Whose fault is it?

Iceland’s

This picture is of the fault line that separates North America and Europe. Or, more accurately, the North American tectonic plate and the European tectonic plate. Me in North America:

Me in Europe:

I am so worldly!

You know how we are always hearing about those wonderful Icelandic foods? Exactly… we don’t. I had salt fish and it was pretty good. I had fish balls and they basically tasted like fish sticks that weren’t breaded. I am not willing to try singed sheep head. Yes, they do have it and yes, it is a delicacy. But no, I have not seen it or been offered it. I did see a picture of it today and I wasn’t appetized at all. Actually, I saw a picture of a singed sheet sheep head on a postcard and it was the most revolting postcard I have ever seen. Imagine going to your mail box one day only find that picture staring at you. Here is a picture of live sheep. Much nicer.

And I now present to my photo essay of some interesting things on my Iceland trip (or at least the things that I have decent pictures of)!

STEAM

There are lots of white clouds being spewed towards the sky by buildings across the countryside. Fortunately, it is not pollution. It is steam being generated from geothermal heating.

GULLFOSS

The golden falls.

We weren’t the only ones at Gullfoss today. It is one of Iceland’s most popular tourist attractions. As in, they arrive by the busload (this is only one small section of people loitering around).

Among the hordes were this romantic young couple

How cute, no? They were actors – not sure if it was for tv or movies. This is that crew that was filming them:

GEYSIR

At first I thought that it was pretty vain for the Icelanders to refer to their most special geyser as “Geysir”. It seemed equivalent to talking in the first person. But oh, I was wrong. Geysir is the geyser. The rest were named after this one. This is Geysir today.

No eruptions. People used to throw rocks and other junk in there and it got bunged up. Instead, we got to see Strokkur. It is apparently much smaller than Geysir was but it goes off much more frequently. When we were there it was going off in intervals of less than 10 minutes. (this picture doesn't show the full height of the spray)

OUR SWEET RIDE

There’s not much more to say about that. The car itself wasn’t special. But it did allow us to see interesting things and the freedom to stop at any time for taking pictures of those interesting things.

That should give you a good taste of what I have seen in Iceland. Explanations upon request in person. And for those who have been to Iceland... its true, we never left the southwest and these were the spots that everybody sees.