I’m sitting in the airport in Paris – it’s a chaotic environment at the best of times, and today is no exception. There are kids playing soccer behind me at the gate lounge, our plane has been delayed 25 minutes, but I’m sitting here feeling particularly at peace for some reason. I’ve got the theme track to American Beauty playing on my ipod, which kind of takes me away from everything, like I’m an observer to everything happening around me but not actively a part of it. I often get this kind of feeling at the start of a trip when I’m on the plane as it cruises into the night, but today it’s a different thing. 
The day has been one of saying goodbye to family, walking around various parts of Paris. Sitting at sidewalk cafes eating lunch or having coffee and watching the people go by. Paris certainly is a great place for people watching. I have been imagining all the different life stories of the people passing right by me, reading their expressions as they go about their day, even in the metro I was imagining the worlds of the people around me and how different they probably are from mine. We wandered through the Louis Vuitton store on the Champs Elysees and examining the Euro10000+ bags I realised there is a whole world of people out there about whom I have no knowledge. There is so much out there in fact that I don’t know, that the amount I do know seems insignificant. But I think that’s what really makes the world an interesting place. It’s a whole lot of fun finding out the little bits at a time that I do. While I may feel a mile away from everyone here right now – I know I’m just the same as everyone here, yet there are small things that make us all very individual. And I like that too.
Having been here for about a week now, it seems Iceland has one of the best swimming cultures in the world. And we know that I'm obsessed with swimming. The fact that there are 16 swimming pools in the Reykjavik area alone is certainly an indication of the keenness they have, the fact that they are open from 6.30am to 10.30pm stamps it in bold ink.
After a day on the road we’re now in Vik, in the south west of Iceland. The accommodation we’re staying in is called “A … guest house” and as is an option in a lot of places here we’re using our own sleeping bags but sleeping on their beds. 3 of us in the one room. It’s nothing flash, but we arrived at 9.30pm and then went straight out for dinner to the only place serving dinner this late in town. (Population 290 ) returning here just after seeing a midnight sunset.
We started the day with breakfast at the youth hostel we stayed in last night. Our cereal with fruit contrasted with a gourmet breakfast a couple there had cooked for themselves, but I felt like nothing more complex. We headed out and the fjords were surprisingly spectacular. Waterfalls galore, and quite a rugged landscape not softened by the trees Norway has in its fjords. The towns coloured with wooden houses, but some towns a little more industrial, yet never overpowering as there’s so few people in this part of the country to begin with.
Then we hit the glaciers. Turned a corner from one fjord into the next and there before us were 5, 6 maybe 7 glaciers glued onto the mountains and often spilling onto into lagoons at ocean level. The amount of ice up there is huge, unfathomable really, and when we got to the first lagoon filled with glacial debris – small icebergs floating around in various stages of melt, it was quite simply stunning. I was in my element photographing it all, though the overcast sky probably took some of the sparkle away. After that it was a desert of laval flows of the past forming a huge flat by the ocean criss-crossed by glacial streams.
We’ve been eating various local foods and while Sylvain hates the supermarkets at the best of times Dennis and I have been enjoying trying out new things. We’ve had quite a variety of salmon and herring and all things fishy and various chocolate / sweet things that aren’t exactly healthy choices, but then we’ve also been eating nuts and berries and yoghurts of all kinds, today’s specials were fresh blueberries and raspberry & peach ( I think) yoghurt. The yoghurt the other day with 6 grains… was actually quite nice – chewy but quite novel. It was also a little warmer today – up to 10degrees max. So no frost bite today.
A handful of photos finally to keep you up to date.
This photo below was earlier today in the boiling mud pools in the north of Iceland. We got to a low of ZERO degrees, and despite the heat from these pools and steam vents it was FREEZING out there...
As you can see here below, where it is in fact snowing - middle of summer and all (yes this is me in my new raincoat keeping slightly warm, and also cleaning my shoes from a climb to the top of a crater)
We’re in the north of Iceland, in a place called Akureyri and when we arrived last night in the rain (it has been snowing at one point on our way here) we headed straight for the pool which was awesome. Probably 6 or 7 pools all up – but I didn’t see all the indoor ones. A chilly 3 degrees out it was between 28 and 43 degrees in the water depending on the pool. We managed to do some laps and take on the water slide, steam bath, huge heated water jets and some of the hot pots before checking in to our accommodation and then out to a degustation dinner at a place called Rub 23 – sensational, and leagues above the previous night’s $15 burger that I would have complained about if it was more than $3 in Australia.
The previous night we stayed in a place in the middle of nowhere – simple cabins where we slept in our own sleeping bags – and it was great, though there were no showers in the massive complex, which perplexed us a little. Certainly the glacial river running through it wasn’t going to be our bath was it? The daylight never ends up here and I had a jacket and some t-shirts hung over the windows there to exclude some light for a less interrupted sleep. We’d traversed a 60km stretch of dirt road on our way there in our 2wd (our 4wd packed it twice in back in Reykjavik and we elected to bar it from our trip – taking the Mazda 6 wagon instead – not so good on dirt roads though). The moonscape on this overland trek was speckled with life and topped with glaciers. Spectacular even if Sylvain was swearing at the road every 100m. We’d come from being drenched in the mist from Gullfoss – a mammoth waterfall, and almost drenched by an enormous Geyser, which would have been quite a bit hotter! Spectacular all around.
Today they predict rain (click here for our Iceland weather forecast) , but there's already some sun shining through, so hopefully they'll be wrong again.
Vega and the chocolate cake
Greetings from Oslo!
