Hadit's Habits: A Thalamic Approach: Iceland Trip, Days 2-5

So, back to Iceland info! Day 2 consisted of getting up extra early, catching a taxi to the local airport (though the hotel was located adjacent to the airfield, the terminal was on the far side), and flying north to Akureyri (~40 km from the arctic circle!). We were greeted at the airport by Disa of the Skjaldarvik Guesthouse, where we stayed for two days. If you take nothing else from these Iceland posts, hear this: STAY AT THIS GUESTHOUSE! Disa and her husband were super-nice, that is superbly-para-humanoid nice. Given, we were almost the only people staying at the guesthouse at that time so we perhaps got special attention, but it was very evident that Disa takes care of her guests.
Details? Well, firstly you should know that it is a converted retirement/long-term managed care center though it has been remodeled beautifully so that the only evidence is in the large industrial bathrooms which still have some grab bars and associated paraphernalia. As a Physical Therapist by trade, I actually quite appreciated this and hope that the bathrooms remain accessible to all. Apparently the history of the guesthouse is well known locally (but then Iceland is so small everyone practically knows everything about everybody it seems). This was made plain by several jokes made by tour guides as they picked us up or dropped us off.
There is also an honor system bar, a lounge with telescope, an above-ground geothermally warmed hot tub, two very friendly dogs, a horse, and many chickens. The fjord on which the guesthouse sits is also very gorgeous, everywhere I looked, it was like living in a National Geographic issue.

Photo copyright Maureen Shockey, 2013.

http://www.skjaldarvik.is/en/

That night we attempted to see the Northern Lights, but alas, were mostly thwarted by clouds. We did spy some flashes behind the clouds, it looked to me a bit like concentrated heat lightning. Interestingly, we met a couple from our neck of New York who we kept encountering throughout the rest of our trip, including on the plane home. Small world!

The next morning we were off mega-early for a day of touring the countryside. We saw several remarkable sights, including some boiling mud pits (smelled like rotten eggs because of the sulfur), a dormant volcano with a lake in the basin, a natural springs underground convict hide-away in a hillside, a cow farm where we had geyser bread (bread baked by burying it underground near a geothermal heat source) and milk straight from the source, a hot spring lagoon (they are just as blue as pictured!), the God Falls, and the Dimmu Borgir! Our tour guide was pretty cool and apparently likes Rock Music. He related an awesome story from when he used to be an air traffic controller and actually guided in Bruce Dickinson!

Photo copyright Maureen Shockey, 2013.

We booked our trip through Icelandic Farm Holidays, who basically did all the planning work for us, I recommend them:
http://www.farmholidays.is/

We opted out of a second round of Northern Lights spotting that night, partly due to fatigue after our day of travels but mostly due to the still cloudy sky. The next afternoon we were off to Reykjavik again for our last day in Iceland.
We again visited downtown and had some good, cheap Asian fusion food (though Icelanders can't handle spicy food it seems, their 'spicy' was like a 'mild' to my tongue). We also visited the oldest cemetery in town, which is host to several endangered ferns and mosses!

We enjoyed another night in the domestic airport hotel, then took the shuttle to the international airport and were on our way back to New York. Iceland was truly a moving experience and I highly recommend a trip there to anyone even remotely considering it. The locals tell me it gets quite busy in the summer, so if you handle the cold, go in the off season like we did.

Until next time,
-Sam

Hadit's Habits: A Thalamic Approach

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Iceland Trip, Days 2-5

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