Iceland to Haigerloch


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Europe » Germany » Baden-Württemberg » Haigerloch
July 8th 2014
Published: July 8th 2014
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What a night!

After a very busy and exorbitantly long day of travel, sightseeing and relaxing in Iceland following the emotional departure from family and friends, you would think that it would be a quick and easy lights out and deep sleep. That my friends, was not to be!

An interesting phenomenon that we were all aware of, but nobody really saw coming, was that we have not seen darkness since the night before we left home. We have been consistently north enough on our flight to never see the sun set (just like the British Empire, ha). Then, here in Iceland, no sunset, light all night.

We struggled all day to keep our eyes open with the carrot of a 7pm bed time dangling in front of us. So, copious amounts of activities and mid day sleep walking, and to bed we all went, 7pm sharp and everyone ready. 10pm rolled around, and almost to a "T" we found out the next morning, we were all up. It was bright as noon, and everyone thought it was morning. Some even rose, showered and prepared for the day, even packing for the flight, not bothering to check the actual time. So the group regrouped, recommitted to sleep in the midnight sun, or just sat around and chatted it up until all hours of the night.

The City Hostel in Reykjavik was a great call by Heidi as it was clean, friendly and safe. In the morning, we all met in the living room at 4am and compared stories from the night. Taking the proverbial cake had to be Gabe. At about 1:30am, he shot bolt upright in his sleep with two arms raised above his head, espousing a celebratory "yeah". He then rose and stumbled around the room muttering unintelligible randomness to the amusement of his roommates, who were awoken by the original action. Two other rooms were also alerted to Gabe's excitement, though they had no idea what was going on at the time. Gabe, for his part, remembers nothing.

Breakfast consisted of a variety of juices, rolls, deli meats and jams. A typical European fare. Everyone woke excited and ready for the next step in our adventure as we proceed to Germany to reunite with our friends. No matter how much (or little) sleep was procured, everyone is in great spirits here in Iceland at 4am.

Our trusty driver Thomas was early and arrived with a smile to collect us for the airport. What a gorgeous drive it was! The sun just "rising", more correctly, simply nearer the horizon to the east, and a crystal clear blue sky. Some pockets of light fog low to the ground added character to the scenes of rocky moonscape, green grass and tundra flowers mixed with deep blue water and contrasting with whitewashed houses with bright red roofs. The scenery and the light combined to create a photographers dream, and the kids were snapping away out of the bus windows.

The airport was easy for this now veteran travel crew. The flight was uneventful and all of our luggage showed up in Munich, which is always good!

We were greeted by throngs of eager German students enthusiastically smiling, waiving and displaying their welcome signs as we exited baggage claim. On to the charter bus we went... Next stop... McDonalds!(?)

A few hours and some bad traffic in Stuttgart, and we arrived in the sleepy and picturesque town of Haigerloch, which is actually made up of five small villages tucked in and amongst the many green hills and valleys. I look forward to photographing every inch of this town once the light improves! The area, with the multitude of small villages, half timbered houses, old churches and even hilltop castles, really reminds me of the Cotswold region of England.

We were welcomed to the school by broadly smiling parents. Our tired gang was scooped up and off to their host families for dinner, and later, no doubt viewing the World Cup match between Germany and Brazil (which Germany reigned victorious in 7-1).

Tomorrow we are off to school, then a scavenger hunt in Haigerloch's main village before touring the Atomkeller, where Germany worked on it's atomic weapons program during World War Two.

They have a packed schedule for us here and I am sure it will be fun for al!

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9th July 2014

Yay Plate Tectonics!
Thank you so much for the blog updates! I am so jazzed you went to the continental rift and took lots of pictures! I hope someone remembered that we chatted about it in class?
9th July 2014

Sounds Rad!

Tot: 0.372s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 11; qc: 56; dbt: 0.092s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.1mb