Accidents happen (Part 3)

Morning walk from our cottage by the beach

After sleeping with the lights on in the bathroom all night long we woke up early in the morning to a beautiful view to the black beaches and some of us took a quick walk down by the shore before breakfast. After we got our stomachs filled with some good food and started packing everything up one of my friends saw that a pen had committed suicide in her back bag. Luckily it had been wrapped around some tissues, so there wasn't too much off a mess. We then cleaned the kitchen and when everything seemed to be ready we suddenly saw a blue stain on the white table that hadn't been there before. My friend had put the, as she thought dry stained blue, tissue on the table...as it turns out, it wasn't dry and the table was one of that shitty material which just absorbs all the stains and colors it can get into it. And there were no decent cleaning supplies in the cottage. Oh ou. We tried it then with house remedies as coconut butter, salt and toothpaste. We got creative and non of it worked. On the one end of the table, opposite to the stain, was a fake plant and two decorative little candle holders, we then just decided to turn the table around so we could put the plant and candle holders over it. They covered the stain actually quite well but we decided to leave a note to the owner anyway telling him what happened and how sorry we were. Until today we have not heard from him. :D
We then finally got to hit the road again to Vík since I had to look for a sweater (not myself) and it turned into a small shopping spree for all of us. I didn't find a sweater but found a new hat, headband and hiking socks. The others found socks as well, hats and even a wool poncho. That was successful.
Then it was time to go towards home, Reykjavík, but with a stop in Dyrhólaey. Where our accidents continued to happen and we crashed an engagement proposal by accident... As we got out of the car we saw a couple standing lovey-dovey on the cliffs looking at each other. I think it was me who threw the joke that he's proposing and we are crashing it. While happily and with lots of noise of course walking over there we suddenly realised: "Holy cow! He really just proposed to her!" Well, she got a pretty ring and they then asked us to take a picture of them. So maybe it was good that we were there? After that little episode the couple disappeared somewhere down to the shore and we continued having fun. We took pictures, tried to hike but were stopped by bird nesting signs and then played around by the sea shore. The others took a nice nap on the millions of round stones and I climbed on to one of the small cliffs that actually had gotten rounder with the water. That place just stays one of my favorite places in Iceland. :)
We then continued driving towards home and stopped at the water falls Skógafoss and Seljalandfoss. At the first one you have a huge stairway going right next to the waterfall and I had to skip it for my knee having a bitchy day. But I then just had lunch in the car and looked at my pictures while waiting for the others. At Seljalandfoss we got freaked out by the huge icicles hanging over the path and decided not go behind it. We then tried to find the "Ghost waterfall" near by and thought we had found it but as it turned out later, no we didn't! :D  When we left the waterfalls we drove happily down the road and I was slightly suspicious why the surroundings didn't look so familiar until we found ourselves suddenly on a gravel road and we knew we weren't anymore on Route 1 (Ringroad, only big road in Iceland). So we turned around and found the road again. We accomplished that too: We got lost off the ring road, that's really not an easy thing to do here.
The journey continued then to eat some nice pizza in a town between Selfoss and Vík. In Selfoss we then stopped at our favorite cafe with some of the best cakes in the world. And our stomachs were definitely full after it. Unfortunately the weather had been rather snowy and windy all day and we found ourselves on the infamous mountain between Hverargerđi and Reykjavík, we were in the middle of a snowstorm. The road was not visible anymore and we only saw about 3m ahead. I wasn't driving at that point, luckily. But we then continued bravely at a speed between 40-60km/h, because just stopping wasn't really an option. :D  Icelanders actually kept on passing us but not as many as usually, so the conditions were really bad. But we also got out of that one and arrived safe and sound in Reykjavik. Though this was most likely the longest it has taken me to go over that mountain.

This is the end of this great trip. Now my face will go meet my pillow and you can enjoy Ásgeirs cover version of Heart-shaped box!

Ghosts and aliens (Part 2)

Here's the second part of my last weekend's trip. Sorry for not writing it after all yesterday. It's usually the worst day of the year for me so I wasn't up to writing anything.

After finally falling asleep to the initial nightmares I slept like a baby. I don't think I've had such a good night's rest during my whole stay here which is no surprise because the beds at home Reykjavík are not that great. The reason for me sleeping like a baby was as simple as that: IKEA. I noticed that all the furniture in the room was from that nice warehouse and saw that my mattress, blanket and pillow were the exact same ones as back at home in Finland, way to go globalisation! And it made me miss my bed at home...But I woke up to the sun shining into my face because a window was right next to my head and when I moved the curtain I only saw mountains right over us. The evening before we hadn't seen them since it already had been dark, but our guesthouse was actually situated by the food of a mountain! We had a quick breakfast, a short morning walk by the beautiful sea (only 100m away from our guesthouse) and after listening to the great tips of our host, we headed to the beach in Höfn. We were told that there were beautiful back beaches and we saw them and loved them but we also learned that we had been lied to here: There are mountain goats! We saw mountain goats on the mountain right next to us on the mountain! Our Icelandic Nature teachers only told us that only the arctic fox, mice, sheep, horses and reindeer live here. I still want an explanation for that. Though we came to the conclusion since a NATO station was by the beach those goats must have been some aliens they had made experiments on.

Vatnajökull glacier

We continued then to the center of Höfn to buy some food and were so lucky that the bakery in the supermarket had lots of free samples that day! So you can imagine you many pieces of cake and pastries I of course had. ;) And they were delicious. After this we were off to a quick short stop at Jökusárlón again, since we had to head back to Vík anyway. During bright day time and with many other tourists it had lost all of its magic and we didn't enjoy being there. The tourists kind of killed the mood and silence for it. We finally reached the Skaftafell Nationalpark way after our timetable. It's located right by the big Vatnajökull glacier (biggest one in Europe) in the South of Iceland. It's apparently one of the most beautiful places to hike but with our luck of course we found this message written in front of the visitor center: "WARNING! The paths are really icy and covered in snow, they are hard to pass." The guy in the center also advised us not to go except to the path leading to the glacier, what we had been wanting to do anyway. Plus I was the only one in the group without spikes... So we went towards the glacier and after some debating whether the field of ice contained underneath it water or sand (the answer is sand), we suddenly found ourselves on the tongue of the glacier. Oops. You are not supposed to go there. So we of course turned around and decided to head earlier than planned to Vík so we could enjoy its beautiful black beaches with the sunset. I don't know why but I find Vík and its beaches one of the most beautiful places here in Iceland. Maybe because of the ocean and nature being so raw there. We then went to pick up our keys for our rented cottage and headed again back to town to get some supper in a restaurant. The food was actually quite nice and not so expensive. I had a delicious lamb sandwich with french fries. In the darkness we then finally started returning to our cottage outside of the town. For that we had to drive in absolute darkness in the middle of nowhere on a small street with a few houses somewhere further away. Of course this atmosphere called for my friends to start talking about creepy little girls suddenly appearing on the street and other ghost stories. Everybody who knows me, knows how terrible I am at handling ghost stories. They just freak me out. Nothing on the street seemed nice anymore, even the lighted church at night seemed like the scariest thing in the world.

Vík

Statue by the beach

We finally got then after some trouble with parking our car (there were only huge junks of ice everywhere), I quickly enjoyed the most beautiful view of the starry night sky I had ever seen, and then we started bringing our stuff to the cottage in the absolute darkness. Of course still hearing stories about aliens etc. One of my friends asked in the middle of walking to the cottage: "Does anybody in Reykjavík know where we are?" Something you don't want to hear after ghost stories and being in the dark middle of nowhere! She meant it more like for safety reasons in case something happened with the car but we all were just freaked out. In the cottage curtains were quickly closed, we unpacked, did funny yoga exercises, had tea with chocolate and decided who slept where. When we then went to sleep and turned the lights off immediately one of my friends on the couch: "I can't sleep with the lights off! Now I'm too freaked out! We need some light for the night." We all were freaked out, truth be told. One of us then figured out a way to have a small light on because a group of 24-27 year olds was too scared to sleep in the dark. :D
And this is how we went to sleep, with the bathroom light on, the door only slightly opened, and my friend and I telling us cute stories about our animals so we wouldn't be scared anymore.

Last day tomorrow! :)

Skinny-dipping in the mountains (Part 1)

What a weekend, wow! I'm still excited about the great time I had, so many laughs were shared and so many things experienced. I think I'll actually have to divide the post about this weekend into 3 parts, each day will have its own post or else this will get really long and I'm supposed to do some reading tonight. So, here's part 1 of my trip to the South/East of Iceland! :)

I left with 3 other friends Reykjavik early in the morning on Friday in order to go all the way to Höfn that day, spend one night there, have fun in that area and spend the second night in Vík, so we would be back on Sunday evening in Reykjavík. From the capital to Vík it's 455km, so a long drive. And on that day I think I drove the most. But of course we had many toilet breaks and had to have sufficient candy supplies. But we finally got an answer to a big question we all had been having. When leaving Reykjavík towards the south you alway have to go over a small mountain with straight roads but often with bit of snow and ice, but nothing bad. This time there was a lot of snow and ice everywhere. On top of it there is a warning"sign" of two crashed cars. Now we finally knew why. With a lot of snow and ice you were in danger of getting off the road and running into the rocks/lava field there...which certainly can end really badly. Now we know.
On our way we first stopped somewhere in the middle of nowhere and went for a short hike to an old abandoned swimming pool in the mountains of which I forgot the name. A long time ago the children of the village were taught how to swim there but a new swimming pool has been build in the meantime and the old one is just having its own life in the mountains. Like all the swimming pools in Iceland it works with natural hot water, so no heating required and you can still use it! Upon arriving there we all 4 made the bold choice just to go skinny-dipping there, since what else are you supposed to do by an old abandoned pool in the mountains? It was great fun, the water was actually a bit chilly but there were no hidden monsters swimming in the depths of it. And sorry, there is no proof of us skinny-dipping at least on my camera. So no pictures of that. :P
We continued our journey then to Vík where we got some hot beverages to warm up again and the co-driver and I stocked up on your candy supplies.

Vík with its church over it and the sea

We continued through Kirkjubæjarklaustur (say that quickly 3 times in a row) and then to the famous lava field Eldhraun. A volcano called Laki had some fun with being the most destructive volcano eruption in 1784 and created a 25km wide lava field in the south of Iceland. Laki is actually in the highlands, you cannot even see it from the lava field. So you can imagine how big this eruption was.
It was all fun and dandy on the road there, it went straight, great weather and only snow on the field, not on the road. I was driving. After a while I spotted far ahead a car off the road to our right and people standing outside of it. I thought that maybe there was a one of those camping-break-areas where you can have a picnic though I was wondering that I had seen no sign for it. We approached them, I saw suddenly a lot of snow on the road and then I realised at the exact moment that they had slipped off the road with their car. And this is when the scariest thing in my life so far happened: I lost control of our car. The tires were suddenly going the same way as the previous car towards the field, I just swung the steering wheal to my left, trying to get somehow the car back on track, it went left, but too much left, now we were almost getting off the road there, I swung it back right again, then again left, I heard my friend screaming "Take your foot off the gas! Take your foot off the gas! Take your foot off the gas!" and somehow we came to a stop...on the road. Everybody was save. Until this day I have no idea how I managed to keep us on the road but I'm very glad about it, since nobody got hurt, nor my friends neither the people of the other car standing by it. Because I might have just hit them. I had to have a couple of minutes to calm down again but continued driving eventually or I would have started being scared of it.

Eldhraun, you bitch...

A seal! It's really not just a black spot on the camera...

After this we had a stop again at the famous Jökusárlón, the glacier lagoon! James Bond movies and Lara Croft has been filmed there. When they go to "Siberia", they are actually there. It was a very calming and deep experience of seeing it all.  We came there when it was almost dusk, so everything was in the same grey and just peacefulness. You only had those big pieces of ice swimming in the water and only had the sound of the water and the creaking sound of the ice blocks. Grey and absolute silence surrounded one. We also some one lonely seal swimming close by about 15min away. He was obviously curious about us since he kept popping up at the same spot and looking at us for a while before disappearing into the deep grey again.
Since dusk was already knocking on the door we continued to finally reach our place for the night. On the way there were reindeer warning signs on the street, we were joking about how big the chances are and suddenly there was actually a reindeer on the side of the street having supper! So they do walk around there and one should be aware of them. We got then around 8:30 to your guesthouse and drove quickly to the center of Höfn to get some supper as well because we didn't have any cooking facilities there and at some point you grow tired of sandwiches, crackers and bananas. I forgot the name of the place but was a cozy cottagy house with nice food but a bit on the expensive side. I had by the way a reindeer hamburger. So they really live in that area. We did then return to our room and went to sleep soon after it. I fell asleep to seeing nightmares about the moment on the snowy road when loosing control of the car, reliving the moment many times again and seeing only white.

Tomorrow the second day comes! :)

No Rest for the Wicked

A small quick (as if my posts were ever small) post about this week.

The big highlight: Seeing Björk, Patti Smith, Lykke Li, Of Monsters and Men live on Tuesday! That was an experience. Björk opened the whole show and she was fantastic, great and awkward. Patti Smith was by my own and everyone's opinion the true star of that evening. She really rocked that stage and was just amazing! Unfortunately she only played 4 songs I could have listened to her longer. Lykke Li was good too, but nothing compared to Patti Smith. Of Monsters and Men did disappoint us with only playing 2 songs while all the other bands played 3-5 songs! But they were good nevertheless. Between the big shots we had smaller Icelandic bands as Mammút, Samaris, Highlands and Retro Stefson. Retro Stefson was the last one and the singer just took the stage to his own and the audience. Even if you don't like their music, go see them live, they put so much energy into it and you can see how they enjoy it. And all of the stars from that evening came to the stage during their last song and they had a big fun party on stage. That's not something you see everyday. :) 

The concert was actually a fundraiser for saving Icelandic nature since politicians are being politicians here and planning on destroying some unique nature here for building a powerplant and putting it all under water. For energy that Iceland doesn't even need. Hello, greed...

Monday I went after class with some classmates to Yo Yo's ice cream parlour. I think I found heaven or that's what heaven hopefully looks like. You can make your own ice cream cup! You take a cup and just put all of the ice cream flavors you want in it (you do it all on your own), then you have a huge choice of cookie and chocolate pieces, smarties, fruits and sauces that you can spice it up with.  

Chocolate and orange ice cream with kiwis, smarties, Oreos and and chocolate sauce.

So you can completely on your own decide what your ice cream cup is going to be like! Best part, if the price goes over 799ISK you don't pay more than 799ISK, so just fill it all up!  This is going to be so bad for my hips and pocketbook... :D

Yesterday I was with one of my housemates swimming in the oldest public pool in Reykjavík, Sundholl. It's really close to where we live. And it's truly the oldest, it feels like you went back in time to the 1930s when entering it. They still have the same lockers and everything, nothing much seems to have changed. I actually swum for the first time in years since my surgery about 10 laps and after that we hang out in the hot tubs outside where you also got a water massage to your back and feet. I actually used it for my right knee since I ran the day before and the muscles were hard again, so I had a nice massage from the water hose and everything was fine. :) The way we described content-selfs when coming out: "Soft". That was really the best way to describe it, happy and soft.

My big achievement this week: I ran 10min non-stop on the treadmill on the speed of 8.5km/h! I know it's really slow for you guys but for me it's a huge achievement, especially the 10 minutes. It feels great...and I'm in fucking pain but it's worth it. :D

And last here's Lykke Li's newest song, we were the first one's to hear it Tuesday night.

Blood on the pavement

It's sunday again in beautiful, windy and quite rainy Reykjavík.

My friends and I ended up cancelling our planned trip for this weekend again since the weather really is not our friend at the moment. We've been experiencing the classical Icelandic weather: It literally, and I am not exaggerating with this, changes every 10 minutes! Today as an example we've had sun, rainstorm, sun, hale, snowstorm, sun, cloudy, hale etc. But next weekend we'll hopefully finally get our chance to go! :)

Thursday I was with a housemate and friend at a cozy concert at Café Rosenberg, the main band playing was Hymnalaya. It's a band of approximately 8 members and the instruments go from piano, violin to drum and tuba. They were great on stage and played really well together. Actually just all the Icelanders here seem to talented musicians and finding a band playing at any given evening during the week is not a problem at all. 

For making up that we had to cancel our weekend trip again we decided to rent a car for Friday and went to Hverargerđi, about an hour drive away from Reykjavík. We hiked up a mountain there for taking a bath in the famous hot rivers. There are just hot springs coming up from the mountain and they are forming a small river where you can easily just lay around and enjoy the nature in it's purest form. Snowy mountains around you, the grey sky above you, the warm water hugging your body and lots of sand in the bikini...But it was truly enjoyable. The hike was a lot of fun, just in the snow covered mountains and suddenly seeing some green field (real green) with grass growing because it was surrounded by many big hot springs. Those were just bubbling dangerously and blessing us with the sweet smell of rotten eggs. It was like a scene from another planet, only things you actually see on TV usually but here they are real. 

After the hike we drove to Selfoss where we had great pasta and some of the best cake I've ever had in my life. From there we continued to see the volcanic crater Keriđ. It was mainly covered in snow so we couldn't see the famous turquoise and red colors of the earth in it. And unfortunately there won't be a next time because Iceland started since yesterday now charging tourists a small fee for the main natural sights (geysir, gulfoss etc.) here. I sort of don't want to pay for that, so I'll just have to come after the closing hours and climb over the fence as we did on Friday. ;)

Saturday was spent hanging out with a friend in coffee places and walking around. In the evening we had the great plan of finally going out partying since be both hadn't been able to do it for being sick here a lot. And this is how the embarrassing story of me starts on the attempt of going out. I was excited about the night and when I left the house to go downtown I was just happily walking down the street and...fell. Like on the gif below....I'm just minding my own business, walking of course very gracefully as you can see below and fall! Thank goodness nobody else was there to witness this special moment in my life and I had a good laugh at myself. My knee unfortunately didn't like this stunt at all and I knew I just had killed my hopes of being able to dance that night. Good start, eh? :D Oh, and I wasn't even wearing high heels.

My friend and I then pretty much spent walking from one place to another hoping to find something fun but somehow we were never really fully satisfied with what we saw in the bars (mainly techno playing this time). And it was pouring outside. So we just walked around the center, got almost in between two fist fights (there were literally beating each other's faces bloody with their bare fists) happening only 2m away from us and were laughing at our luck for not finding anything we liked on the night we actually really wanted to go party. :) We decided to give it a try again another night since there were long lines for everything by now, 2am, and we didn't like the idea of standing outside in the pouring rain. We had fun anyways.
Today I woke up to realising how much junk I actually have here with me and have to get that stuff back home in exactly two months. I came here with a full suitcase! How the heck am I supposed to manage that?! Why do I own things? So what do you do when panic kicks in? Meet friends and have sushi! We went to this one place here where it was served on the train system so you had constantly delicious sushi pieces moving in front of your eyes, like in heaven! A small plate of those sushi plates cost between 230-490ISK, so very good prized. There was even chocolate pudding as desert!
This was for this week. I'm already waiting for Tuesday since then the big concert with Björk and the others will be and Friday we'll hopefully get on our long awaited road trip. :)

Oh March, thou are a heartless bitch...

Warning: This is not going to be a fun read.
I'm already half way done. Only 2 months and 1 week are left, of that only 4 more weeks of university. Time has flown by so quickly and March is only enhancing the feeling that time is rushing past you and leaves you wondering what happened to the past weeks, months and especially years. I have to confess: I hate the month of March. I've been dreading this month for the past 5 years now and each year I can feel my powerless towards time becoming greater. The clock keeps on ticking, the seasons keep on changing, times goes on. It doesn't matter if we like it or not. It goes on, inevitably. During March I wish I could stop time, just make the clocks stop or even rewind them. Because there are things in the past you wish had never happened or at least that time didn't keep on moving so mercilessly so it wouldn't feel like the gap is getting any wider than it already is. It's the desperate attempt of believing that it never happened, the disbelief to the fact that the world really keeps on turning no matter what happens and who is left behind. And with that the guilt for those who keep on running with the clock grows.
I don't think I would want to stay forever in Iceland though I absolutely love it but right now I wish I had so much more time to be here. So many more trips I want to do. So many more moments I just want to gaze at the city from the roof top or be amazed by this unique nature. But seen from the positive side: It gives me a great reason to come back again many times and explore more of this astonishing country! :)
What I've been up to lately: A friend from Finland/Germany came to see me and we've been mainly in Reykjavík because Iceland decided to be on its worst manner and give as snowstorms during the past weekend! So our South-trip had to be cancelled and had the pleasure of fighting my way to class and back home on Monday in a heavy rainstorm, including heavy rain and heavy wind combined (only idiots would try to use an umbrella then)...Wet jeans for the win! Today we went to the National Museum of Iceland and I loved it. It was very interesting to hear about Iceland's history and they had also an exhibition of female Icelandic photographers from many centuries. I definitely have to go the Photography Museum here and check them out more. Oh yes, during the weekend we also celebrated a friend's birthday/women's-day and were at the Reykjavík Folk Festival. Both things were great fun and got to hear different types of Icelandic folk music. On Monday we celebrated a housemate's birthday with tacos and pizza (don't ask).
Oh, and I still have been sick and went to the doctor and tests but they couldn't find anything! No virus, no bacteria, no nothing. Advice from the doctor: "Just rest and drink a lot of tea and hot chocolate". Permission to drink lots of hot chocolate, yea! :D And I got at least to see an Icelandic hospital from the inside.
That's pretty much it. Sorry, I've been pretty boring lately but content. Though definitely ready to get out of the city again. I start to get itchy feet if I stay more than one weekend in the capital. Hopefully our next weekend trip will work out. Or you'll just find me driving through a snowstorm anyway stubbornly because I just want to get out of the city and end up stuck at a cottage in the middle of nowhere for a couple of days. :D (let's not hope so)

Thor! He's teeny tiny!

Spank that ass!

Let's start with the bad news first:
- My tonsillitis seems to come back for a second round. Throat hurts again and a cough is starting...I will try to fight it with house remedies over the weekend, if it doesn't help then we'll have another visit to the doctor.
- We had beautiful spring last week, warm sunny weather (+5°C even), everything was good. I woke up this morning and everything was covered in snow and it keeps on snowing right now. Farewell spring, hello winter!

What I forgot to mention in my last post was that I had been to a movie theater here. It was the one from the university but everybody seems to use it. I watched August: Osage County with one of my housemates who I dragged in there. In the beginning it was fun just to watch the commercials and most of the time have no idea what they are trying to advertise. And Icelanders now how movie theater should be built: Everyone can rest their arms on their sides because there is actually enough space for two arms to be right next to each other, you don't have to fight with your neighbour about them. They also have intermissions during movies here, something I only know from Switzerland.

This weeks has started in the most awesome way for Icelandic children. On Monday it was Bolludag. It means like Bun/Cream puff day. It's a tradition that the children wake their parents early in the morning shouting "bollu, bollu, bollu" and spank them on their ass. They even make Bun day paddles at school that they decorate so they can spank people with a pretty paddle on their asses. Each time the child manages to spank someone's ass they actually get one of those traditional cream buns they sell on this special day. I find that rather weird. :D But hey, you get to spank people once a year and get even rewarded for it! Oh yea, the cream buns are really similar to the laskiaispullat in Finland, also filled with cream and jam. But the bun is different and it's covered in chocolate.

the soup with bullas :)

On Tuesday the fun continues for the children, it's officially Sprengidag, which means Bursting Day. You eat a traditional and really salty pea-sheep soup. They came up with that because it's the last chance to eat meat before the fasting begins. But on sprengidag you have all the children running around and throwing around those tiny ball explosives that all children love. Plus at the end of the evening some have a few fingers less on their hands... I went last night to an ESN event where they served this pea-sheep soup and bollus. The bollus are great. ;) And then had a lovely time over real strawberry tea (there where real dried strawberries!) with a friend in Tiu Dropar. :)
The fun is still not over for the children. I don't know the name of this day today but today the children have to dress up, sing songs to strangers and receive candy. It's like Halloween in the US or that Easter thing in Finland. So this week must have been great so far for all the children here.
Last night I actually became the proud owner of a ticket to a concert here in two weeks where in one evening Björk, Of Monsters and Men, Lykke Li, Patti Smith, Samaris and other Icelandic bands will perform. I am excited!
And this is actually it for today! You find a picture of my sleeve I've started knitting and African Icelandic pop music by Retro Stefson. 

The existential question: Where are we?!

It's 2am, so perfect time to write a new blogpost, right?
This week was "study week" which meant I only had one class this week and didn't study one bit...this week could have actually been called "coffeehouse week" since I was out for tea/hot chocolate a lot this week.
Tuesday I went on a little adventure with one of my housemates. We decided to climb up to mount Esja, a mountain really close to Reykjavík, reachable by bus in 45 minutes and idiotproof to go up to. Well, not idiotproof enough for us! We actually managed to get lost. The first 200-300m we were going with the path, then the path was covered in ice, we climbed over the ice field and were suddenly left without a path. No path anywhere in sight we said "Nah, we know where we are. There it goes down, there it goes up. So let's just go straight up!" So we were just climbing up in the middle of nowhere of Esja and wondering where that freaking path had gone to since we didn't see it anywhere. Mind, the ground here consists of lava rocks, this means that the stones are all the time moving underneath your feet/rolling away. Though we did have a good laugh while going up, we took it with some humour (my knee didn't find it funny at all afterwards). We are probably the first people in history to get lost on the idiotproof Esja mountain and lose the path. :D
The mountain had it's share of fun as well actually. It always made us believe, that we only have to conquer that hill right above us and then we'll be on top. Nopes, there was always a new hill after the previous one...Suddenly we saw two black dots walking on top of one of the hills, like across it, so we figured there must be some kind of top. We decided to follow where they were walking and then did eventually get to the top. From there we had an amazing view over the Reykjanes peninsula and nearby mountains. But the two black dots/other hikers were nowhere in sight, and there seemed to be only one way down, and for that they would have needed to pass us. So where were they? In Iceland they believe that the elves will help the lost ones who deserve it. ;)
After a lunch break on the top we decided to get down and of course didn't find the path again! So what did we once again do? "We already come up just right through the mountain, we can do the same thing when going down!" That included a fun slide on a small ice field on our butts and suddenly with new surroundings that didn't look at all like the way we had come up. We were lost again. :D But there was only one way down and we saw the street where the bus had dropped us off, so it was all safe. After a while of climbing down we suddenly saw people to our right about 300m away just walking...seemingly on a path. We hiked over there and had finally a solid boring path underneath our feet. Again a good laugh how we managed to miss it on our way up AND down. Though we got the answer to that further more down. At the ice field we should have had climbed up to our right but we went straight over it. So we were actually over the path and didn't see it anymore. That's the story of how we got lost on Esja and had a hilarious time. :)
   

Thursday night we got an amazing show of northern lights. In the past two-three weeks we've been able to see them actually almost each night, even in Reykjavík but on Thursday we had the most colorful ones. And at the weirdest time. I was just by chance looking out of window around 8:20pm in case there might be northern lights though would have never imagined any being there and the sky was just green and red! Red and green colors were dancing above our head and just being absolutely great. We were as well lucky that they stayed right over our house so we're right under the northern lights and it was really one of the most beautiful things I have seen in my life so far. And they stayed for almost 1 hour. So, yes, quite impressive. Sadly I have no pictures of that since my camera couldn't care less about them...
The next day I had a wonderful lunch with two friends at one of my favorite places here and we made a small mini-trip the Grotta lighthouse in Reykjavík. It's in Seltjanarnes, on the other side of city just surrounded by the Atlantic. It's the really nice area of this town too, big houses, with a straight view to the ocean...that ain't cheap. Unfortunately the tide had already risen again and we weren't able to walk anymore to the lighthouse from shore. But it was a breathtaking view seeing the wild waves hitting the rocks on the shore and the water rise. Plus there were two crazy Icelanders, one just surfing and one windsurfing! It's only +4°C outside! So let's go surfing in the Atlantic! And I thought we Finns were crazy with that kind of stuff. I will have to go back though so I can actually walk to the lighthouse then. :)
Oh, and I got into a staring contest with an Icelandic saleswoman today. She just kept talking in Icelandic to me, I was most of the time able to respond in Icelandic (Já, Nei takk) but even when I had to say eventually "Sorry, what?", she just repeated everything in Icelandic and smiled at me happily. :D She even wished me a nice day in Icelandic with a great big smile....I don't know if she thought I was a really confused Icelander who came up with slow answers or if she was just bitching at me. :D
Rest of the time I've been utterly lazy, reading, knitting, youtube, going out for tea, staring at the sky, buying a lot of cds, sending postcards... Enjoying life. ;)  (boohoo, tomorrow I have to sit down and get down to business)