When the Mind and The Physical Self wanders.

If the Spelling Bee contest had an array of words included as part of its database with Icelandic origins, I doubt whether we'd have winners at all. Try spelling these words: Eyjafjallajökull. Bláskógabyggð.

An hour's drive from the capital city of Reykjavik brings me to the Bláskógabyggð region of South West Iceland, noted for its geysers, active volcanoes (including Eyjafjallajökull, which erupted back in 2010 to cause Air Traffic chaos) and Thingvellir National Park, home to the earliest parliament established in 947 AD by Viking settlers. I was reminded of an acquaintance's remark: "Those damn Vikings must've been on an over-dosage of vodka when they decided to settle down in an Earthquake prone zone." He had a point.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which separates the American tectonic plate from its European counterpart, runs right through the heart of Thingvellir. He assured me that Iceland experiences over twenty earthquakes everyday. They don't always hammer the Richter scale hard enough though.

I indulge in conversations with a couple of locals, as we walk through the park to get a clearer view of the parliament buildings, and couldn't help, but notice, how curious they are to elicit my opinions on 'faraway Iceland'.

Icelanders are among the friendliest people I have come across. They are always happy to offer you advice in grammatically perfect English, which, given my trysts around Europe, is a rarity in most countries. "Students of Law study about the Thingvellir Parliament in class, before the Magna Carta," one of them mentions as we settle down on a bridge running over a stream that offers a spectacular view of the parliament, set in the backdrop of a snow-covered peak.

An hour later, we continue to find ourselves discussing Icelandic surnames, the melt-down of the Icelandic economy in 2008 (which, as I write this, is undergoing a dramatic turnaround thanks to tourism) and my forty-seventh attempt towards pronouncing 'Eyjafjallajökull' correctly, when we stop by the active geysers of Iceland.

It is quite a spectacle, one that occurs every 4 to 8 minutes: a gush of water rising to about 30 feet and settling down until, after four minutes, much to the delight of the crowd of twenty odd visitors that gather around the 'Geysir', it monotonically rises again. Ninety percent of Iceland's electricity is powered using Geo-Thermal energy.

Promising signs for economic reforms? Absolutely. Scotland and Holland have plans to buy power from Iceland.