power plant, which was really largeclean. We drove across a lava field to this really loud steam pipe, got stuck at a locked gate, then went to another power plant that looked like an Apple store and had a sweet space exhibit and earthquake simulator inside.
The whole week we stayed in Keflavik at Keilir, the old US military base which has now been abandoned and used for some educational purposes. All that really remains are a bunch of building block dorms and some well-kept places on the base. The only course-related activities we did during this stay was having lectures, visiting the US embassy, and building a remote-controlled hydrogen fuel cell car. Besides this, we hung out in the city and went to cafes/bars/galleries (see the album for all the sweet graffiti Reykjavik has), went to a Seabear show, and went to the beautiful and famous Blue Lagoon. While the pool was awesome, it was also the warmest and sunniest day of the trip when we went, so the hot water wasn't as enjoyable as I'm sure it is in winter. We also saw a sweet game of professional handball, Iceland vs. Spain, which had an awesome halftime show. Coincidentally, Iceland recently beat Spain again and won the silver medal in Beijing. Of course, the boring sunsets continued.
The last two weeks of the trip we stayed in a farm called Holt in the middle of a huge fjord in Isafjordur, the largest town in the West Fjords of Iceland. (The airport is right along the water and forces planes to make a sharp, diving turn to the runway, getting really close to a ridge; it was a shocking landing).This place was so beautiful, secluded, and peaceful (besides the obnoxious arctic terns which can be heard in all the videos it seems). We lived in this house in the middle of Önundafjörður, had a great beach and long pier nearby that we would jump off of into the really cold ocean, went on sweet hikes (some alone) up rocky mountains with breathtaking views, drove through a 5 mile tunnel with a waterfall everyday, watched movies on the side of the house, went to/in several large waterfalls, and saw more of these things every night. I'd love to explain more about all the awesome stuff we did there, but it would take me longer to get around to it; I tried to tell the story with all the pictures and videos.
On our last two days we drove to the very western point of the country to the Latrabjarg bird cliffs, where you can get all up in the puffins' business. Too bad we had only 45 min here, cause going to sloped cliffs like this was one thing I really hoped to do while there. Tom risked his life and camera taking these two nice videos.
We took a ferry south to the town Stykkishólmur and stayed in a Hostel (notice the clouds attacking the mountain in the foreground). The very last thing I did on the trip was quite a surprise, as we happened to visit the wool shop in Alafoss, where I went in the semi-famous swimming pool studio Sundlaugin.
Iceland: Photo Set 3, Videos
We flew in this plane to Reykjavik, facing some of the worst turbulence I've ever felt (video of take-off). Luckily, but maybe unfortunately too, harsh weather makes incredibly rough planes ride quite common in Iceland, and the pilots are pretty good at not crashing. Bjossi said he can't even count on his hands the amount of times he has sworn that this was the last flight he was ever going to take. We went to have a meeting with Landsvirkjun, the national power company, in the top floor of their executive offices. I don't have pictures yet, but you could see all around the entire city. Next we went to the Svartsengi geothermal power plant, which was really largeclean. We drove across a lava field to this really loud steam pipe, got stuck at a locked gate, then went to another power plant that looked like an Apple store and had a sweet space exhibit and earthquake simulator inside.
The whole week we stayed in Keflavik at Keilir, the old US military base which has now been abandoned and used for some educational purposes. All that really remains are a bunch of building block dorms and some well-kept places on the base. The only course-related activities we did during this stay was having lectures, visiting the US embassy, and building a remote-controlled hydrogen fuel cell car. Besides this, we hung out in the city and went to cafes/bars/galleries (see the album for all the sweet graffiti Reykjavik has), went to a Seabear show, and went to the beautiful and famous Blue Lagoon. While the pool was awesome, it was also the warmest and sunniest day of the trip when we went, so the hot water wasn't as enjoyable as I'm sure it is in winter. We also saw a sweet game of professional handball, Iceland vs. Spain, which had an awesome halftime show. Coincidentally, Iceland recently beat Spain again and won the silver medal in Beijing. Of course, the boring sunsets continued.
The last two weeks of the trip we stayed in a farm called Holt in the middle of a huge fjord in Isafjordur, the largest town in the West Fjords of Iceland. (The airport is right along the water and forces planes to make a sharp, diving turn to the runway, getting really close to a ridge; it was a shocking landing).This place was so beautiful, secluded, and peaceful (besides the obnoxious arctic terns which can be heard in all the videos it seems). We lived in this house in the middle of Önundafjörður, had a great beach and long pier nearby that we would jump off of into the really cold ocean, went on sweet hikes (some alone) up rocky mountains with breathtaking views, drove through a 5 mile tunnel with a waterfall everyday, watched movies on the side of the house, went to/in several large waterfalls, and saw more of these things every night. I'd love to explain more about all the awesome stuff we did there, but it would take me longer to get around to it; I tried to tell the story with all the pictures and videos.
On our last two days we drove to the very western point of the country to the Latrabjarg bird cliffs, where you can get all up in the puffins' business. Too bad we had only 45 min here, cause going to sloped cliffs like this was one thing I really hoped to do while there. Tom risked his life and camera taking these two nice videos.
We took a ferry south to the town Stykkishólmur and stayed in a Hostel (notice the clouds attacking the mountain in the foreground). The very last thing I did on the trip was quite a surprise, as we happened to visit the wool shop in Alafoss, where I went in the semi-famous swimming pool studio Sundlaugin.
Iceland: Part 2, Lakes, Fjords, Rivers, Mountains, Pools
Góðan daginn,
My homestay family has run away for the weekend, so I'm left sitting here listening to three enormous cruise ships in the harbor blowing their massive horns incessantly; they must be arguing over who gets to empty their thousand gallon tanks of human waste next to the Akureyri marina. The weather has been 50's and fog just about everyday here, except for the days when we have gone on day trips nearby. We've been quite lucky to catch these sunny days when we most needed them, as there are great mountains everywhere which will easily become covered by low clouds within minutes. Monday ends our 3 week stay here in Akureyri. It is a nice city, but by now we have started running out of things to do around town. When we are not stuck in a classroom at school all day, we're either out at cafes downtown or hiking around the nearby mountains. The best part about the city is the swimming pool. It has about eight different pools/tubs that are heated to different temperatures, some are too hot to be in for more than a couple minutes. And due to their strict controls about cleanliness (there are attendants in the showers to make sure you clean yourself adequately(!)), there is very little chlorine used. There are also nice sunsets around here when the clouds recede around midnight.
One of the first places we drove to here was a small farm north of the city called Skarð. We hiked up a small river there to a waterfall, then went to these old earth-covered houses at Laufas. On our first weekend here we rented a bus and 14 of us went to Reykjavik for the free Nattura concert which was pretty awesome. Later the fam took me to a cross-town rivalry soccer game. The kids were constantly making cacophonous chants with drums and buzzers, it was quite exciting to see how much people are into it here. I think the next weekend four of us climbed Mt. Sulur, which sits just above the town. I'm still trying to learn a few key points about hiking, including that paths are better than no paths (this apparently isn't a 'path'), boulders aren't anchored to the ground, and snow is slippery (which makes it more fun).
The next weekend was awesome, we went away to Lake Mývatn and its surrounding areas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The next morning we went to some hot springs beneath a long crack formed from tectonic plate shifting. There was a newly drilled geothermal borehole dug nearby; these things have such immense pressure beneath the earth that they have to let them blowout for several days before they can use them (there is video link here as well http://www.flickr.com/photos/
This past week we went disc golfing up the fjord. The course was unlike any I've seen in the US, it was covered with brush & trees, and holes could go up the mountain or over streams. It was alot of fun though. On Wednesday we took a 3 hour ferry to the island Grimsey, the northernmost point of Iceland. The island has about two things going for it: it crosses the arctic circle, and lots of puffins live on the cliffs. Other than that, it is a tiny place without a single tree, 100 inhabitants, and birds which try to attack you.
On Tuesday we fly to Reykjavik for a week. More precisely, we are staying outside of the city at the old US military base which was suddenly abandoned. We will then head north to the West Fjords to this tiny city built in the middle of a fjord; should be awesome. All these photos so far (plus many more) are in the Part 2 and (not by me) albums here. Hope things are going well back home, see ya later!
Green/Brown/Iceland: Part I: Long Days and No Nights
It is now only the 5th day that I've been here, but a few hours outside here could require pages to explain well enough. The inner Japanese tourist has found its way out of me, as I'm already at 3 gigs of photo/video memory and losing space fast. There are 18 students from all over the USA in our group, and we have a variety of majors. We began our flight on June 17 in NYC (JFK) at 8pm, landing outside of Iceland's capital city (Reykjavik) in Keflavík at 6 am. I sat next to an elderly couple from Holland returning home from the US and Canada, and they offered me the window seat. We crossed over the southern tip of Greenland as the sun began to rise in the north (or rather as the plane caught up to it). It was perfectly clear, the glaciers were really visible below, and the sun was incredibly bright and white. The sun only barely starts to set around noon over China, so it is never dark during the summer here. We arrived and drove through the outer 'suburbs' of Reykjavik (which are not too exciting, as its becoming increasingly commercial i.e. a KFC, Subway, TGI Fridays). This part of the country was fairly flat and barren, with brown mountains in the distance. One of the first things I noticed was how clear it is. The air is so clean that you can make out objects that are very far away; this makes mountains look deceivingly close and attractive to hike towards. Our first stop was at the country's newest geothermal water plant about 20 km outside the city.
A little background on the heat/energy situation: Iceland operates on 77% renewable energy, and 99% of its power (electricity and heat) is generated through hydroelectric and geothermal plants (gasoline cars are just about the only things non-renewable). Hot water (200 deg C) from 1/2 mile under the ground is both turned into steam to make electricity, as well as pumped into cities for heating and water. Because of this, each town has an outdoor swimming pool and hot tubs used year-round.
We then made our way westward, stopping at an old volcanic crater filled with water. There were brown mountains with a little bit of grass and moss everywhere, there are almost no trees and few bushes. We stayed the next two nights in Solheimar, a small town 40 miles from the city. Solheimur is a community that started in 1930 as a home for the disabled, and now there are about 100 people (40 disabled) who live and work there (http://www.solheimar.is/). They are a self sustaining eco-village that does everything from woodworking, candle making, painting and knitting, to growing vegetables and food in greenhouses. Many of them make some great paintings. The hot water here (as well as other places) is geothermal water which is full of minerals, so showers have that terrible sulfur smell. I decided to hike to a nearby mountain one evening, and after I ran into a large river blocking my path, I followed it down along farms to a different one. There were alot of sheep, birds, swans, and several Icelandic horses, which have really awesome manes (not unlike Winpogs). After a fairly scary climb up steep gravel, I made it to the top (I might add that being alone without food and losing your water bottle before the climb makes wandering around without directions or a phone at 2 A.M. a more appropriate and relaxing way to hike in a foreign place). The view was incredible, there were mountains in every direction and two glaciers were visible to the north and east. After a long walk back (7 hour trip total) I discovered that eight of the others had hiked the same mountain about an hour before me, and had found an easy trail up.
The next day we continued north around Lake Þingvallavatn, the largest in Iceland (Þ sounds like a spoken "th"). We went to Nesjavellir, the largest geo. plant in the country (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/NesjavellirPowerPlant_edit2.jpg ), then to Þing vellir (http://www.icetourist.is/upload/files/Thingvellir.jpg ). Þingvellir is special for two reasons; one, it was the site of the world's first parliament in 930. It also lies along the rift between the north american and eurasian continental plates (it stretches through the southwest corner of the country to the northeast (http://www.geography-site.co.uk/pages/physical/earth/images/plates.gif ). This has created many volcanoes and earthquakes that shaped the land with long, thin mountains. Just last week rocks were shaken off during a 6.3 quake. There are actually minor trembles all the time that you can't really feel, but this website shows all of them in the past 24 hours: http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/ . There is a small stream which has to be the clearest water in the world, we desperately wanted to swim in it, but you need to get a permit to go diving (its also very cold) http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1354/710486910_e80920043b.jpg?v=0 . There were two rogue helicopters, I mean polar bears, found nearby here in the past few weeks. They must've come from Greenland, and they tried to save them for 1 to 2 minutes, but ended up having to shoot them with some long guns.
We made two more stops; one at Geysir (which they all have taken the name from) and one at the huge waterfalls at Gullfoss (http://www.randburg.is/background_images/downloads/gullfoss_1024x768.JPG ). After this we made our way through the highlands of the country to Kellingarfjöll, a lodge with cabins in the mountains that used to be used for skiing. Six of us heard about a hot spring up river, so we hiked about a mile, nearly giving up before we found it around a corner. The 90 deg F water mixed with the glacier fed stream (32 deg F!), so you could move in between; it was incredibly hard to be in the stream for more than a few seconds though. We all sat around listening to music that night, and discovered that about half of us want to find a way to fly/drive from Akureyri to Reykjavik next weekend for the free sigur ros/bjork show (it's comforting that I'm not alone in this desire).
Yesterday we drove through several more hours of the barren 'desert' on one of the few roads in the middle of the country, stopping at another hot spring and hydroelectric power plant. The plant was sweet, we got to drive about 1000 ft down into a mountain to where water runs three huge turbines. It seriously felt like a James Bond/Austin Powers movie, since we drove through NORAD-like doors into a long tunnel leading to the power station.
After this we drove to Akureyri, Iceland's fourth largest city in a northen fjord. Here we met our homestay families. I am with a couple (Ragnheiður and Runar) who has two boys (14 and 8) that live very close to the university where I'll be at. The whole family loves soccer, and Baldvin, the older son, is really good; I watched him play yesterday. They speak English fairly well, Baldvin is excellent. I still haven't really learned any Icelandic, and when I try and pronounce words for them they sorta laugh and admit that it is gonna be really hard to learn. Turns out öngull means 'hook' in Icelandic, not Vince. Tomorrow we begin classes (the last few days have pretty much been a vacation), so today is free. Last night I was too tired, but some of us may have gone downtown to a pub; the pubs are only busy between 1 and 5 A.M on friday and saturday, and I've heard people usually show up at the doors too hammered as it is... Pretty intimidating. Well that is all for now, I haven't been harping much on the scenery, but it is really the most beautiful place I've ever seen, the pictures can really show the magnitude of everything around, but it is as amazing as I hoped it would be. I've tried to pick some of the best photos I've taken for flickr here. Goodbye!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42461994@N00/sets/72157605752234035/show/
A little background on the heat/energy situation: Iceland operates on 77% renewable energy, and 99% of its power (electricity and heat) is generated through hydroelectric and geothermal plants (gasoline cars are just about the only things non-renewable). Hot water (200 deg C) from 1/2 mile under the ground is both turned into steam to make electricity, as well as pumped into cities for heating and water. Because of this, each town has an outdoor swimming pool and hot tubs used year-round.
We then made our way westward, stopping at an old volcanic crater filled with water. There were brown mountains with a little bit of grass and moss everywhere, there are almost no trees and few bushes. We stayed the next two nights in Solheimar, a small town 40 miles from the city. Solheimur is a community that started in 1930 as a home for the disabled, and now there are about 100 people (40 disabled) who live and work there (http://www.solheimar.is/). They are a self sustaining eco-village that does everything from woodworking, candle making, painting and knitting, to growing vegetables and food in greenhouses. Many of them make some great paintings. The hot water here (as well as other places) is geothermal water which is full of minerals, so showers have that terrible sulfur smell. I decided to hike to a nearby mountain one evening, and after I ran into a large river blocking my path, I followed it down along farms to a different one. There were alot of sheep, birds, swans, and several Icelandic horses, which have really awesome manes (not unlike Winpogs). After a fairly scary climb up steep gravel, I made it to the top (I might add that being alone without food and losing your water bottle before the climb makes wandering around without directions or a phone at 2 A.M. a more appropriate and relaxing way to hike in a foreign place). The view was incredible, there were mountains in every direction and two glaciers were visible to the north and east. After a long walk back (7 hour trip total) I discovered that eight of the others had hiked the same mountain about an hour before me, and had found an easy trail up.
The next day we continued north around Lake Þingvallavatn, the largest in Iceland (Þ sounds like a spoken "th"). We went to Nesjavellir, the largest geo. plant in the country (http://upload.wikimedia.org/
We made two more stops; one at Geysir (which they all have taken the name from) and one at the huge waterfalls at Gullfoss (http://www.randburg.is/
Yesterday we drove through several more hours of the barren 'desert' on one of the few roads in the middle of the country, stopping at another hot spring and hydroelectric power plant. The plant was sweet, we got to drive about 1000 ft down into a mountain to where water runs three huge turbines. It seriously felt like a James Bond/Austin Powers movie, since we drove through NORAD-like doors into a long tunnel leading to the power station.
After this we drove to Akureyri, Iceland's fourth largest city in a northen fjord. Here we met our homestay families. I am with a couple (Ragnheiður and Runar) who has two boys (14 and 8) that live very close to the university where I'll be at. The whole family loves soccer, and Baldvin, the older son, is really good; I watched him play yesterday. They speak English fairly well, Baldvin is excellent. I still haven't really learned any Icelandic, and when I try and pronounce words for them they sorta laugh and admit that it is gonna be really hard to learn. Turns out öngull means 'hook' in Icelandic, not Vince. Tomorrow we begin classes (the last few days have pretty much been a vacation), so today is free. Last night I was too tired, but some of us may have gone downtown to a pub; the pubs are only busy between 1 and 5 A.M on friday and saturday, and I've heard people usually show up at the doors too hammered as it is... Pretty intimidating. Well that is all for now, I haven't been harping much on the scenery, but it is really the most beautiful place I've ever seen, the pictures can really show the magnitude of everything around, but it is as amazing as I hoped it would be. I've tried to pick some of the best photos I've taken for flickr here. Goodbye!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/
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