Burned his butt

Hello from Iceland!

first of all, iceland isn't at all what my mind was making me think. there is a bit of ice here and there, and it can be a bit funny if you don't see it. but, it isn't a below freezing snowy wastland. i guess there was a lot of snow two weeks ago, but our tour guide yesterday said that its spring now in iceland! good news!

me with the brother (his name is steve)

we spent a few days in reykjavik. its the capital (the northern most capital in the world) where you fly into. it kind of has a ski town feel to it because it isn't that huge of a place and people enjoy having fun. iceland is on a geothermal bed(volcanoes and other hot things) so heating is basically free and i have never seen so many radiator heaters ever in my life, but places are all warm and toasty. also, it doesn't have that nasty sulfer smell like rotorua (in new zealand) had.

after reykjavik we decided to go to hafnarfjordur for a day and night. its a "suberb" about 20 km from reykjavik. really, its just a cool small town. we kind of just showed up without reservations anywhere and found that every hostel was closed or not taking anyone. but luckily the last place was open and turned out to be really cool. it was in a home that had a guest apartment on the bottom floor (they like having three floors here). Axle was the name of the guy who lived there and he was very...tranquil. the town has a lot of old lava flow that is hard to explain, except that it makes you feel like a giant. theres a thing about little people living there (elves and other mystical little people), so the people have built tiny houses all around the town. you even have to get clearance to build something on your land by an official person that checks for residences of little people.

yesterday was an odd experience of the blue lagoon. i would imagine that nearly every girl in the world would like to go to there, which made it funny being there with my brother. first, what it is (its better than it sounds): its a power plant about 40 minutes outside reykjavik. it uses steam and hot water from deep in the earth to create power for iceland. the water is then poured into a lagoon that...people swim in. the place is super high tech and fancy pants and it really does make you feel important. the water is the craziest color blue and in some places incredibly hot (incredibly). it was strange mix of deciding to be cold standing outside of the water or slowly boiled inside the water--i chose a half and half mix. i guess there are a lot of minerals and blue-green algae in the water that make your skin better somehow. the whole place is like a super huge day spa, with hot waterfalls for massages and silica mud masks (but no cucumbers). the geothermal steam room was a little much; i would consider it torture after about two minutes. my brother, steve, burned his butt (even through his swimtrunks) on one of the seats in the steam room.

crazy blue water



So after that we had a sedate movie night in the hostel in reykjavik with some cool norweigens. we still have a few days here so will be going to a town called vik tomorrow, where they have black beaches and some cool rock formations near the ocean. the weather is supposed to be clearing up soon so we'll also go to see a waterfall and geyser. the geyser is in a town called "geyser" and its where the name geyser comes from...i think thats kind of cool.

have a good day
your friend (and his brother)

chad (and steve)