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Mývatn, Etc
Today it suddenly started getting cold - really, really cold. And windy. Apparently this is "real Iceland weather." I'm going to freeze my butt off in the field tomorrow! D:
Friday was Mom's birthday. (Happy birthday, Mom!) We managed to talk over Skype, and it mostly worked, so that was nice!
Also last week we found a tephra layer that folds over itself, which isn't supposed to happen. And we cored an artifact. We're not supposed to do that, either. :D
Explain that, rock stars!
(We think we sliced into a prehistoric thufur.)
And we got the backhoe out there again, and shovel scraped another area at Seyla for GPR, so here's what the big site looks like now:
(The GPR showed something really cool under there, and the cheer that rose up when the printout appeared Friday night was incredible!)
Saturday a group of us went to Lake Mývatn, a big volcanic area a few hours to the east of us. I drove all the way, since I can drive stick. The day was absolutely gorgeous - sunny and warm all day, huge fluffy clouds.
This is a cruise ship at Akureyri.
It can be friends with the USS Torsk.
One the way we stopped at Goðafoss, the Waterfall of the Gods, over which Þorgeirr tossed his pagan idols when Iceland became Christian in 1000 AD.
There were rainbows
and a poor doomed baby duckling
and a face in the rocks
And we had cheeseburgers for lunch at a surprisingly classy N1.
When we got to Myvatn, we saw pseudocraters
(I still can't believe they hay the pseudocraters)
and TREES
(What do you do if you get lost in an Icelandic forest? .. Stand up!)
and with this view, and the weather, we could have been in Hawaii.
We went to Dimmuborgir
where there was snow in a crevasse
and we all posed heroically at the church rock
And Hverfjall, the tephra mountain (erupted 2400 BC - not one of the ones we care about!)
and the sulfur pits by Mt. Krafla.
The smell was terrible, but it was so cool. It's like Mars next to the Moon, with clouds and blue sky!
Myvatn has everything - mountains, lake, desert, lava flows, sulfur pits, forests, volcanoes, green fields and snow-capped mountains.
And then we were tired and we came home and ordered wings and pizza from the restaurant down the street. Most of us skipped the club because there was a real band and a 2200 Kr cover charge. Also I was very sleepy.
Today we went to KANTRYBÆR for lunch! This is the local country music station (one of about 2 radio stations we can get). They have an American-style restaurant, and a museum all about the guy who brought Country to Iceland. It is awesome and terrifying.
Then we took a drive all around the Skagafjorthur peninsula.
(This might be the oldest lake in Iceland?)
Columnar basalt!
Look! An exposed tephra line!
It's lovely and desolate along the west coast. The east coast is also lovely, but less desolate, with waterfalls that fall up in the cold, blustery wind. And we listened to Scandinavian death metal, which is actually completely awesome music and I need to get some CDs.
In cat news, I saw the white one again, and I've decided to call her Hekla, after the volcano that spewed all the white tephra around the island time after time. Tonight we had a tiny adorable kitten running around the computer lab, and a multicolored one was in the backyard this morning.
But best of all are the pictures Mom sent me of Darcy and Bingley enjoying her porch! :D
Otherwise -- I'm uploading photos to Facebook, because that seems to be the easiest way to share them with other people here (so if you want to see pictures of people other than me, or ALL my pictures, friend me and look there). And I've sent off a few postcards, so watch the mail -- I'll probably send out another batch in a couple of weeks.
Friday was Mom's birthday. (Happy birthday, Mom!) We managed to talk over Skype, and it mostly worked, so that was nice!
Also last week we found a tephra layer that folds over itself, which isn't supposed to happen. And we cored an artifact. We're not supposed to do that, either. :D
Explain that, rock stars!
(We think we sliced into a prehistoric thufur.)
And we got the backhoe out there again, and shovel scraped another area at Seyla for GPR, so here's what the big site looks like now:
(The GPR showed something really cool under there, and the cheer that rose up when the printout appeared Friday night was incredible!)
Saturday a group of us went to Lake Mývatn, a big volcanic area a few hours to the east of us. I drove all the way, since I can drive stick. The day was absolutely gorgeous - sunny and warm all day, huge fluffy clouds.
This is a cruise ship at Akureyri.
It can be friends with the USS Torsk.
One the way we stopped at Goðafoss, the Waterfall of the Gods, over which Þorgeirr tossed his pagan idols when Iceland became Christian in 1000 AD.
There were rainbows
and a poor doomed baby duckling
and a face in the rocks
And we had cheeseburgers for lunch at a surprisingly classy N1.
When we got to Myvatn, we saw pseudocraters
(I still can't believe they hay the pseudocraters)
and TREES
(What do you do if you get lost in an Icelandic forest? .. Stand up!)
and with this view, and the weather, we could have been in Hawaii.
We went to Dimmuborgir
where there was snow in a crevasse
and we all posed heroically at the church rock
And Hverfjall, the tephra mountain (erupted 2400 BC - not one of the ones we care about!)
and the sulfur pits by Mt. Krafla.
The smell was terrible, but it was so cool. It's like Mars next to the Moon, with clouds and blue sky!
Myvatn has everything - mountains, lake, desert, lava flows, sulfur pits, forests, volcanoes, green fields and snow-capped mountains.
And then we were tired and we came home and ordered wings and pizza from the restaurant down the street. Most of us skipped the club because there was a real band and a 2200 Kr cover charge. Also I was very sleepy.
Today we went to KANTRYBÆR for lunch! This is the local country music station (one of about 2 radio stations we can get). They have an American-style restaurant, and a museum all about the guy who brought Country to Iceland. It is awesome and terrifying.
Then we took a drive all around the Skagafjorthur peninsula.
(This might be the oldest lake in Iceland?)
Columnar basalt!
Look! An exposed tephra line!
It's lovely and desolate along the west coast. The east coast is also lovely, but less desolate, with waterfalls that fall up in the cold, blustery wind. And we listened to Scandinavian death metal, which is actually completely awesome music and I need to get some CDs.
In cat news, I saw the white one again, and I've decided to call her Hekla, after the volcano that spewed all the white tephra around the island time after time. Tonight we had a tiny adorable kitten running around the computer lab, and a multicolored one was in the backyard this morning.
But best of all are the pictures Mom sent me of Darcy and Bingley enjoying her porch! :D
Otherwise -- I'm uploading photos to Facebook, because that seems to be the easiest way to share them with other people here (so if you want to see pictures of people other than me, or ALL my pictures, friend me and look there). And I've sent off a few postcards, so watch the mail -- I'll probably send out another batch in a couple of weeks.
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Let me guess...
~D
Re: Let me guess...
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It's strange - you tend to think of America as more a melting pot than a distinct culture, and then you see Iceland trying to do country music and you think, oh, hey, we do have cultural institutions after all. (I'm not sure Coke and McDonald's count.) How did their version stack up?
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Some of the people here love it, while others of us have been burning CDs like mad!
(There is, of course, Coke here. Coke Light is not the same as Diet Coke, however. And I've yet to see a McDonald's, but I'll keep my eyes open in Reykjavik whenever we make it there!)