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August 16th 2011
Published: August 17th 2011
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Our days have been starting off way too early. Sure 7:15 isn't early anymore by my standards since I wake up at 5:45 but I mean this is vacation and I can't even catch up on sleep. Today's trip consisted of a full day bus ride to a glacier, Halsanefshellir (black sand beach), Skogasafn museum, Skogafoss waterfall and Seljalandfoss waterfall. This trip was jam packed with cool stuff and it was definitely going to be an all day event.

The first stop was the glacier; to get to that point it was just shy of a 2 hour drive. Even without a 2 hour ride I'm glad we decided to take a tour there because we would have NEVER of found this place! Once we turned off the main road there was a bumpy, rocky, rough and back to bumpy road and this lasted for about 5K. Once we got to the glacier and was look at it from afar I had no idea what it was. I was immediately thinking of that Dumb and Dumber line, "That John Denver is full of shit." I don't want to say I felt quite that way about it but I didn't know what to expect so when I saw black I thought oh OK, this is how a glacier looks or oh OK that might be some volcanic ash and the latter of my guesses was correct. Walking up close to the glacier you can see the crystal clear blue color most of us a used to by doing a simple Google search. Well people, those glaciers actually DO exist!

We hoped back on to the bus for destination number 2 which was the black sandy beaches of Halsanefshellir.

(NOTE: I fell asleep last night before I was able to finish this post so I am continuing now.)

Halsanefshellir featured an awesome beach, a cave-like structure and a really cool piece of naturally made architecture that the church in town was modeled after. The cool formations in the mountains created man-made stairs that Rachel and I were able to climb and take some really cool photos. For reasons I can't specify I just felt like I was in the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End." You know the scene where they meet in the middle of the ocean? I guess it felt like that because this beach appeared endless, there were huge mountains everywhere and obviously no one was actually on the beach (other than our tour).

The next place we were headed to was the small town of Vik. There is only a few hundred people living in this town. From the top of the road you can literally see the whole town which felt like it had only 20 homes in the community. We stopped to grab some lunch; Rachel had a cheeseburger and I had a beef pita. It was basically a hamburger (which I don't like) and mixed veggies (like tomato, yellow, red and green pepper in addition to onions and lettuce). It was actually REALLY good, I surprised myself with that one.

After lunch we stopped at Skogasafn museum for an hour. The artifacts at this place were pretty neat. This tiny museum featured over 12,000 artifacts and that was from Southern Iceland alone! The owner/founder is 90 years old and he played this 6-string instrument. I guess he played it well but it sounded just awful, and he sang too which didn't help!

Three minutes down the road from us was the Skogafoss waterfall. This waterfall is over 60 meters tall and it takes over 400 steps to climb to the top! The steps were quite the hike and definitely had me a little winded upon completion to the top. The views of the waterfall were actually a lot better about 2/3 of the way up where there was a little cut off the path where you can walk pretty close to the waterfall, to the point where you get misted by the water on it's way over the edge of the mountain. It's an awesome feeling to look over the ledge of a rock and see the bottom of the waterfall crashing down.

The last and final stop of our tour was the Seljalandsfoss waterfall. This waterfall also stands at 60 meters tall and is very unique because you can stand behind the falls and take some photos or even walk down to the pool of water that the waterfall crashes into. While approaching the stairs I was actually able to see a rainbow from the side. I always laugh when I see rainbows now because it always reminds me of Anchorman, haha. At the end of the trip before boarding the bus I took a photo that appears as if I'm drinking the waterfall. You can check it out on Rachel's blog . Man, I love optical illusions.

After our tour was completed Rachel and I grabbed a bite to eat. I had two risky meals in one day for myself. Dinner was a pasta dish that consisted of penne and chicken in a rosemany tomato sauce. It was very good and not really risky but I wanted something other than pizza. For dessert I got some vanilla ice cream with these weird chocolate coated caramel balls which were kind of crunchy. The ice cream here is slightly thicker but mainly has the same taste.

Tomorrow, which is really today, Silfra diving!

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