Iceland- Day 4
Busy day today!
I had brunch at the convenience store again (and found more coins for Dad), and then took the bus down to one of the banks near Hlemmur to get some more cash.
I took yet another picture from the bus, of course.
And from there I went on a whale-watching trip! The boat left out of Grindavík, a fishing town in the south of the country that took a little less than an hour to get to. I took a bus from Reykjavík's Old Harbour...
... Which I got a couple more pictures of (that's Harpa in the left-hand corner again).
The way to Grindavík was very scenic.
Some of the landscape really reminded me of the American northwest, like Montana and North Dakota.
Grindavík Harbour!
This is the only picture I took while whale-watching-- the seas were really choppy and there were a lot of waves, even when we got farther out. At first riding the swells was fun and I sat right up front on the middle deck, but after about an hour or so, I started to feel a bit sick (even though they'd given everyone a motion-sickness tablet before we even left Reykjavík), and about half an hour after that I headed into the inside part down below and actually threw up a couple of times (aren't you so glad I'm telling you this?). Still, I really enjoyed the tour-- it was kind of a slow day whale-wise, but we did see a smaller, unidentifiable one from afar, and on our way back a group of white dolphins came really close to the boat! They were riding the waves just under the water, and then swam over to investigate us. I didn't take any pictures because of the aforementioned seasickness, and the boat was rolling enough that I was worried I'd drop my camera overboard even with the wristband.
We made our way back to the capital at around six.
After about three hours on the boat, I was very, very cold; even the ride back didn't warm me up. Luckily, I knew about that Thai restaurant that I like so much (I found out that it's called Thai Reykjavík) was a relatively short walk from the Old Harbour, so I just went there for dinner for the third day in a row, and eating hot food made me much less freezing. Afterwards I just took the bus back to the hostel...
... and found out that the northern lights tour hadn't been cancelled again! So I stayed, and read/internet-ed until 8:30, when the pick-ups where scheduled to start.
That tour was definitely my favorite part of the day-- I've always found the aurora borealis very interesting, and I'd never actually seen it before, so I was excite for the chance. Luckily, it was a great night for it; we saw a light band of green before we'd even left the city, but all the lights kind of blocked it out. We took a twenty-minute drive to our first stop, and along the way we could see it better and better-- it was all green with a few light areas of pink and a few hints of blue. The first time we pulled off the road they gave us half an hour to mill around outside, but it was so cold and windy that I kept going back and forth between being outside and going back on the bus. I did the same thing at our second stop (about ten minutes away; they wanted to climb to a higher elevation to give us an even better look), where we were given fifteen minutes that was later extended to twenty. The views were phenomenal during both stops; the green extended and danced all the way across the sky, and the stars were really bright and clear. The bus driver was very nice, too-- I sat in the first row of seats, and when I was on the bus we talked about a lot of things, primarily the Icelandic language. (He let me try out some of my worst pronunciations on him, and gave me pointers. :P)
I didn't get any pictures of the lights-- it's really hard to capture them on film, and while my camera isn't low-quality, it's still just a typical digital camera and not meant for serious or difficult photography. The bus driver attempted to use it to take a picture out the window, and he got this:
So, yeah.
We got back a little less than an hour ago, and I'm tiiiiiiiired. Going to take a shower and head to bed! Don't be surprised if my entry tomorrow starts out "So I woke up at noon..."
I had brunch at the convenience store again (and found more coins for Dad), and then took the bus down to one of the banks near Hlemmur to get some more cash.
I took yet another picture from the bus, of course.
And from there I went on a whale-watching trip! The boat left out of Grindavík, a fishing town in the south of the country that took a little less than an hour to get to. I took a bus from Reykjavík's Old Harbour...
... Which I got a couple more pictures of (that's Harpa in the left-hand corner again).
The way to Grindavík was very scenic.
Some of the landscape really reminded me of the American northwest, like Montana and North Dakota.
Grindavík Harbour!
This is the only picture I took while whale-watching-- the seas were really choppy and there were a lot of waves, even when we got farther out. At first riding the swells was fun and I sat right up front on the middle deck, but after about an hour or so, I started to feel a bit sick (even though they'd given everyone a motion-sickness tablet before we even left Reykjavík), and about half an hour after that I headed into the inside part down below and actually threw up a couple of times (aren't you so glad I'm telling you this?). Still, I really enjoyed the tour-- it was kind of a slow day whale-wise, but we did see a smaller, unidentifiable one from afar, and on our way back a group of white dolphins came really close to the boat! They were riding the waves just under the water, and then swam over to investigate us. I didn't take any pictures because of the aforementioned seasickness, and the boat was rolling enough that I was worried I'd drop my camera overboard even with the wristband.
We made our way back to the capital at around six.
After about three hours on the boat, I was very, very cold; even the ride back didn't warm me up. Luckily, I knew about that Thai restaurant that I like so much (I found out that it's called Thai Reykjavík) was a relatively short walk from the Old Harbour, so I just went there for dinner for the third day in a row, and eating hot food made me much less freezing. Afterwards I just took the bus back to the hostel...
... and found out that the northern lights tour hadn't been cancelled again! So I stayed, and read/internet-ed until 8:30, when the pick-ups where scheduled to start.
That tour was definitely my favorite part of the day-- I've always found the aurora borealis very interesting, and I'd never actually seen it before, so I was excite for the chance. Luckily, it was a great night for it; we saw a light band of green before we'd even left the city, but all the lights kind of blocked it out. We took a twenty-minute drive to our first stop, and along the way we could see it better and better-- it was all green with a few light areas of pink and a few hints of blue. The first time we pulled off the road they gave us half an hour to mill around outside, but it was so cold and windy that I kept going back and forth between being outside and going back on the bus. I did the same thing at our second stop (about ten minutes away; they wanted to climb to a higher elevation to give us an even better look), where we were given fifteen minutes that was later extended to twenty. The views were phenomenal during both stops; the green extended and danced all the way across the sky, and the stars were really bright and clear. The bus driver was very nice, too-- I sat in the first row of seats, and when I was on the bus we talked about a lot of things, primarily the Icelandic language. (He let me try out some of my worst pronunciations on him, and gave me pointers. :P)
I didn't get any pictures of the lights-- it's really hard to capture them on film, and while my camera isn't low-quality, it's still just a typical digital camera and not meant for serious or difficult photography. The bus driver attempted to use it to take a picture out the window, and he got this:
So, yeah.
We got back a little less than an hour ago, and I'm tiiiiiiiired. Going to take a shower and head to bed! Don't be surprised if my entry tomorrow starts out "So I woke up at noon..."