Day 8

(Current Time & Place: 1/5/17, 11:00pm, day 2 of back to real life and work...  Bedtime?)

Day 8 - 1/3/17

Mike:
It's our last day in Iceland.  It's a little sad, but we saw a lot and had a great time.  The original plan was to go see the national Icelandic museum, but considering the very poor weather our first day in Reykjavik we decided to go back to the church,  Hallgrimskirkja.  We much more calmly navigated the streets of Reykjavik, walking the two blocks from the apartment to the church, enjoying the scenery.  While walking, we also observed quite a bit of litter, all over the city - the remnants of New Years Eve fireworks on every block.



The top of the bell tower is accessible to tourists, for a fee, and provides great views of the city.  We couldn't appreciate before how the city is right against the water, with snow capped mountains overlooking the city.  Looking down on the city, we also saw one of the geothermal hot water storage areas that was modeled at the power plant yesterday!




Jon:

The differences between our first day in Reykjavik
and our last couldn't be more drastic. The first day was rainy, dark, and extremely windy.  We struggled to take any photos at all, and half of the ones I took of Hallgrimskirkja had to be deleted because there was water on the lens. Today, the sky was clear and bright, and the weather was fantastic. Hallgrimskirkja was amazing, and the bell tower was a great idea to end our trip.





Reykjavik actually translates into something like "smoke cove" or "smoky bay", because when the original settlers came to the area the hot springs were producing steam. Anyway, the city is beautifully positioned with the sea on one side, mountains on the other, and relative plains to hold the sprawling buildings.  We got incredible views of the entire city in a 360 view from the bell tower, and it was a great way to appreciate the country we have been in for the past 8 days.

So, we spent 8 days in the country of Iceland and were able to travel and see most of the "major" sites between Reykjavik and Höfn. We've experienced 30 m/s winds and rapidly alternating bouts of rain, snow, sleet, hail, and sun. I've heard this said in almost every location I've been in, but Iceland's weather truly changes rapidly, often 5-10 minutes is enough for a completely different weather pattern. Not only that, for a country that is so small, the topography varies greatly within this country.  In the span of 10 km (~6 miles for us Americans), you can change from steppes, to mountains, to a flat landscape, to a glacier.  While we were not able to make it to an active volcano Iceland has many, and these are largely responsible for Iceland's abundance in geothermal energy and it's hot springs.  One of the things that I do not miss is that almost all of the hot water smelled of sulfur (dihydrogen sulfide, for my fellow chemistry nerds), both as a function of the source of the water and the water treatment practices here (they add more dihydrogen sulfide to treat the hot water instead of chlorine or other chemicals).  So every time we had the hot water on, we were washing our hands (or showering) with sulfur scented water.  However, the people we met here were universally kind and wonderful. I look forward to the time that I can visit this country again, and maybe see some of the rest of the country or see it in the summer when everything will be green and the days will be longer.