Goodbye Iceland, Hello Morocco!

Some last images of Iceland, I think the fall was my favourite time of year here (as it is back in Canada.) Even though there are no trees, the colours are still magnificent.

Viti Crater, or Hell Crater for the english speakers. Another Juho panorama.

Well, Icelandair came through. They agreed to change my flight. My new itinerary includes a 2 and a half week stay in Morocco! I have wanted to go to Morocco for quite some time and am looking forward to the hammams, the surfing, the camels, the souqs, and all the unknowns.

Leaving Iceland is definitely hard. I hope I make it back one day. I'd like to thank everyone for all the nice emails while I was here. It made it easier to be away from home. Looking fwd to seeing friends and family back in Canada

Goodbyes

The "list" continued...

16. I'll miss 50% off candy day
17. won't miss paying 20$/kg for chicken (if there is even any chicken in the store that day)
18. also won't miss the mouldy fruit in the grocery store
19. the European atmosphere
20. playing soccer with Europeans
21. really, really good dark chocolate
22. really, really good hot chocolate

We drove a couple of laps around the town centre for good measure, I couldn't leave Iceland without participating in the "runtur" one last time.

A few of my good friends in Iceland. I am just going to stop my post here, before I start bawling!

One last drive around the countryside.

I spent a large portion of my last day in Akureyri in search of sheep and horses with my friend Hlynur (means Maple). It has finally hit me that I am leaving this place for good, which has left me feeling quite sad.
A goodbye present from Iceland: a seal! When we were at the church we could hear an odd sound and Hlynur pointed out the seal down below. A nice surprise.

We stumbled upon this church while exploring the backroads in search of sheep. It is one of the many churches on isolated farms in Iceland. Almost every farm in Iceland has a church from the days when travelling all the way to the large centres every Sunday was impractical.

Off

I leave Akureyri in two days. I'm flying to Reykjavik on Friday, London on Saturday and then I'm either flying to N. America or N. Africa. I'll try to update the "blog" once my plans are finalized.

Things I've learned/things I'm going to miss:

1. how to walk in heels properly and comfortably
2. BC is truly the most beautiful/best place to live and PG is a pretty good BC city
3. European attitude towards nudity (don't read too much into that)
4. men in suits (men who dance)
5. the frankness and straightforward attitude
6. don't want to go to law school
7. dressing up for a Friday night on the town with Latvia Laura
8. speaking of which, Akureyri weekends in general including pylsurs!
9. won't miss the two burner hotplate that masquerades as a stove
10.the ocean/mountain view from my room
11. my beach
12. there is no such thing as Eastern Europe, there is only Central Europe, ask any Eastern European!
13. watching ANTM. Who knew? Learned something new about myself...
14. boiling mud
15. all the sheep (don't read too much into that either)
16. the great friends I've made here

Panorama

Another panorama looking down over the city. The red apartment building you can see in the distance is student housing. Unlike Gage Towers at UBC, the rooms weren't used as closets in a previous life, and they are actually very spacious and modern with great views of the fjord.

Concrete is the primary building medium here which results in some interesting houses. I walk by this one on my way to school and quite like it.

Juho has quite an interest in photography, and has taken some good pictures of Iceland. The 2 panoramas are his. This one is looking at Akureyri from the eastern shore of the fjord.

Akureyrar Sundlaug

Maija and I in the most popular "hot pot." A comfortable 38 degrees. You can kind of see the snow falling.

A chilly waterslide! It's now been closed for the winter.


Swimming has been a little chillier than usual these days. One thing (among many) that I am really going to miss is the outdoor swimming pool. I love the total lack of chemicals, the fresh air and it goes without saying, the sensation of snowflakes falling on your arms as you swim in 27 degree water.

I'm leaving Iceland a bit earlier than planned due to a lack of courses available for me to take here. So, I've been cleaning out my fridge and trying not to buy too much extra food. This has resulted in some strange meals: pylsurs, apple salad and rice anyone? I think the coarse dijon mustard makes it classy.

This fellow just came back from hunting snow partridges. It looks like he might take his cue for appropriate camouflage from the Canadian military.

Artsy, fartsy picture from my kitchen windown. That's the sun just starting to come over the hills at about noon.

Sunrise: 10:18; Sunset: 15:38

Another beautiful Akureyri sunset. The fjord is starting to freeze over and you can make out a large red ship parked in the harbour for the winter.

A big group of us went toboggoning last weekend. There was an extra snowsuit available and no one else wanted it as it wasn't exactly the most stylish thing out there. I was more than happy to take is as who can say no to an oversized one-piece snowsuit in -15 weather?
It has finally stopped snowing, which means we have enjoyed a series of crisp, blue bird days.

66 degrees

I thought Iceland was green and Greenland was ice. Was that not the big practical joke that the Vikings played on the rest of the world so as to keep Iceland to themselves? I guess they weren't in northern Iceland in November. Oh well, we're still swimming outdoors; although it is taking a few more laps then it used to to get warm.

This picture was taken at 10:30 this morning. The snow isn't staying on the trees because of the wind. There is now two types of daylight: sunrise and sunset, with nothing in between! Ahhh...living next to the arctic circle.

Lava and Rifts

This doesn't look like much, until you realize its a rift created by the shifting of tectonic plates. So, when you stand on one side, you're on the American plate, other side, European plate. The rift widens by about 2 cm every year. The steam you can see in the distance is coming from an underground river.

Underground river. The water temperature here is about 43 degrees celcius. It used to be about 32, but then there was a big earthquake in 1975 and the temperature spiked to 60-70 degrees. It has been gradually cooling down ever since. Another "only in Iceland" moment.


We hiked out to one of the newest lava fields in Iceland. There was a bit of snow, but you could still see the form of the cooled lava.

From the top of the hill you can see the darker, new, black lava, that flowed across the ground.

Lake Myvatn Area

Another "school trip." This is one of many pseudo-craters around the south shore of the lake.

This is a steam vent that is too powerful to hook up to the Krafla power station. It is very impressive and LOUD! Basically, they've bored a 2 km deep hole into the ground and put in a perforated pipe at the bottom so that the steam rises through the pipe to the surface. The steam is created by magma heated rainwater! Shortly after the power plant was built (1974) there was a volcanic eruption, and about half of the bore holes "erupted" as magma came to the surface through the piping. Iceland has claim to the first, and only, man made object to ever "erupt!"
Close up of a "verda." A cairn used to mark the path from one farm to another.

More sheep. Can't get enough of the sheep in Iceland.

Shake, rattle, and roll.

Something new for me...earthquakes! A couple days ago I was sitting on my bed reading a book when I felt, and saw, my bedroom walls shake. At first I thought someone had slammed the door really, really hard! I couldn't think of who would have been so mad! I then heard that there had been an earthquake just outside of Husavik (an hour north of Akureyri, or so) that registered 5.0 on the Richter scale. So that was kind of cool.



I had to do a presentation in Icelandic language the other day about my life back in Canada. This meant going through my pictures. I found a couple funny ones from the summer, and a nice one of flowers that Matt took on one of his hikes this past summer. I don't think you can beat Canada for sheer beauty.

Sagas and Eddas

Iceland has an amazing literary heritage in the form of their sagas dating from 600AD. The sagas detail the history of Iceland in all its violent and romantic glory. Basically, stories of how one clan viciously wiped out another clan, usually over seemingly insignificant squabbles.

Anyways, all this to say, that this horse is standing in the area of Hrafnkels Saga. Quick summary: Hrafnkell, a religious fanatic, had a prized stallion named after Freyr, the god of peace and fertility. Hrafnkell axed a young boy to death who dared to ride his stallion. The boy's cousin, Samur, took vengeance in the Norse custom by hanging Hrafnkell up by his Achilles tendons until he was prepared to give in to him. Hrafnkell had to leave his land, and his prized stallion was weighted with stones and thrown off a cliff to drown in the water below.

Hrafnkell saw the error of his ways, vowed to reform and became a simple farmer. Samur and his brother happened to wander by Hrafnkell's new farm one day. Hrafnkell forgot his vow to reform, and chased the brothers down, and promptly killed them in a hideous fashion. He returned to his original farm, gathered even more wealth, and lived happily ever after. The end.

That's what I love about the sagas, they rarely conform to our notions of right, wrong and justice served, but rather probably give a more faithful account of human character. Then again, maybe I'm a cynic.

This horse made me think of this Saga, and you can't help but feel sorry for the hapless horsey.

The Sel farmstead. The black expanse in the background is a "sandur," a 20 km long gravel field created by dust and sand blown off the glacier and carried in the glacial rivers. There are stories of ships crashing into the shore because they couldn't tell where the ocean ended and the land began. Other stories tell of sailors dying trying to cross the sandurs.

Very desolate, but you can almost understand why you'd build a home here, especially if you didn't like other people!

Iceland's answer to Berg Lake.

Gullfoss. This was our 2nd stop on day 1. The falls are tremendous, though not as humbling as Dettifoss was. We had great weather our first couple of days. These falls were almost dammed for a hydroelectric scheme. The landowner's daughter walked from here to Reykjavik (about 70 km or so) to protest the sale of the land to the electric company and threatened to throw herself into the falls if the gov't went ahead with their plan to seize the land and sell it. The gov't ignored her pleas and sold the land, but the company didn't pay rent for a few months, so the gov't took the land back. Now these falls draw thousands of tourists every year as a major stop on the "Golden Circle Route."
That's me standing in front of Skogafoss. According to a local saga there's a chest of gold hidden behind these falls. Waterfalls are everywhere in Iceland, they basically follow the entire hwy along the south coast.

PG-13

After a cold and windy little hike up a typical Icelandic valley we arrived at our destination: a piping hot little creek. One of my goals while in Iceland was to take a dip in an unmodified hot spring: goal realised. It was very chilly and difficult trying to get all the layers off, and then hard to get into the water at first, I'd conservatively put the water temperature at 43 degrees. It was very comfortable once you got used to it, and difficult to leave such an idyllic spot.


A nice little waterfall on our hike up to the hotspring.

Strokkur or Butterchurn. Geysir's smaller neighbour that goes off every 8 min or so. I couldn't help giggling every time it blew up. There was an infectiously giddy atmosphere around this place. For some reason, seeing warm water spurt 35 metres into the air just brings a smile to everyone's face. Also the site of the infamous lost key incident.

Matt and I at Pingvellir, the site of the original Icelandic parliament, first convened in 930AD. Those Icelanders! Matt often remarked on the character of the Icelanders, including our first gas station attendant: Benedict, "love that guy!" Something I noticed when I first arrived here, but now take for granted, is their straight forward, no messing around attitude; never rude, but definitely no over the top, saccharine greetings.

Matt and Nat

Guess who I found in Reykjavik? Matt!!! It is now day 2 after saying good bye to Matt at the FlyBus terminal in Reykjavik. We had a perfectly wonderful week together. We managed to succesfully circumnavigate the country, despite the bad snowy, windy, sleety weather in the Eastern fjords, and the little incident involving me losing the car key at Geysir. We agree that every time we thought we had seen the most amazing sight yet, we were surprised by another. I´ll post more and better pics soon. Nevermind, my computer/internet is not cooperating, so there will be no pics this time. I´ll try again later.

We were both sad to say goodbye, but it sure was a great treat to see Matt! Part of me wishes I was flying back to Canada with him, but another part of me is not quite ready to leave this European island just yet!