hi everybody!

sorry to keep you waiting, i know at least some of you care. i've uploaded the pictures to the web albums, but it is late here and i'm tired. the link to the web albums is to the right, under "links" - the days are the 20-22, that you haven't seen, that is. tomorrow or sometime i'll post more information as to the specifics.

a brief overview:

-ate some shark
-saw 23857293587235 waterfalls
-fjords are awesome
-the weather is kind of sad still

ok! sorry about the commenting problem, but now anybody - even those who have no google/blogger account - can now leave comments. also, i haven't been being notified of comments, which is also fixed. so thanks, harry and lauren! lauren - of course we will come here. and yeah, we do just kind of drive around and stop at cool places. but usually it's to or from places we were going, like yesterday, we planned to go to the gullfoss (gold falls, the big waterfall) and the geysers.

today, we went to the mountains as a side-trip on the way back to reykjavik from the blue lagoon (which was awesome). it would be nice to come back with friends to enjoy the nightlife. maybe that'll happen when we all have more money and the dollar isn't worthless.

it's weird how few american tourists are here - most of them are french and german. most everybody else is icelandic. and yeah, it's weird how homogeneous they are. it's also weird how many young adults there are... our-age people. they do construction. they work in all the stores. they work in restaurants. where are the adults? sometimes we see old people, and sometimes (rarely) there are middle-aged people. where are the rest of them? it's very strange. it's also very strange that everybody is so blond, mostly. weird weird. but cool. i kind of want to find and icelandic pen-pal or something. but that might be weird, to request that of a random person.

we went to a chinese restaurant tonight for dinner. it was the first one i'd been to that actually plays chinese music. and has chinese decor all the way - there were no french posters. i was also sad because there were no fish. there are always fish tanks!

also, why are americans so much more self-conscious in different places than eurpeans? it's bizarre, a mon avis. sometimes it is fun when other tourists mistake you for a native. that happened in france too, eh lauren?

anyway. i might weed out pictures later, as there are lots of pictures (protip: read- might usually means no in situations such as these). but i hope you enjoy them, even if there are hundreds! and if you were wondering, i upload all these and write the posts before dinner, usually, while my dad is sleeping/piddling around/taking a shower and i am bored.

my dad's pictures:


my pictures:



direct link here. from now on i'll just have it linked on the right side of the blog.

today was really long (especially after getting only about three hours of sleep...), but it was amazing.

again, just go to here if you want to see the pictures larger and not in a slideshow.

i'm going to bed, more later maybe.

slideshow! click the little caption button on the bottom left to see a description.

also: go here if you'd like to look at bigger pictures not in flash-slideshow form. please also note that there is a pause button (harry...).

we're here! the flights were alright, comfort-wise. the second flight, from boston to reykjavik, was amazing. i didn't end up sleeping; two hours into the night, the light came back. the sun stayed just past the horizon, and all along where the water (or clouds, since the water was completely covered by them) met the sky there was the most intense rainbow colors i've ever seen in my life. as we got closer to iceland, the sun rose (really early), and the sky turned lighter and the horizon was kind of the color of cantelope and all the clouds were hot pink. the whole time i was listening to in rainbows par radiohead, especially the song "nude". lauren - i was in a rainbow. it was perfect. thank you. the best part about it was that i didn't even have to break out the ipod; icelandair had it in their kind of small repertoire of cds on the little computery things.

anyway, my dad slept.


this is on the icelandair flight. i especially enjoy the lady in the background. i think she thought we were weird.

pictures are taking forever to upload and flikr and picasa have small limits, so i'll put up a few pictures now and then try to get it all figured out more efficiently.

but yeah. after we landed, we kind of drove around in circles for a bit. the landscape here is beautiful and weird - everywhere you look there's steam coming out of somewhere, and there are mountains in the distance. the ground is all basalt from the volcanoes, and we actually stopped at a place where the mid-altantic ridge is visible and there's a creepy bridge across it. there's this weird lichen/mossy stuff that grows on all the rocks that my dad really likes.

we also drove out to a lighthouse we saw when we came in. then we headed for reykjavik. i think, when i get rich, i'd like a summer house here. only summer, because winters are depressing and inhospitable. everything is adorable in a not cheesy way.

another weird thing about landscape - it all looks like some sort of train set with no trains. eveything is bizarrely cute and looks like some five-year-old just kind of stuck it there.

we took a nap around noon until around very recently. it's still only 5.22pm here, so we're heading out again to eat and (hopefully...) shop while it's still light.

wait, it's almost always light.

also - icelandic is really cool, and everybody here really does also speak english. and everybody's really hot. i almost drooled in a camera shop, the guy was so attractive (don't worry kevin, they're still not attractive enough). everybody is also mostly blond. which is expected.

well, sorry for so much text, but i'm going to try to find a better image hosting site and get pictures/captions up soon.

(almost) all packed and ready to go. wew! it's weird to think that we're actually leaving, after all this time of saying we were going to go.

and jon - i know ten days isn't very travelblog-worthy, but so many people kept bothering me with questions like, "why are you going there? what's there to see in iceland, anyway? ice?"

i figured i'd just show everybody.