Saturday, March 1, 2014

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)





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