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Best Day so Far

Uncategorized

Dec 3.

This was the first day of real exercise.

The bus took us to a Glacier in the dim light of dawn. Merrianne was still injured, so we only walked partway. Other groups (not our tour) were going with full climbing gear – helmets, ropes, metal crampons, and a professional guide – to climb onto the actual glacier.

Started before sunrise, headed for the lookout point.
That’s as close as Merrianne and I got to the glacier. Out of an abundance of caution, we turned around. Others in the group made it to the lookout point beyond the curve ahead.
Back at the parking lot, the sun is coming up. Notice that even in this season, there’s a food truck to cater to tourists.
Our next stop was Skogafoss Falls. On the right is a trail with 256 steps that II got to hike. I’d say it’s equivalent to about 1/4 of the Koko Head stairs. However, it was cold, about 0 ℃, so no heat load to worry about.
At the bottom. I’m using a plain surgical mask to keep my face warm.

Nearby was a historical museum, where we heard a talk on 19th century Iceland. People had a hard living. Poor folks made shoes out of cod skin – not a very sturdy material. They would measure distance by how many pairs of shoes they wore out – “I used 3 pairs of shoes to get there.” We also heard that young people used to gift shoes to someone special. So in Icelandic, to be “giving under the foot” is to flirt with someone.

A sod house outside the museum. People still lived in these in the middle of the 20th century.
We had lunch at the museum cafeteria. 2 Fish & Chips were 2800 ISK each, and we also had a bowl of sour cabbage soup for 2000 ISK. The soup wasn’t sour, just as Kim Chee soup isn’t spicy unless you add more spice. Probably ithe “sour” just referred to a preservation method, and any sourness leached out when it was boiled.

We spent the afternoon shopping at a small Mall in the town of Vik, just below our hotel.

The bathroom had interesting rules. It sounds like campers or the unhoused might frequent the area, although I saw no homeless at all on the entire tour. Iceland is a socialist country, our guide told us, so there are not many homeless at all.

Most of my time spent at Kronan supermarket. I saw Rotten Shark, and Baby Horse (foal) in the refrigerator case. We bought 6.200 KR of stuff – my contribution was a 99 KR bag of those thick crispy Swedish potato chips that were in the bargain bin. That was less than a dollar for a big bag, the only real bargain on food. On the plane over, a smaller bag was a 200 KR add-on to my sandwich.

Salted Baby Horse

I decided that I didn’t need my jacket, hat, gloves, or pack for dinner, since it was all indoors. Just as we were approaching the dining room, people came running down the hall shouting that the Northern Lights were outside right then. I hurried back to my room to put on my jacket, then saw them. Couldn’t get a picture on my cheap LG phone or Fuji XP80 camera. But I saw it with my eyes. Just faint wisps that look like clouds.

Arctic Char tonight, which was like salmon, though it seemed richer. The previous night was Ling, which I think could have been Ling Cod? Lots of other good things on the hotel buffet, but I didn’t get pictures. Maybe tomorrow.

8 pm, we all got on the bus to a darker Panoramic Point to see if we could get a better view. I saw more, in spite of the full moon. The activity went way down after about 30 minutes, as another tour bus pulled up and parked. There was little activity after that; I felt sorry for them.

This was the best picture I could capture with my Fuji XP80 camera, in Night Mode (tripod), flash off. I’m pleased to have captured anything at all, as my LG phone saw nothing. Other people got much better pictures.
Eric and Roberta Lee had a much better iPhone than us.
Look at this shot from Neal Miyake, with his serious equipment.
By Jennifer Loo. Naked eye looked nothing like this.