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Published: January 12th 2007
Blue lagoon
Mum and dad wanted to have a swim in Blue Lagoon - a thermal bath. We don't like water so we waited beside the pool. Hello all of you
Today we would like to tell you about a journey we made last year.
In June last year mom and dad asked us if we would like to travel. We said "YES" and started to give suggestions on where we could go. We suggested Partyland, we suggested Palmfringedbeachland, we suggested Lazybythepoolland and we even suggested Coralreefland. But where did mum and dad take us? Iceland! Ice is something you have in Whiskey not something you make a land out of! Mum and dad are evil... First they give us hope and then they take it away...
Well, let's hope mum and dad brings warm clothes for us too because Iceland sounds very cold.
We borrowed mum's and dad's guidebook so we could read a little bit about Iceland. It turned out that Iceland isn't all ice after all. In Iceland there are volcanoes, waterfalls, geysers and thermal baths. Maybe Iceland isn't so bad after all...? We also read that Iceland as a country was founded by vikings. Well we are two cuddly little viking toys so a viking land sounds interesting. Why didn't they call the whole country Vikingland? We are sure that
Sitting on a lava field
In Iceland there are many overgrown old lava fields. They are called Hraun. would give them many more visitors.
The day when we arrived in Iceland it was mum's birthday. We sang "Happy Birthday" to her all morning. But once we started to get close to Iceland we were much too excited to be able to sing anymore. We arrived in Reykjavik, which in spite of it's strange name meaning Smoke Bay, actually is the cleanest capitol city in the world. At least thet is what the guidebook told us. We still believe that Coralreefland's capitol is cleaner...
We didn't have much time to do things when we came to Iceland so the first day we just stayed in Reykjavik.
The day after and the day after that mum and dad rented a car and took us on a drive to many places in Iceland. The first day we visited places around Reykjavik and the next day we went to places further away.
The first place we went to was Blue Lagoon, a thermal bath, for a swim. Or actually, they had a swim we didn't. We don't like water very much so we didn't try it. Mum and dad said it was warm and nice but we just
Field with Fumaroles
Volcanic activity often leads to hot steam coming straight from the ground. This is often called Fumaroles and here is a field of those. thought it looked wet. Mum and dad don't seem to have realised that we are stuffed. When we get wet we take hours to dry. So it doesn't matter how "nice" mum and dad say it is. It is still wet, and wet is not nice... But we have to admit that the water was beautiful...
All around Iceland there are places where it is possible to see volcanoes and volcanic activity. Volcanoes, we found out, are pretty dull. They are big mountains that look like pyramids. We have seen real pyramids and they looked nothing like mountains. Why on earth should a mountain look like a pyramid? We want mountains to look like mountains and pyramids to look like pyramids.
But there are things that are "volcano related" that are much more interesting. For instance there are big lava fields, often old and overgrown. They are called Hraun is Icelandic by the way. That is a funny word, isn't it? We think the Icelandic people are funny. They must be since they decided to live on an isolated island in the middle of the Atlantic.
Dad says there are new lava fields in Iceland too, but
Lava field
Volcanic activity also often brings lava. Here we are sitting on a lava field he didn't show any to us. We wanted mum and dad to show us some new lava fields but they said we didn't have time. They could have skipped the bath they took in Blue Lagoon and taken the time to show us new lava fields. But they refused. Probably because the water was so "nice".
Dad says that
lava is rock that is so warm that it is a liquid. But dad must have been joking with us. We tried sitting on some lava that he pointed out to us and it was neither warm nor liquid. It was hard as a rock. As a matter of fact we believe it was rock. It didn't really look like rock does at home but still it was rock...
But something we really did like and that didn't look like anything we have ever seen before was
fumaroles. Fumaroles are holes in the ground where hot gases come up . Fumaroles are very smelly we found out. It was a funny place because it looked like there was fog coming from the ground. But we don't think it was fog because fog doesn't smell so much. At least not
Lava columns
Dad told us that sometimes when lava cools down it forms columns, columns with hexagonal shape. Dad is a science nerd so he knowns everything about such things... the fog at home.
Another really strange thing we saw, that dad also said was there because Iceland is volcanic, was lava columns. They are rock (also hard and cold, not warm and liquid. It's incredible that dad actually thought we were going to believe that...) pillars that were formed long time ago. Dad pointed out that the pillars are hexagonal and when we looked around a bit we saw that they are. He said it had something to do with "the geometric shape that has the largest area compared to its circumferens" and added that "bies have known this for millenia and therefor always build the cells in their beehives using a hexagonal shape". That was way too many difficult words for us. We didn't understand a thing of what he was talking about. We think he tried to say that they are funny looking and make excellent chairs.
But the strangest and most fascinating of all the volcanic things we saw in Iceland was still the
geyser Strokkur. It is a hole in the ground where hot water "splurts" out five to fifteen times per hour. The jet of water that shoots out can be as
Sitting on lava columns
... but we don't care. Columns? Hexagonal? Hey what does it matter why and how? They make good chairs and that's all that matters. much as twenty meters high. That was exciting!
But we also saw other things in Iceland. There are waterfalls there. Very big waterfalls. We saw one waterfall that is called Gullfoss. That was the biggest waterfall we have ever seen! There was so much water and it was in such a hurry! We don't understand why the water was so quick to go through the waterfall. It was so beautiful so if we had been water instead of cuddly toys we would have stopped at Gullfoss for a picnic for an hour. Now we are not water, and that is good since we don't even like water as you already know, but we like to look at water. So we stopped for a very long time at Gullfoss.
We thought that Gullfoss must be the most beautiful waterfall in the world. It turned out we were wrong. Later that day we visited an even more beautiful waterfall - Selfoss. It was not as large as Gullfoss but much more beautiful. Now we have learned that size isn't everything!
One thing we can't really understand though is where all the water comes from. We sat at both waterfalls
Strokkur
The geysir Strokkur shoots water in the air five to fifteen times every hour. for a very long time waiting for the water to run out. But it never did. We think that there might me a big open tap further up the river. A tap that somebody by mistake have left open. But when we tried to picture how big this tap must be we realised that we must be wrong. There is no such big tap in the World.
We saw many horses on Iceland. It seems like the Icelandic people like their horses. The horses looked cute but we still didn't dare to touch them. We are so small that if the horses think we are food we could loose an arm or a leg. We like our arms and legs so we prefer to look at the horses from a distance.
But there is more to Iceland than natural wonders. There is interesting history too. The parliament in Iceland, the
Althing, is the oldest parliament in the world. They had their first meeting almost 1100 years ago. That is so long ago that we were not even born. We think that maybe mum and dad wasn't even born then and mum and dad they have existed almost always.
Gullfoss
Iceland have very big waterfalls. The biggest we have ever seen. This one is called Gullfoss. By the way, dad's camera bag was very comfortable. We wish he could throw away the camera... So the Althing must be very old! We read in the guidebook that the Althing used to have their meetings in a place called Thingvellir. They held their meetings on a rock there called Law Rock. It is fun to walk around there and think about what it looked like then. People came from all over Iceland to join in on the parliament's meetings. Some people travelled for almost a week to get there. They held meetings for a few days and after that everybody went back again. The parliament is still in existance making it the oldest law institution in the World.
On the second day of travelling we learned why Iceland is called Iceland. There are big icebergs there. Dad, who always has funny names for everything, called them glaciers. We prefer to call them icebergs because that is what they called big mountains of ice on Internet and on TV. Well, we have to admit that those were in water and these were not. So maybe dad has a point there...
There was so much ice. There was ice as far as we could see and dad told us there was ice even further away.
Selfoss
This waterfall is not so big but we liked it better than Gullfoss. Ice is cold so we preferred staying away from it. But mum and dad actually took a walk on the ice. They are very brave to do that. They said they didn't feel cold. But we still didn't want to walk there because it looked cold enough for us.
There are many things we don't understand. But one thing we do know is that ice really is water. We saw very much ice and that means it must be very much water. In the waterfalls there was also very much water. Could it be that the water comes from the ice...? We may have stuffing instead of brains but we are not stupid...
One thing we noticed after a few days in Iceland is that there are no forests here. In fact, we hardly saw any trees at all. We don't understand why but it looked strange. Maybe trees don't like Iceland? But why shouldn't they? We liked Iceland and we can't see that trees are very much different from us. Trees should like Iceland. But there might be some other reason. Mum said something about that people have cut down all the trees for firewood a long
Us with Selfoss
Here we are in the picture too. We almost got wet there. Mum and dad can be a bit reckless sometimes. Lucky them there is no organization called Save the Cuddly Toys... time ago. If that is true then people must be quite stupid. Cuddly toys like us would never cut down trees without planting new ones afterwards.
We did see some trees though. But they were growing in a very funny place. They were growing just uphills from a house but downhills from a mountain. They were actually planted there to make sure that rocks didn't fall from the mountain onto the house. It was nice to see some trees but why on earth did they build the house where they might have stones falling onto the house? We didn't understand that. Iceland is so big and there is almost nobody living there. Why búild a house on one of the very few places where rocks fall from the mountain?
Finally we have to tell you about
Leif Ericson. Leif Ericson was a viking who lived in Iceland a long time ago. He left the island one day and sailed to Canada. Sailing from Iceland to Canada is a big adventure even today. But what makes it even bigger is the fact that Leif Ericson didn't know there even existed a country called Canada. We know there is a country
Us and horses
Here we are with some horses. We are a little afraid of horses. What if they eat us? But dad was holding us and he is so strong so we were safe. called Canada and we still wouldn't be able to sail there.
This is all from us today. We will write more about other adventures when we have time.
Take care,
Emma and Jean-Claude
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Zakjekonijn
non-member comment
Vatten är äckligt!
Det här är Zakjekonijn som skriver, fast jag har fått er text översatt, för jag är inte så bra på engliska. Skönt att höra att fler har vett att inte tycka om vatten! Det är läskigt, är vad det är. Men fint att titta på. Fick ni inte åka båt när det var så mycket vatten överallt? Det är det bästa jag vet, jag ösnkar mig alltid en stor båt som jag kan vara kapten på. Hej då!