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/