First 2 days in Iceland

I can´t figure out the password for wifi here, so I´m on the youth hostel computer. The keyboard looks like a normal American keyboard, but some of the buttons are remapped to output Icelandic characters like ÆÐÖÞ and lots of the punctuation keys are mixed up, so pardon any wacky writing.

I´m here in Iceland with my friend from RPI, Eric Gever. We knew that some friends from our hall freshman year were also coming to Iceland, but we never managed to meet up before the trip to coordinate itineraries and meet up. Well, right after we get to the gate, I see Mike Yates coming out of the bar! Turns out, we´re on the same flight! Mike and Steve Grandpre and two of their fraternity brothers are here for a bit longer than we are, and are camping all week. Hopefully we´ll get to party with them over the weekend in Reykjavik assuming they make it back alive from their wilderness camping adventures.


I tried to sleep on the plane, but as usual, it didn´t really work. We got into Ketflavik Airport at about 7am. For 4400 kronur we bought a bus ticket to Reykjavik with a stop on the way at the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is a geothermally heated pool utilizing the still very hot output of an adjacent geothermal power plant. Supposedly the water has healing powers. I got in with a headache and tired, and came out after swimming for an hour feeling great, even though it was raining most of the time we were there. Once we got to Reykjavik, we had lunch and decided to try to figure out the public bus system to get to where we were staying. The bus was taking a long time, so instead we decided to walk to a cool looking building we saw on a distant hill, which turned out to be the Saga Museum. It´s 5 hot water tanks in a circle which are used for city heating, hot water, and even to heat the streets so ice doesn´t form. On top is a huge glass dome, with a fancy restaurant inside. One of the tanks is empty, and is converted to a wax museum that chronicles the history of Iceland, which was a good way to start our trip.

We couch surfed with this guy named Rutur the first night. He´s about our age, and plays bass in an Icelandic rock band, so we stayed up late watching youtube videos of famous Icelandic bands I´d never heard of.

Today we got up early to pick up the rental car, and drove to Geysir, Iceland´s largest geyser. Unfortunately, Geysir is dormant, but a smaller geyser right next to it goes off about 50 feet every 3 to 4 minutes, which was very entertaining. As we were leaving, we decided to stay for one more burst, and also decided that it would be cool to stand downwind and feel the small puff of steam that most of the eruptions let off. Well, we waited there for about 8 minutes, which is unusual, and then a much bigger than normal eruption came up. Woah! But then at the same time, there was a huge gust of wind, so all the water fell beyond the roped in area and we got pretty soaked. doh!