Iceland day 2- lucky at laki

early morning on day two we woke at six am by mistake which turned out to be good. the previous night we discussed going again to the rock formation beach, but decided to sleep in, since my phone was somehow stuck on Dublin time,, 7 am turned out to be six, so we went to the beach and followed a path up the hill to a view point overlooking a rock in the ocean with a huge hole which creates some sort of arch, several birds are seen and nice ocean views over the black sandy (lava sand) beaches. we drove back to Vik, got breakfast and drove an hour to a town with too long a name (Kirkjubæjarklaustur) , try saying that 3 times in a row, we called it kirku for short).

 

we got on a bus to the laki crater. with a name like laki, many jokes today are luck related. we head inland and stop by a river ravine, actually next to it and hike up the hill for some interesting river views of the step ravine and strange rock formations. i get off the bus with my usual summer clothes of short pants and a shirt, while the rest are overdressed and some lady calls me viking, strange, i have no beard at that time, no axe and i don't speak Norwegian but still her comments gets laughs from my other over dressed travels.

this hike is not long, but has interesting views of the river, we finish it and return to the bus which begins the long route on the F road. F roads in Iceland are those that need 4X4 wheel drive. the roads itself is bumpy but can be traversed even with  a regular car but the problem is the many river crossings. this is a special bus, very high with larger wheels, but the ride is slow and bumpy.

it takes well over 2 hours to traverse 38 k. the views are of low green hills with many sheep and we hear in the recording over PA about how the sheep here are left alone the entire summer (all 3 months...) and collected in the fall for the long winter. we cross several rivers and eventually with a Strong urge to pee for some of us, we reach laki crater. the recording says that if we are lucky to get a rainy day, the moss will be shiny green and if we are lucky to get a sunny day, the moss will be grey. so far its a sunny day and the moss is green so we cant really trust the recording on the bus.

laki is a series of volcanoes along a fissure, each erupted in its own time, but they are on the same line, quite impressive. we begin to hike up, up and up some more on a steep trail and reach the peak of the tallest crater and see the rest, some look like classic volcanoes, some like pyramid hills and some semi collapsed craters, we also see green hills and taller mountains in the horizon and take many photos.

we descend from the hill and return to the bus after 2 hours and drive next to the craters some more. at the next stop, we go inside a big crater with a pond inside, a colourful one and keep going through what appears to be a flood river ravine inside the lava, there is no magma now of course, but we walked where it not recently did. we walk inside another volcano and see lots of tiny flowers. after an hours or so we return to the bus and begin the long bumpy ride back, we only stop for a nature break at a site of a big waterfall and reach kirku city shortly after six.

 

after a tasty hot dog quick dinner we begin the drive towards skaftafel national park, at the one of only two places to it there, a place at the gas station and the hotel on the other side of the tiny highway, we choose the cheaper option. i Split a pizza with shay and other people eat other things (they should write their own blogs)... the meat lovers pizza is good. we drive to the camp ground and reach after the closure of the reception, which means we cant buy the card for the showers:(.... so partially Stinky , we set up the tents and go to sleep.. thus ends day 2

 

photos will come your way soon...

end of day 1

where was I, oh yes, Vini Jones.

we stopped at the set, its on the beach at after dusk and this guy comes to intercept us and tells us that Vini is not here, for 3 days and there is no one to see, this is some Russian movie production, too bad, so we leave the set without Hollywood photos and continue east.

just before Vik, we stop at this beach with rock formations, its after 10 pm, but still there is enough dim light to take some wonderful photos.

we reached Vik at total darkness, and spent the night at the puffin hostel.

day 1 ends... got to go...

Iceland - day 0 to almost end of day 1...

on a previous Thursday, i headed for the airport after kissing Alla and Mattanchuk goodbye for 10 days in Iceland.

1st flight from Cleveland to Philadelphia, i get the last row seat next to the bathroom, fun, i realized i forgot the book seats, but then i get a smoker next to me, while they cant smoke on the plane, the smoke smell remains, so stuck between nicotine and poop, i prefer the poop, lucky its a short flight.

next leg, to Boston, i get a middle seat and isle and window are a couple, so i get an upgrade to a window seat, perfect, this couple is also heading for Iceland.

leg 3, to Iceland, middle seat again, idiot me for not booking seats. this flight is on Icelandic Air and when boarding the plane, you get a bottle of Icelandic water and somehow the trip feels like it has already begun.

Landed 30 minutes early after 11 PM, so no views from the plane and waited for the rest. my luggage did not arrive, so has the bags of the other couple, bad connection. lucky i had most of the stuff in the carry on, after filling the forms, Shay arrived with his gigantic bag that can and perhaps does fit a corpse inside.My mom and Moti arrived a few minutes later, i passed through the red pass in customs for the 1st time ever, needed to declare that my missing bag contains nothing that shouldn't be there , got our car and headed out in short pants and a tee shirt to the Iceland night. not so bad I said, then 20 seconds later begun to shiver, till we reached the car. Shay the 'AppMan' found an offline map app and we reached our hostel an hour later where Amit was already waiting.

we set two clocks for wake up, both failed, no juice. Moti called from his hotel and had the hostel person give us a wake up knock on the door, probably a first in hostel history. we headed for their hotel to meet a son of their friend who works here, he arranged Sim cards for us and gave us a few tips and now it was time to head for the road.

before that, we stopped at a gas station for a quick breakfast. the gas stations are quite decent here and server as a tiny shop, like 7-11 but more fresh and very friendly. i tried a hot dog- and wow- i don't know what they do with the hot dogs here to make them so good, i got another one...

we headed north and east and I was pleasantly surprised by the hills, very black hill covered with green, the contrast was impressive and the drive fantastic. we reached our 1st national park at pingliver and parked 170 meters from the information center. we decided to go on a short hike, and now had to go back 170 meters to the car , get properly dressed, then go back 170 to the starting point. for an antsy guy like me, these delays drive me crazy, but eventually we began walking.

this park is on the connection of the tectonic plates, this is the line the crosses the Atlantic ocean and makes the continents drift and its the only place where you can see it, except the bottom of the ocean. Lava rocks all around and a nice green valley in between. this valley one day will grow and split Iceland in two, but for now it is still one island. the ocean reaches these parts and you can take a snorkel or dive just above the tectonic plates, we missed this tour, but you can still see the plates very clearly every where you look. we hike for a couple of hours , passed by an ancient farm, this terrain is hard to walk on and i have no idea what they grew here. pretty moss is everywhere. we reached a waterfall, one of many we will encounter in this land of water and headed back up the trail to the information center + 170 meters to the car. a nice hike to begin the day. after wards we drove to an explosion crater. this crater is former when a lava chamber underneath is emptied after an eruption and the mountain collapses inside, leaving a bowl like hole, called caldera.we hike around it, enjoying the pretty blue of the water in this crater pond and the many colors of the volcano itself. after hiking around the crater we hiked down and circled the pond then continued on our way for dinner. we stopped at a place called earth cooking where they use the natural steam for cooking without using electricity or natural gas. all but me tried the soups and like them and we had earth cooked fish which the rest like, and i found this cod fish a bit blend. we stoked up on groceries and headed east towards Vik. on the way we stopped at an impressive water fall. the track here leads behind the fall where you get a fun and refreshing fall spray in the face. this was close to sundown and we had some interesting photos. it was getting darker slowly and we passed by a movie production site where one traveler told us the tall guy from snatch is the star. assuming its Vini Jones, we stopped. my friends can recite this movie almost word for word.

ok. time to enjoy the last day... to be continued

on obstacles and other birds

woho, i almost forgot how to do this...

finally the semester is over, well not truly over, now its the nervous time of waiting for results, checking the results sites several time a minute.. I over did it this time and took 3 summer courses, usually i have 2 ever semester and now 3 and 2 of them larger than all previous ones, so far 2 are A and waiting on the last one. all this school with work and the little bundle of poop made for a very hectic few months. finally rest...

 

well, a lot of catching up on the important events of the past few months.

 

one afternoon i was watching outside the window and spotted a new bird under my bird feeder, new birds in my garden are not common any more, it was sitting on the bench with its back to me, excited I took my bird guide and searched all over and couldn't find it. this was a small robin sized bird with a blue back, but it wasn't a classic blue bird- perhaps it as a juvenile, those have different colors schemes then adult birds in general. without a find, i took a photo of the bird which was well mannered and didn't fly away. a few hours later i stepped outside and the bird was still there, unfortunately on the floor. so i was excited about a dead bird that perhaps died out of hunger just below the feeder, perhaps the squirrels killed her, would that make the other birds angry? well, this unknown bird got a quick bird burial in our trash bin. that week, a real blue bird made its debut appearance in my garden, so now i have a blue bird, red cardinal, yellow finch, black and white chickadee to make a color full display.

 

one time (at band camp) I was changing the little one and he started with a hungry cry, having just changed it i just zipped up his buttons without a diaper and set him on my lap for a feeding. when he feed , he relaxes, that when trouble comes. few minutes during the process i begin to feel warm liquid, well to late now, i keep feeding while my pants absorb the stuff, a minute passes and now its worse, a big bunch of #2 directly on me, and he keeps eating, well nothing to do now but keep feeding, and another minute and pee again this time with a nice spray on the carpet. nothing but fun and excitement.

note to self, staple dipaer to baby but! always.

 

last week i had to take a few hours to my self and do something i shouldn't do in my current couch potato shape (no need to pardon the pun) and went of a 6.5 obstacle course.  about 150 people came for this Charity run, not sure what was the charity for. i quickly noticed that all of them were at least 2 of the following 3  younger/slimmer/ better shape than yours truly. after not running for over 6 months, i shouldn't have given my self a goal at all, but simply not pass out on the race, but i tried and found 1 guy bigger then me, there was 1, so my goal was not to finish last. they launched us in pairs , 10 seconds apart and the guy next to me is already 10 meter in front after about 5 seconds, i jog away slowly and try to maintain breath. the 1st obstacle is in a track field, jump over hurdles, i stop, walk over, till the next one, then run (walk) in tires crawl under a long net and jump (walk) over a bench, i continue running and already surprise myself for not stopping, i keep at it and reach obstacle #2, this one was fun, they had two cars front to front and i got to slide over the hood, action movie style, then run inside a bus. well the bus part was boring, they could have made it really serious obstacles if we would run in a real downtown city bus, some neighbourhoods are a true obstacle. then down the stairs and under a big bridge, the bridge has a lower level and we run on that level which is kind of unique but not a true obstacle, i stop half way up the bridge and begin walking, not bad stopping after 3 k, better then expected, the next obstacle on the other side was to climb a truck, well you climb over wooden planks, go over the truck and use a big rope net to get down the other side, then back up the bridge, up the stairs, in the silly empty bus and once again over the cars, and they didn't have a camera at that point!!! from this point race volunteers keep telling me i am almost at the finish, they must see my face and racers who pass me, keep saying good ob as they run faster then me, must be some new race etiquette, from the bridge onward i manage to run all the way back and really impress myself- running over 5 of the 6.5 K. well the obstacles could have been better, well , need to be better, but it was fun to do something different for a change. and my result- 53 minutes, not terrible, finished 1 before last in my age group and passed 6 people total, lets ignore the guy in front of me being 14 minutes!!! faster

 

about 3 weeks ago we went to blossom to see Simon and Garfunkel with the Cleveland orchestra (world renown as they like to say, though i must admit i never heard of them before). this wasn't really Simon and Garfunkel (i believe Garfunkel has lost his voice due too some illness) but these 2 guys doing a cover with the philharmonic , but still i like their songs and enjoyed singing along, till the little one decided to begin a philharmonic of his own and wouldn't calm down.

 

few months ago, i spent a few hours and re-did the vegetable garden, bought some seeds, and let nature take its course, well now we have some beans, tomatoes (not sure what is the purpose of those) and what appears to be a mango sized pumpkin, will see how large it gets in months to come.

 

well, those were the highlights, but now the 2 weeks of no schools, exciting things will happen, hope to resume regular pace

 

cheers