Demand a Sacrifice

I think Bill took pretty extensive notes today, so I can just ramble a bit about a couple of details and then concentrate on all the things I have done wrong.

The title is from something said several times by our tour guide today. As in "fortunately, this volcanic eruption did not demand a sacrifice" to indicate that nobody died. Hard not to like such a handy phrase.

The church we visited at our first stop on the tour was fairly recently built including the stained glass windows made by an Icelandic woman. I took a bit more of an interest in those than Bill did, probably because I tried stained glass cutting recently and really enjoyed it. Somehow it did not involve cutting myself at all and I barely burned myself with the soldering iron at all. Painted glass barely interests me and etched I'm on the fence about, but pretty patterns I dig. Here's one of the windows.

The came was quite thick in all the windows. I wonder how deep the actual channel is. And if it's size is somehow a better match to the climate or simply an artistic choice.

Bill has declared that the miniature setting on my camera is cheating because it does stuff like this:

Regardless of the settings, I fail at photographing geysers. This one goes off every 5 minutes and I still didn't get a decent picture.

Also, Þingvellir National Park is gorgeous.

Now for my accessory packing fail.

I forgot to pack gloves so after our day long tour (which aside from the glacial waterfall didn't require a jacket at all), we went back to a shop I'd seen many a bright and colorful glove in. While there were many not terribly expensive options, none of them felt right. So we headed off to look in some of the more interesting stores that hadn't been open yesterday and eventually found one that had been highly praised by the tour book. I found The Gloves there for only about  five times the price of the other shop. Actually, I found quite a few exquisite and expensive things. Really, it's surprising I only purchased gloves. And I will likely want them tomorrow.

Also, maybe a hat. That would have been a good thing to pack. I need to find sunscreen because the SPF in my moisturizer isn't cutting it.

Finally, a belt. How did I not pack a belt? I was more worried about this before our epic, hours long, multi-course dinner. I'm pretty sure that has solved the problem.

I have no regrets!