On our last few days, we had many things planned yet to see and do. Our first goal was to see the solar eclipse, which was to be at 99.6% occluded at our location in Iceland. Our Airbnb host had the wonderful foresight to leave us solar viewing glasses, which look like they came straight out of a Devo music video or a scene from the 1950's atom bomb propaganda:
Sadly, it had been cloudy for days and although we did experience the momentary darkness we could not see the eclipse itself.
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| Bettie is not looking at the eclipse, but squinting at some clouds. |
Although we were disappointed, in some sort of cosmic act of solidarity on our flight home we met a gentleman from Newburyport who is retired and plans his vacations around solar eclipses up to years in advance- he and his wife were flying home from the Faroe Islands where they saw the eclipse in totality. He said it took him years and at least 2-3 trips to get everything right. So, we've got time. And even the pros screw up.
Moving on! We did see some reindeer up in the wee hours of the morning!
We then continued our trip along the southeastern coast on route 1. We came along black beaches with gorgeous white waves and giant monolithic stones just hanging out. A rainbow poked out, and our day was absolutely looking up.
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| if you look carefully, there was a rainbow in this pic to the left of Trevor and giant monolith stone. |
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| inverted beach- black sand, white waves |
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| just one example of the many amazingly placed farm houses a the base of incredible mountains |
Our next stop was Jökulsárlón, a lake that siphons iceberg babies out to sea. This lake has only been around since 1980's, and is the product of the glacier receding back from the ocean. This may be the most peaceful place on earth- quiet, unassuming, with occasional splashes and groans from the slowly moving icebergs.
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| Bettie had no effect on this iceberg whatsoever. |
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| hard to convey the ghostly, unearthly blue that radiated off these things. |
We then headed on to Skaftafell national park, a favorite of Icelanders and tourists alike. Unfortunately we were low on energy and time, and took a quick walk out to meet Jokuls the ridiculously huge iceberg.
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| just some dude in the foreground for scale- couldn't get the whole thing in anyways. |
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| strangely reminiscent of ice-cream or pure white marshmallows drizzled with chocolate sauce. |
We spent our last evening in Iceland at Icelandair Klaustur, which I would highly recommend. It was cheap, easy to find, comfy, and has a wonderful restaurant with Icelandic favorites like lamb and arctic char, as well as this awesome Icelandic beer made by Borg in Reykjavik. Good stuff.
Our final day was spent hurrying to the airport, with a few quick stops on the way. Early in the morning we were driving through some intense fog, but could make out a green mossy wonderland on the side of the road.
We stopped at Skógafoss another beautiful waterfall, complete with a rainbow when the sun came out.
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| we are getting soaked by the falls even this far away |
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| to get the "I'm flying!" effect, climb this weird rock and then have the guts to look out at the waterfall and let go- its terrifying and awesome. |
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| rainbow sorta!! |
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| seagulls loved this locale, didn't mind the spritz. |
Per our dear friends Anna and Martin's excellent advice, we made time for a detour to Stokkseyri to eat at Fjorubordid, an excellent seafood restaurant right on the coast. The back of the menu had a cute story about how sailors and seamen would come despite treacherous weather and many miles to have the lobster (langoustine) soup, so that's what we ate. They were not kidding on how delicious this soup was.
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| we would seriously eat here daily if we could. |
The end of our journey was as you might expect- annoying lines at the airport, classic Worcester-ite driving us to our house, and holing up to recover from our vacation. We are already dreaming about when we might be able to return to the land of ice and snow.
