I went on the famous Golden Circle tour. It was great fun. About 40 km outside the city, our minibus had one of its rear tires blowout. Luckily, we were driving past a geothermal power station, or there would have been nowhere to pull off the road. Since it took about an hour and a half for the new bus to arrive, I was able to poke my head around inside the generation facility a little bit. I’m in graduate school for sustainable energy and power, so it was advantageous to see a live volcanic geothermal site. Then our guide shuffled us all back onto the new and much larger bus for the day. We started at Geyser, which is the namesake for all the other geysers in the world. The bubbling hot springs is otherworldly. There is almost no vegetation on the mountain or much of the valley next to the springs, so it looks almost like a Martian landscape. Next, we went off to Gullfoss, a powerful and beautiful waterfall, only a few minutes away from Geyser. The falls goes from a large glacial lagoon over a cliff and straight into the wall of another cliff. The exiting river seems only about 30 feet across with 200 foot cliffs on either side. If you were walking across the top, it would be very easy to not see the edge of the cliff and fall right down to the bottom. Hopefully, the internet will be good enough to upload a few pictures of this scene. Otherwise, a quick search of Gullfoss will show the scene.
Our last stop of the day was Þingvellir (Pronounced: Thing-veeel-ear) National Park. Þingvellir is a UNESCO World Heritage site as it is both the home of the first parliament in the world and does not belong to any tectonic plate. It is the only spot you can walk from Europe to North America. The entire park is in 7 km wide rift. As the North American and Eurasian plates were (and still are) moving away from each other, lava and water entered the gap between the two. The lava fields eventually cooled down and made the place what it is today. It is a lush old lava field with a large lake that is surrounded by an enormous wall. It feels like the Nightswatch wall in Game of Thrones (which makes sense since the series films in Iceland).
Back at the hostel, Eric and I made some dinner from some of the groceries we bought and had one of the beers left over from earlier. Our hostel gives musicians free accommodation if they sound good and perform at night. It attracts a fair amount of good music. After dinner we listened to an enjoyable funk music performance by some Icelandic guys who’s band name I cannot spell, but it starts with a “k.” Later, I hung out for a bit as the guys from the band Blur own a bar across the street, and the music is loud enough to hear from the balcony of the hostel. It was pretty much a free show. Also, I’m not positive, but I believe Neutral Milk Hotel was over there one of the past nights as they played at the Harpa Wednesday.
Today I’m off to the Blue Lagoon to swim in some hot springs and explore steam caves. It will likely be followed by the Runtur tonight.
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