dear all,
hooray, its back to journal writing. Lately havnt had anything exciting to write about, but since our travels to iceland, no i have something exciting!hooray.
the season finished on the 2nd of November with a gigantic karaoke party that continued on till 7.30am when the sun started to rise. The friday before that we also had halloween and all dressed up and cut pumpkins and went to the pitlochry halloween party. but sadly, all the other staff have no gone home and its just me and dan left, kinda quiet.
Yesterday (thurs) we flew the 2 hours to keflavik airport and caught the bus to reykjavik-the capital of iceland. Iceland is tiny and only has a population of 310,00 and 190,000 of them live in the south west corner of iceland (mainly reykjavik and the surrounding area). The landscape is crazy, iceland is on the edge of two plates which are continually moving, causing earthquakes and the crazy landscape. the mountains rise out of nowhere, reykjavik is dead flat and then across the bay are soaring mountains covered in snow. the weather is chilly, sits around 7degrees in the day and drops at night. icelanders speak icelandic which sounds kinda like a scandanavian language.Sun sets around 4.30pmish and dosnt rise in the morning till 9.30amish.it felt really really early getting up in the pitch black at 8am.
Spent yesterday afternoon walking around reykjavik. theres a few older buildings, but largely everything is either very new or still under construction. however the recent bank crash and currency issues have caused alot of the construction to slow down.
Today we went on a tour called the "golden circle". It left at 9am, and the first stop was a small town and hour out of reykjavik. The town is built on area full of geothermal vents which are continually steaming and heating the town and providing hot water..even though it does smell like egg..thanks to the sulphar. Stopped at a green house, which was growing bananas in the middle of iceland.
After there, it was the gulfoss waterfall. It was beautiful, but with the spray in our faces totally freezing. I got my hair cut fairly short the day before we came away, but the wind was blowing crazy at the waterfall so it dosnt look so good..bec-kinda manish!
The waterfall is surrounded with mountains which were gorgeous, we could also see one of the many glaciers in iceland.
After the waterfall, we went to the geysirs. bigger vents full of steaming water (around 100degrees c), that explode every 5 mins or so. It was crazy because we were allowed right up to the vents, and even at the waterfall, it was only a small rope barrier about 30cm high stopping us from falling hundreds of metres to certain death. The geysirs were amazing, and watching the pool it was like the water was breathing, heaving up and down and continually bubbling and steaming..we tried for ages to get photos, but just when u got bored or thought it wasnt coming it exploded..i suppose thats half the fun.
After the geysirs, we drove to thingvellir national park, the drive was beautiful, but the swaying bus rocked me to sleep.When i woke, we were high in the mountains and there were these massive gashes in the ground that our guide told us is where the two plates (i think the euroasian plate and the american plate??) are meeting and continually moving. It was really creepy seeing the huge gaps running for miles in the distance. The spot where we stopped was also where the norway vikings first made parliament (the first inhabitants to iceland, later came the irish, however its proven that native icelanders are closer related to the irish).
tour finished at 5ish, and we were dropped off at a huge shopping centre in reykjavik, however even though we got a really good rate for the iceland krone from the british pound, the icelanders like living in luxury and things arent cheap.so we came home..to the hotel anyway.
tonight we were hoping that we would be able to see the northern lights, but the weather has been really cloudy and the bus that takes tourists out to see the lights has been cancelled due to the weather ): so tomorrow is our last chance to see the lights and im praying the weather clears.
tomorrow were going caving! rekjavik is built on huge lava tubes that are apparently amazing so were going there. then on sunday going to the blue lagoon to relax for the morning before were back to scotland on sunday night.
hope all is well, and the sun is shining. good luck to everyone with exams
love j xo
p.s.check the photos!!
