Got up early today. Earlier than the last two days in fact, because we had a plane to catch. This morning we're flying from Iceland's capitol Reykjavik (which in the south-west corner) to Akureyri (which is in the north-central). Reykjavik is the largest city in Iceland with just over 200,000 people. Akureyri is the second largest "city" with 17,000. They just get smaller from there. (The whole country has just over 300,000 people).
Flying across the country takes about 40 minutes and was very pleasant. Since this was a domestic flight we got to use Reykjavik's regional airport which was just a few minutes from our hotel (international flights are handled by Keflavik airport, which is near Reykjavik). When we checked in at the airport they asked our names, took a passing glance at our ID then printed out a "ticket" on a piece of receipt paper that contained our name, seat number, and a bar code. Then a couple of minutes later they called our fight and we went outside and got on the plane. Once we all took a seat we took off. No security, no searches, no hoop jumping bullshit. Fast simple air travel. Even though the flight was short they still managed to fit in a coffee/tea and chocolate service in route.
We landed in Akureyi and picked up our rented car then headed to Godafoss which translates into "waterfall of the gods". It got that name because in the year 1000 AD the Lawspeaker for the Icelandic parliament was given the task to decide if the country should convert to Christianity or not (!!) He decided yes and this is the place he dumped his pagan idols. Talk about a big decision for your country men.
Afterwards we drove to Husavik, which is home to a certain museum Dawn really wanted to visit (hint: it's the penis museum). It also has a museum dedicated to the history of whaling which we visited afterwards. Both museums were pleasant and worth the price of admission, but I would have thought there would be fewer children and fewer strollers in the penis museum, especially because it was up a flight of stairs. I would have been wrong. (There were no kids in the whaling museum however...)
Besides museums, Husavik does a brisk business in whale watching tours. I was adamant that we don't attempt one and Dawn didn't seem very interested in them anyway. The way I see it, there is only a chance of see a whale on a tour, but it's a certainty that I'll get sea-sick and contemplate drowning myself to make it stop. That's not a good investment of your vacation time.
We also stopped for lunch and I got to try another "traditional Icelandic" dish which obviously falls into the category of Icelandic comfort food. It was mash-potatoes with cod mixed in with it. I thought it was pretty good, but the Icelandic stew we had a couple of days earlier was better.
After museum time we headed out to the Myvatn lake area which turned out to be about a 40 minute ride through a crazy panorama of scenery. Coastal roads, lush farm land, a black sand desert, black lava fields, you name it, we drove through it. I've run out of superlatives to describe Iceland's landscape. So I'll do it in the abstract sense. Whatever scenery you can imagine that involves black rocks and green grass and moss, Iceland has it. It's probably elaborates the scene with ice caps, extreme terrain, sheep, iridescent blue streams and/or waterfalls.
Our mission to Myvatn (besides just looking at it) was Hverfell. It's a giant black mound that was formed when magma met ground water and exploded. The area around what I'm going to call a volcano (but I'm sure there is probably some other more correct geological name for the phenomenon) is blasted out black moon terrain. We climbed it and walked about a quarter around its rim. Very cool. Also a bit strenuous.
We drove back to Husavik for dinner. I had another Icelandic fish stew. This one's texture was less like potato salad and more like a gratin. Still very tasty.
We finished the evening with a walk around our cabin. Did I mention we staying in a cabin tonight? We stayed up late enough to watch the sun go down around 10:00 pm (although its 11:00 pm right now and it's still not actually dark outside). We watch the sunset proper from chairs on our cabin porch. If mountains, and lakes, and the ocean, and the sun setting on said ocean is your sort of thing, I suppose it was alright. Dawn said other people might even find it romantic.
Update: I stayed up to 11:45 and it never really got dark outside.
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