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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment