Chilled out in Iceland

It's sunny and warm (ie 15 degrees at times - but in the sun that feels like 24) and since arriving I've felt very at home here. Reykjavik is a great city - very interesting in terms of colour, architecture, surrounds and the people. It's just teaming with swimming pools and their 'hot pots' which are very social gathering places and last night we spent time in the late late sun swimming and doing what the Icelandics do - spend time soaking in the hot pools and steam baths and the like. The hot pots are heated pools kinda like big spa baths and in the place we went to yesterday they had 38, 40 and 44C pools you could meander between - I could live here - quite seriously (in the summer at least). The pools are open all year with geothermally heated water and there is so much water and geothermal energy that, coming from water deprived and Carbon rich Australia, we feel decadent in it all.

It isn't as expensive as I was lead to believe (thankfully) we ate out at a restaurant last night and it didn't blow the budget. I think though that this may have more to do with the powerful Aussie dollar at the moment though, so we've VERY happy about that, and the meal was great too. So far so good. Our friend Dennis arrived from London around midnight last night (the sun was hovering just below the horizon, the sky blue), and we've all recharged now ready to go exploring this so far fantastic place! Well actually I'm still waiting for everyone to come for breakfast, so that's why I've had time to post here.

I'm very excited about being here. It's even better than I expected.