Dear all,
Well, the holiday is over and were back in Glasgow with our backpacks..its surprising how different people treat u with a backpack, its great. Weve been to a Japanese noodle place a couple of times and nothing special, this time we turned up with backpacks and they were all over us asking questions. And then on the way from the station a guy stopped us in the street to ask us where he was from..blah blah..got chatting and he was from London working as a tubular technician in Glasgow…intrigued we asked him exactly what he did…..set up scaffolding…bahahahaha.
Iceland was amazing, and although the weather was to cloudy and not cold enough on the three nights we were there, it did clear up beautifully on the last day before we left. Today, our last day in Iceland we woke up to the Icelandic sun, the first time we had seen it! From the hotel we packed up and headed out the blue lagoon..hooray!we saved the best part of Iceland for the end. The blue lagoon is a huge (I’d say around 1 and half Olympic size pools but never higher then dan’s chin), it’s a natural formation, and the hot water bubbles up from below and the pool sits at around 39 degrees. The facilities were amazing, sooo clean and high-tech and just really nice. It was only a 5 metre sprint from the indoors to the water and we ran really really fast, it was around 5 degrees today. So when we finally got into the water it was soooooooooooooo soooooooooooooooo soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo nice…im not sure I put in enough so to really say how nice it floating in the hot water steaming all around us, with the blue sky above us. The pool is surrounded by black volcanic rocks and the water is a milky blue colour from the naturally occurring algae and bacteria and the silica mud…but its not really mudish, its milky white and we plastered it all over ourselves because its really really good for your skin..dans first facial! At one spot closest to where the water bubbles up, the steam is really thick, so thick you cant see anything and it felt like we were the only ones in the pool. The blue lagoon was definitely the highlight of our trip to Iceland. If the chance ever came up I would buy a house next to the blue lagoon.
I think the blue lagoon was particularly nice because the day before we spent the afternoon caving. Iceland is a mass of volcanic rock. There are several active volcanos still in Iceland, however the closest ones to reykjavik died thousands of years ago. But they did leave huge areas of volcanic lava, massive fields of it that are now covered in fluro green moss..it was almost alien like. Anyway, underneath the surface there are hundreds of lava tubes, where the lava use to flow but are now just empty tunnels. We went through a loop around 600m long, and some parts were quiet easy with the rook 5 or 6 foot above us, other time it was so damn tight I was pulling myself along with my belly on the ground and my back scraping the roof..dan tells me I need more practise scrambling under houses. It was scary and really dark and I can understand how people get claustrophobic. It was great though, and felt even better to see the light at the end. The tubes are covered in stalactites (the little towers of minerals and rock that grow up) and stalacmites (the little towers that grow down), there was also a sheep skeleton down there..which was weird because the volcanic lava fields are vast and there is nothing but rock and moss for miles, and even past that noone keeps sheep in that area, so it remains a mystery as to how a sheep got there..
Weird coincidence I forgot to write about whilst writing about the blue lagoon…I could be on Japanese tv!!! While we were at the lagoon, a small Japanese film crew and interviewer were there talking to people about the lagoon for a travel show in japan..somehow dan got me in a corner and told them I spoke Japanese and so eventually I may end up on Japanese tv..the Australian that speaks Japanese that was visiting Iceland that thinks the exchange rate is good because she works in Scotland..what a mix.
Another weird thing..we were waiting to be picked up for the tour to the caves, and a bus driver walked up to us in the foyer and said “you’re going for a tour?”..we started following, and he said “are you going to the blue lagoon”, we stopped suddenly and said no, and he replied “oh that’s ok, are you going to greenland?”..bahaha, last time I looked at a map you couldn’t get from Iceland to greenland on a bus..bahahaha, I think he got a little mixed up. Apart from the mixed up bus driver, everyone speaks very very good English, and although we picked up some Icelandic, we didn’t have any problems.
So our trip is over now, we stopped at the airport and did a little shopping because the Icelandic krone is suffering a little with money troubles, but its good for us shopping. Dan bought a good quality fleece jumper (its made for Iceland weather so will be perfect in Scotland), and I bought a big jacket, not the normal kinda thing I would buy at home, prob cz Australian winter I get by with a hoodie or cardigan, but this is a proper jacket, waterproof and filled with down and feathers, its kinda like being wrapped in a doona cover, it should keep me toasty in pitlochry…and luckily the krone is so low..and im helping them by spending my pounds there anyway!
So its back to pitlochry tomoz, we had to spend tonight in Glasgow because we missed the last train home. Winter jobs are well on the way now, I saw my first frozen toilet before we left, hooray.
Hope all is well at home.
Love jess xoxo
p.s please see new photos
