Reykjaviking Part Two: Geysir, won't you blow?

On the second day of our journey in Iceland we went on what is known as the" Golden Circle Tour." This took us outside the city, to some of Iceland's most famous natural wonders. We nearly missed the bus and my hair was still sticky and salty from the day before, but it was worth it.

Our first stop on the tour, the geothermal plant, was the least exciting, but certainly still informative and interesting. Iceland uses geothermal power for most electricity and water heating in their country due to the natural hot spots in the ground, which produce steam. This kind of energy is limited to places located on tectonic plate boundaries.

The next of the stops was Gullfoss falls, which really gave us a true feel for the landscape of Iceland. When saw the first part of the waterfall, we thought that's all there was and were already impressed. Then we turned a corner to reveal the rest of the waterfall - and it was massive! Not much was in the way of tumbling into the mist and rocks, with the exception of common sense (according to our tour guide). It was so misty that many of our photos became blurred.

It was here that Trevor decided it would be a good idea to purchase a hoody, since in the rush of the morning he forgot to bring a coat. The icelandic winds were not all too forgiving that day. Thankfully for him, it was not too badly overpriced like everything else on the island. Speaking of over priced, if Trevor and I were to do this again, we would rent a car. Most of the money spent was on transport, as most of the sites we visited were free. We calculated that a car rental would have been much more economical. Oh well, you live and learn.

Next we made a stop to visit strokker the geysir, currently the most active geysir in Iceland. It was supposed to errupt every five mintues, but we found that this was a very rough estimate. It was so much fun trying to guess when it was going to go off, and one never quite knew how large each erruption would be, since they were all so unique. Here we also went to see Strokker's neighbour - the Geysir, the namesake of all other geysirs. He has been retired now since the 1950's, but you can still see him blowing off a bit of steam.

The last destination was the site of the viking paliament, known geologically as the Mid Atlantic Rift. This is the the place where the Noth American and Eurasian tectonic plates are slowly pulling apart. In fact, Iceland grows by a few centimetres every year. It is also where the Vikings would come to hear the law spoken. Each year, the leader of the land would come and recite 1/3 of the law so that the people would remember.

It was here that we also met a very eccentric New Yorker. He was pretty much as stereotypically New York as you can get. thick accent, scraggly semi-permed hair, bad sweater (think ugly sweater party), and went on and on about how NewYork is the best city in the world hands down. He also mentioned about how he was going to bring back gifts for all his "lady friends." He was a very nice man though, quite a character, and looked a lot like Billy Crystal.

Once we came back to the hostel from our tour, we went on a journey to find Iceland's "famous" hot dog stand - apparently their most popular place to eat out. Well, we found a hotdog stand. We are still not sure if it was the hotdog stand as it did not seem altogether that impressive. But for fun we will just say it was. Yes, we went to Iceland's infamous hotdog stand ;) The hotdog didn't quite fill me up, so I played a best of 5 game of Racko with Trevor in which he lost and had to go find and make me pasta.

After this long day we went to bed - but not for long. We had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning in order to make our 8:00 flight.