Day Six

Last night was a blast! We hug out at the hostel and played werewolf until about 23h00, then headed out to bar hop around town (starting at the Lebowski Bar!) until 4am! At which point we snagged some drunk food (pizza - 800 ISk, and subway) and got called out on our way home for going home early!  The sun had already risen by the time I crawled into bed, only to be woken 3.5 hrs later by a Skype call from Colin!

Today we got to take the Golden Circle tour (or at least our version of it) which took us out of Reykjavik and into the mountains/volcanoes! There are two kinds here: table mountains - formed during the last ice age, and shield mountains which have a crater and were formed by multiple eruptions. We saw many of both; Iceland has ~30 volcano systems consisting of hundreds of volcanoes, and produces a third of Earth's magma! ( http://www.eldey.de/English/geology/geology.html ). As well as glaciers ( jökull - pronounced yo-kutl).  Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano that erupted in 2010 and shut down European airspace, erupted from under a glacier!

We visited the site of Iceland's original parliament, and arguably the oldest in the world, at þingvellir (pronounced thing-vet-lir) the fissure between the European and American continental plates. People from all over the country used to gather during the summer at this spot to discuss their governance, and the story goes that the person reciting the laws would face away from the crowd and shout at the wall from a pedestal (now marked by a white flagpole) which would reverberate off the wall back at the crowd like a crude form of a megaphone.

The Gullfoss waterfall was also on the list of sites to see, and there were many a picture taken here. the waterfalls are magnificent.  It was threatened by foreign persons to be harnessed fro hydroelectricity.  I so glad it wasn't!

We also visited the site of Geysir, the namesake of all the geysers in the world! The water is heated underground by the magma - the hottest of which is 410C, and shoots into the air rather unpredictably, but on average every 5 minutes  The water is still 100C when it surfaces, and I gather that there have been a few tourists who have tried to check this with their fingers - bad idea. I want to look up the actual mechanism of eruption, but I haven't yet (and it wasn't explained - that I remember). There was a tourist shop with lots of fun Icelandic fare like "Icelandic Air" (= empty tin can, no joke, the side read "open outside of Iceland to get full effect" - cost was 12$), and the kids toques shown in our group shot below. I would also like to mention that it was super windy.  Like, jump = fly away windy....(this was the case for most of today)

Finally, before returning to Reykjavik, we made a quick stop at an EcoVillage,  Solheima, where the people live off the land as sustainably as possible. (it's way more complicated than this...see the orka (power) sign image below. Then we drove  around the second largest Geothermal Powerplant in the world (the largest begin in Mexico) - I don't have any photos here because I thought we would bes topping but we didn't, it was just a quick spin.

Marjane, Chanelle, Sharon and I finished off the day with a delicious meal at the Laundromate Cafe where, somehow the planets managed to align, and I ran into Heather, who hired me on at TransCanada for my first work term there!

All in all, it was a long day - lots to see, and many photos to take (I took 194!), so here is just a snippet!