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Published: September 30th 2017
Geo: 64.1353, -21.8952
Today we woke-up to the weather we had only read and heard about encountering in Iceland - 34 mph winds that feel like you can barely stand still in them, white caps on the ocean, and rain pelting the windows. Oddly, it didn't feel "really cold" today at 41 degrees - that's the temperature tonight at least, it may have been a bit warmer today when the weather seemed to be a bit calmer. At this very moment the wind and rain are pelting the windows of our hotel room and Kamie, being a smoker, has been outside a couple of times tonight and says it is freezing out there.
We slept-in until almost 8:30am today and as soon as Kamie commented on the wind and we saw the trees swaying, we realized the Whale and Puffin Tour we had scheduled may be cancelled. I checked my email and yes, it was cancelled due to rough water conditions. I SOOO wanted to see a puffin in Iceland! They look like penguins to me. A girl on our tour the other night said they taste like chicken. Doesn't everything? Ha
We walked to a local tourist shop hoping to book something
different for the day but all the tours were cancelled today due to driving conditions on the roads - high winds can knock over a bus and it is not advisable to be driving in this weather on open roads. We then decided to walk around town today and spend some money as we had been holding on to every Icelandic dollar we had since you just never know what could happen. We had the equivalent of $100 US Dollars in Icelandic change.....which isn't much in Iceland money frankly. We bought a Christmas ornament, a Christmas bird-thingy for my desk at work, and some lava ash special face soap. We both regret not buying the mud masks they were selling at the Blue Lagoon the other night because Kamie's complexion has been excellent ever since we had those silica, algae & some other stuff (volcanic ash?) masks while we were swimming around. I also got some Icelandic teas. I think we got a refrigerator magnet and a cup and then we were out of money. Crazy, huh?
We ate a late lunch/early dinner at a place called Lebowski's Bar. Everything was based on "Dude" from The Big Lebowski movie. We
know we could've ate the shark and puffin but it sounded hideous to us today after eating lamb every day while here plus some other semi-questionable foods and so a good almost-American burger and fries sounded better. The cost for two people, two semi-American-like-burgers (mine was plain, he had spicy chili on his), two fries, a pepsi and a beer?? $75 US Dollars! We knew it was expensive before we booked a trip here but we still cringed paying the bill. Lunch was excellent even though the hamburger meat seems different from ours somehow. The "Gull" draft beer I had was surely made out of gold as it was $10 a pint. It is brewed here on the island and it's fairly good ~ tastes like Bud Light to me.
After lunch we decided to find a grocery store and walk through their aisles - it's one of our favorite things to do in other countries. It was interesting here, for sure - lots of dried fish and odd jellies and jams. Everything has to be made here or imported here so the selection is small. We actually didn't buy anything even though I looked and asked the clerks (two
of them) for sugar-free or diabetic candy for mom but sorry mom - they did not have any. I did take several pictures of interesting items so you will have to read the captions to see why I took the pictures.
Just a quick note I forgot to mention - the main streets here in Iceland are named after Thor and other God-like or Norse-like characters. Three streets from our hotel is Thorlavullier or something like that. The Icelandic language is one of the hardest in the world to learn but just shove a bunch of letters together and that's about right.
Overall, we've had a fairly slow day due to the bad weather. It reminds us that this weather was the forecast for all five days of our visit here however, this is the FIRST day we've had bad weather. We have been very lucky with the weather in both countries and I have loved the cold. Today was a nice relaxing day so I made hot tea in our room and packed-up a bit in-between both of us making small shopping trips into town (we are a one minute walk to the shopping row here).
Kamie made friends with the evening front desk clerks here - they are really nice guys. Gunner is funny and looks like a Norse God or something. He's currently growing out his beard and all his facial hair because Game of Thrones is coming to Iceland to film soon and he is hoping to be an extra! He and Kamie love that show. I thought it was great until they beheaded Jon Snow's dad and then about two seasons later I had to quit watching when some chic gave birth to a black cloudy evil spirit - bring back Spartacus!
Kamie's wisdom tooth is almost all the way through - he has been in soooo much pain I have felt terrible for him. I re-checked his tooth tonight and couldn't believe how much it has come through in just four days! There is still a thick skin coverage on the back part of his tooth but I didn't tell him that. He was talking to an old lady from Australia today about it and she said she had the same thing happen after a long flight a few years back and her dentist told her flying can cause your teeth to do all sorts of strange
things and that is probably what brought this on. We leave Iceland at 5pm tomorrow and we land in Washington 6.5 hours later. I really hope he doesn't have a bad flight tomorrow. He is snoring beside me now and just before he went to sleep he said he wants to go home. He has never said that on a trip before. :-( We are spending tomorrow night in Washington and we will be home Sunday evening. I am so excited to see Simon but more than anything, I feel terribly guilty leaving him knowing his eyesight is getting bad and he doesn't really like our new house. Hopefully, we'll have new hardwoods put down in the next 30 or 45 days and he'll be happier there. I miss my little baby. :-)
If we get to our hotel at a decent hour tomorrow night, I'll talk to you tomorrow night mom and dad - and also - will you please save the West Plains paper showing who all won the elections?? We'd like to see who our new governor is and all that jazz! Thank you!
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Stacy Stark
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All the Missouri elections landed on Republican candidates :( Republican President, House & Sentate to boot. We are screwed.