An Epic Vacation
This year, my kid Skylar and I journeyed to Iceland. It was an amazing trip across an epic country.
Reading the language was my biggest challenge. Icelandic has 32 letters, accents on both vowells and consonents, and names that are concatenated together like in German. Some of the names were so long that by the time I'd sounded out the last of the 5 syllables in a name, I couldn't remember the first two. But, once I figured out that the last part of the name described what the thing was, life got easier. "vega" meant a street, "jokull" means a glacier, "foss" means a waterfall, "vik" means a harbor, and "fjordur" means 'on the fjord'. Thus, Reykjavik is the 'foggy harbor', Hafnarfjordur is 'Hafnar on the fjord', and Seljalandfoss is 'the Selja Land waterfall'
Skylar and I both enjoyed listening to spoken Icelandic, so we listened to the RUV2 pop/rock radio station, out of Reykjavik, almost all of the time. You can listen for yourself at http://www.ruv.is/ruv-2
>> 25-May. This is an initial page related to our journey; it covers only our time in the south and southwest of the country. More will be added for our journey to Akureyri in the north. <<
Reading the language was my biggest challenge. Icelandic has 32 letters, accents on both vowells and consonents, and names that are concatenated together like in German. Some of the names were so long that by the time I'd sounded out the last of the 5 syllables in a name, I couldn't remember the first two. But, once I figured out that the last part of the name described what the thing was, life got easier. "vega" meant a street, "jokull" means a glacier, "foss" means a waterfall, "vik" means a harbor, and "fjordur" means 'on the fjord'. Thus, Reykjavik is the 'foggy harbor', Hafnarfjordur is 'Hafnar on the fjord', and Seljalandfoss is 'the Selja Land waterfall'
Skylar and I both enjoyed listening to spoken Icelandic, so we listened to the RUV2 pop/rock radio station, out of Reykjavik, almost all of the time. You can listen for yourself at http://www.ruv.is/ruv-2
>> 25-May. This is an initial page related to our journey; it covers only our time in the south and southwest of the country. More will be added for our journey to Akureyri in the north. <<
May 7: Outward Bound
When IcelandicAir offered roundtrip airfare for $399pp, we jumped at the opportunity. As part of our booking, we prepaid to have dinner on board, so we wouldn't be starved at the end of our 5 hour flight. Every passenger was given a bottle of Icelandic Glacial water as they boarded, and the chicken cordon bleu was very good.
May 8: The stark beauty of the Reykjanes Peninsula Geopark
Our flight arrived on Monday at 6:30 AM local time, so once we had our rental car, we headed out to explore the surrounding area. We were tired from our flight, but the stark beauty of the Reykjanes Peninsula was too much to pass by.
May 9: Exploring Reykjavik, Europe's northernmost capital city
Still jet-lagged from the 5 hour flight, the timezone difference, we opted for a leisurely drive around Reykjavik. There is an interesting mix of early 20th Century buildings with brightly painted exteriors, bland mid-century concrete buildings with bare surfaces and uniform layouts, and the new 21st Century architecture which combines natural and synthetic rock with tinted glass in dramatic designs.
The Whales of Iceland
Tired and still a little bit jet-lagged from our flight, we decided to go low-energy and take in the Whales of Iceland exhibit. Located right on the waterfront in the harbor district, this exhibit featured life-sized models of each of the whale, dolphin, and porpoise species that one might encounter around Iceland. You get an audio program to take along, and then afterwards you can wander and explore the visuals.
May 10: Into the Southlands and towards Vik and the ice caps of Vatnajokull
On Wednesday we made our first cross-country foray, heading into the Southlands towards some renouned birding and of course, the great icecaps of Iceland. To get to the Southlands we had to drive over volcanic Mossfelshield and its high pass, then descend down a steep highway -- WITH NO GUARDRAILS -- into Hveragerdi.
