Finally some fun!

Today was a LONG, but good day.
This morning we started early since we had so much to do. 4 hrs of programming which ended up not being too bad since I'm fairly comfortable with basic unix commands and perl script.
We then loaded onto the greenest bus I have ever seen...seriously, I have pictures, the entire thing was green...and headed to the botanical gardens. We didn't have much time but I managed to take a lot of pictures (which are uploading, unedited, at a reduced format, and at a snail's pace to my flickr site). We had lunch in their restaurant, which is a converted green house and it was really good food. A lot of the plants and all of the trees aren't native to Iceland. I hadn't realized that have no forests and very few plants! They've imported a lot from other parts of Europe.
Then we headed to an outdoor museum that was very similar to Sturbridge Village. The only difference was that their "historical houses" are younger than the one I live in! It was fun though and there were animals to play with. I have some good stories about Icelandic traditions to tell later.
After that we headed up into the gorgeous, volcanic mountains for a hot spring!!! It was so cool and we could see it from the bus window and Jen and I, who are both geomicrobiologists essentially, were dying to get off the bus. We only had 25 minutes there but it was awesome. The pictures came out pretty good and when I actually have bandwith I'll upload the videos as well of it all bubbling.
Then we drove through the mountains some more (there are probably a lot of blurry pictures in my newest upload but I was desperately trying to take pictures of the geology from a moving bus!) and went to the famous, touristy, Blue Lagoon.
You get a special bracelet that lets you in and controls a personal locker, drinks, etc. and you head into the changing rooms. They are very big on cleanliness so you have to completely strip down and shower before getting into your bathing suit and walking out the door. The Europeans were all laughing at us Americans who were a little shocked that we had to shower in front of 100 other women.
The lagoon is pretty large and has varying temperatures from lukewarm to a hot bath and there is the famous mud that you can smear on yourself to cleanse everything. It was nice and relaxing but after an hour I was more then ready to get out!
After showering several times to try to get rid of the mineral deposits (I explained to everyone that it was mostly calcium carbonate since that's what makes the water a milky blue color) and its useless for the hair. Everyones hair was disgusting afterwards but it was fun.
Finally, we headed to the cheesy, touristy, Viking Village for dinner. The entertainment was fun but the food was horrible!! First was fermented shark (which I refuse on principle to even try not to mention that everyone who did, wanted to vomit afterwards!) and dried fish (no thanks) along with a ridiculously strong and disgusting shot of "Black Death." Then there was a fish soup that was pretty gross. Finally there was lamb shank with veggies. I ate the veggies and a few bites of lamb but didn't like the flavor at all. It was very fatty, tough, and had a really strong taste. Probably because it comes from the mountain lambs instead of nice farm raised ones! There were two very gross beers to have and then Skyrr for dessert (essentially yogurt with fruit in it) which was good. The actors make 3 of our trip leaders into honorary vikings which was fun and then we all loaded up to head back to the hotel.
Jen and I hadn't eaten much so we just ran out for a slice of pizza around the corner, I washed a bit of laundry in the sink, took a shower, and am heading to bed soon. Hoping I can fall asleep tonight. Between the light outside (it's 1:30AM here and looks like 7PM at home and there are still kids outside!) and jetlag still taking over, I haven't been sleeping well at all.
Tomorrow is another long day. We heading to sample from some non-tourist hot springs and then there is an optional 8 hr hike. While I would really love to see the geology out there, my ankle is not happy with just the local walking I've been doing so I'm not even going to attempt it. I'll do the 1 hr sampling hike and then join the group that is heading into town to swim for the rest of the day. We won't get back until late and then we leave Saturday morning for central Iceland and our new hotel.

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Part of trip: Iceland

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