but it’s cold…

we have said below how much sun there is – it is very clear – and a lot of the time the light feels a bit like late afternoon in May – golden and looks warm – but it isn’t. Most of the time it is cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey – colder than I have ever experienced. The night we went aurora watching we stood on top of a small mountain called Ulferfell -  and it was so cold I couldn’t stay outside the jeep for more than a few minutes. Today at the pool, walking between the the various pools of hot water, it was bitingly cold – but deliciously warm in the water.

Light…

another thing that we expected (and some people said to us before we left) was that the daylength would be short – nothing could be further from the truth – we are getting more daylight here than in the UK! – The sun comes up at about 8:15am but doesn’t set ’til gone seven – and twilight extends to beyond 9. By the end of May it will be light 24 hours a day (although the sun goes below the horizon for a couple of hours). Apperently Iceland gets significantly more daylight hours in a year than Florida.

This is an amazing country – I often think when I’m on holiday – “I could live here” – but then realise I couldn’t really – but here I think I really could – and I understand why so many Icelanders, are not so much patriotic but, love their country. Which is probably how I feel about Britain – specifically Britain, not just England…

Thorsday

in Reykjavik. We have bought tourist cards which entitle us to free bus travel, 12 mins free internet use, free entry to lots of galleries and museums and thermal pools. So we have just spent a delightful morning in Laugurdlur (?) pool in the sun with an air temperature of about -4 degrees C. The sky is clear blue. It was fantastic – extreme relaxation. There is a 50m pool for swimming, 2 hot tubs and 4 jacuzzis of increasing heat from 100 degrees F upwards and a steam room.

Last night we met Joi and Sonja in Cafe Victor and chatted for at least 3 hours easily. Not suprisingly they speak fluent English and are well travelled themselves. we are so pleased to have taken the risk of getting in touch with them.

We went to the Iceland museum and the National Art Gallery yesterday afternoon and we really like Snorri somebody or other’s paintings.

We are in Iceland

and we have done loads of things already.

We saw the best show of Northern Lights Reykjavik has seen since December 2005 at least, last night! tone managed to get photos and we are trying to put them on the web for you to see…… so go to Atypical at Flickr as we hope to have pics there later today.

It was minus 6 on top of the hill where we saw the aurora last night and the wind was blowing at about 20 miles an hour making us feel much colder! (We went off-road in a 4WD jeep to get up said hill – it was hilarious).

Tone has lost Joe’s number so we are waiting for him to contact us – we hope to meet him later.

d-i-y snow…

make your own snowflakes here

it’s not just wintery here and in Iceland…

…Bavand’s site always has wonderful pics on it – take a look at his recent pics, many of which are of snowfall in Iran…

sitting on the bed watching Pen pack…

trying to decide how much to take – we always take more than we need to wear, even though by many people's standards we take very little. The forecast is bright but cold especially at night. So we are taking lots of layers – we risk ending up looking more like Michelin men/women than we already do, but we should be able to keep warm even if the temperature/windchill are severe. It seems a bit ironic that as the UK lurches back into winter  Iceland is forecast a week's worth of sun/clear skies – should be good for Aurora watching, which is one of the main reasons for going.

BTW – I'm not being a complete lazy git sitting on the bed blogging whilst Pen packs – my hands are bad, I did all the ironing earlier, and I'm making helpful suggestions.

TTFN – Tone

isn’t the internet wonderful?…

I emailed Joe of joePhotos (see previous post) to let him know about the post, and also suggest, on the off-chance, that as "we are visiting Iceland could we buy him a drink to thank him for his inspiring images" (this is no mean offer as alcohol in Iceland costs three times as much as it does in the UK). We've just had an email back to say he lives near our hotel, and when can we meet?

It seems to me that this is a new kind of positive contact between peoples, that was completely impossible a generation ago.

Thanks Joe – see you soon…

Inspiration…

we found 'joePhotos' a while back – he is a photo-blogger based in Iceland (who also seems to travel quite a bit) – his pictures of Iceland are particularly inspiring, and played no small part in encouraging us to choose Iceland – take a look back through his images, I guarantee you will be amazed by the extraordinary landscape and his excellent eye.

Our new travelblogue…..

Hi everyone.

We are in the middle of packing to go to Iceland with Discover the World in 2 days.

We think it's going to be quite cold so we've been out and bought some thermal undies, over-trousers and gloves. Tone's got a new coat.

We are very excited about all the amazing photo opportunities and this has motivated us to set up this travelblogue. We hope to find internet access while we're out there, with the facility to upload photos.

One of the things we are confident about is that it will be warm inside buildings because of the geo-thermal heating everywhere. Iceland has over 200 active volcanos and that means the earth is very warm. (None are currently errupting, so don't panic!)