The Lonely Wanderer.

I think I have a love hate relationship with buses. We were on the bus for 8 this morning and it was tooo early it seemed. And there was lots of driving. I think I fell asleep for most of it. I can't help it sometimes. Car rides make me sleepy. But eventually we got somewhere, and it was well worth it. We ened in Stong where a farm stead was uncovered. It was buried by and eruption by Hekla, and is where Njal's saga is set. Coming up to it, it is fairly unassuming. And then you park the bus, and you stare up a hill. I don't know why people thought it was a good idea to settle on a hill but, alas they did.

You enter this fairly modern looking (from the outside) building, only to be greeted by dirt. And then your eyes adjust. And personally I couldn't but let my jaw drop. We actually got to walk amoung the ruins of this farm. Now the wooden walls were a little misleading, and the actualy olden day walls would have been turf and rock, so it would have looked a lot smaller, but besides that, this place was fairly amazing. There was still the remains of a hearth in the middle, as wel as the indication of where the benches for sleeping and such along the sides would have been. There were also additions, such as a larder. Just outside of this main building were even more ruins. Now this didn't have any fancy building to cover them, but one is persumed to be a barn (you can still see the stalls) and the other I think was mentioned to be a chapel or church.




Seeing this sites really amazed me. We were out in the middle of no where (which can be said many places in Iceland) and there are just these ruins. You can almost throw yourself back into time, staring out into the timeless view of mountains and grass. It really puts into perspective what these settler's had to deal with.

This stop was then followed up by a recreated long house, which we unfortunately did not get to see the inside of, but we were able to wander around and get a real feel for how big these buildings may have been. There was actually grass growing on the roof, and I thought that was interesting to say the least. They seemed to have a dandelion problem, but I guess one could say it added colour. There was a lovely little chapel that you could walk into, but it was tiny! I postulated it was for the conversion of elves, but maybe there just weren't many people...






After a stop at lunch, where Marlo saved us all and fended off a snake....




We headed to the Saga Center, which broke down the Njal saga (once again expanding my limited ability to understand these ancient texts). It was a pretty exhibit, and had a wonderful recreated hall. I was not expecting that, but it have benches with fur and everything. There was also a sword in the stone outside, which of course everyone had a turn trying to pull out.





We stopped by the falls that we had visited earlier with our rented car, but today was a slightly miserable day (our only rainy day here so far) so I am glad we got some shots of the waterfall when the sun had been shining.

After we got back, which was kinda late, I headed off on a adventure with Cody and Matt in order to find some infamous Icelandic Fish and Chips. And they were amazing. I had wolffish, with a basil and garlic dip and rosemary potatoes. It was awesome. Man I love the food here.




But Alas that is all for now, until next time, Hvar er klósettið?

On the Road Again.

Road trip time! We rolled onto the bus this morning for 9 AM. Not the earliest start, but boy did I feel it. But the trip was by far worth it! It was a very very full day as we headed north of Rekjavik. The first stop was the Settlement Exhibition. It was a nicely set up, with an A/V representation of Egil's saga in the basement and a wonderful explaination of the settlement of Iceland in the upstairs. They integrated the use of audio guides well into the tour, and I think it helped me a lot to understand Egil's saga a lot more then before, by breaking it down and explaining the important bits. There was also a lot of really good artwork and outside there was an amazing view.





The next stop only a few minutes down the road was Skalagrim's grave (Egil's Father). It was surrounding by a lovely garden and Prof. Somerville did an amazing reading from the saga.



The next stop was Reykholt. It was a fairly sparce town, but it was the house of Snorri Sturluson, where he apparently built his own bath. It was a small home, I really don't understand how people lived in such small homes, but I guess people make do. This is where we also stopped in for lunch for a lovely soup buffet. (I know this is only halfway through our day.)



After this, it was time to take in some natural scenery, as we stopped by some amazing falls. The water was so blue! I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself. It was also a site of lava fields and you can see the waves in the rock formed as the lava cooled. Pretty neat. We also seemed to tranverse over the surface of the moon. Somehow the bus made it up a mountain and not only did it give some amazing pictures, I actually got to see a real glacier!!








Finally we went to Thingvellir. It is also the site where the two continental plates meet (North American Plate and the Euroasian plate). It was quite the walked down, but in a way unbelieveable. As you look over the rugged landscape with a spring running down the middle of it, it is amazing to think that a thousand years ago, every single year, people would gather and this is where they would hold government. It was the only time of the year that everyone in the entire country ever came together. The news that must have been passed there, the relationships that were started, the things traded. It is really very astounding.



And with that we headed home. I think tonight will be the day of rest, with some gathering and talking with my fellow intrepid explorers.Góða ferð!

An epic Adventure.

So today, was a lazy day, or so I thought. It was our first free day, and I slept in quite late (I know tsk tsk.) But somehow, my luck turned around and by the mid afternoon, I was loaded up in a car (or the short bus as we affectionately called it) with seven other people, and we were off on an adventure. I had no idea where it would have lead us, but apparently it was somewhere amazing. We had a fun time in the car joking around and listening to random Icelandic radio stations, and then we crested this mountain and we found the most amazing views.





We coud see out to the ocean and all the little towns and farms were lit up by the never ending sun. It was a gorgeous day. It was warm and bright out. We took a pit stop to get out and stretch our legs, which happened to be right next to a horse field. We wandered over to the fence and then suddenly about five horses came running towards us! It was an amazing time to commune with nature.






We continued our journey along the road that hugged the coast giving us wonderful views and scenery. We ended up climbing behind a waterfall and exploring a puffin sanctuary and threw in a picnic lunch for good measure. Over all it was a gorgeous, exciting, adventurous day.