The Golden Shower tour

Wait, that's also Amsterdam.

Day 3: The Golden Circle tour. Scenic stuff. Like I said/wrote, I had to catch an early bus. Got myself moving at 7 after about 3.5 hours of sleep, inhaled the sweet sulfur scents and made it to the tour bus by 8:15.

Take a few million steps, turn and shoot.

Full bus. Some Yanks, some Canadians, some Brits, some Far Easters, some Irish, lots of Scandinavians. We had a bit of a drive before reaching the first of our destinations, so our tour guide took the opportunity to (relatively unenthusiastically) fill us in on the history of the country -- but not before properly preparing us for our journey.

 * "First we go somewhere. Then I guess ... we take a walk." 

 * "It is always a good idea to use the seat belts. And it is required ... by some regulations."

The latter reminded me of White Meadow Lake, where membership is both a right and an obligation. 

The island was settled in the ninth century. There was war, unity, religious stuff, adoption of Christianity, so on and so forth, up until around 1200. Then, according to our guide, during the following centuries "there was not much happening. It was cold some centuries."

Yep. Then he repeated everything he said in another language (later told it was Norwegian). A couple of times he had a pretty good one-liner, soliciting some laughter. But when he repeated it in Norwegian, the punchline had no punch, as everyone who understood Norwegian spoke English anyway. Not as funny the second time. 

Then we lost someone at some stop. Left 'em behind, went to get a snack. Bus eventually went back and tracked 'em down. Group of tourists kept almost missing the bus. Not me. Had to wrangle a window seat each and every time.

So we pass some schools, which are among the oldest in the country. There's elementary, primary, secondary, etc. -- and there used to be one for preparing women for their careers as housewives.

"For some reason that school no longer is operating"

Laughter. But only the first time.

Non-stinky water.

Incidentally, it was kind of interesting listening to repeat himself in another language. Only a few words sounded familiar, but the intonations were similar at various points. I could tell where he was in the story or joke.

More fun facts from our guide:

Iceland has cows. They are good for milk but not all that great for beef. So Scottish cows are imported. Scotland provides beefy cows.

Iceland has sheep. They are good for both food and wool -- mostly the former.

Iceland has corn. But this is a new development -- just over the last 10-15 years. Hell, Mike's Stand in Storrs was shucking ears since the early '70s! (Storrs peeps, is that place still open?)

Iceland has horses. Icelandic horses. There are competitions on the island. There are also competitions in the U.K. Iceland sends some of its best horses there to compete, but due to strict livestock importation rules, the horses never can return -- at least not until they've exhausted their usefulness and are sent back in time to be slaughtered by their younger selves.

Anyway, the first main stop was the Pingvellir National Park.

This actually was the site of the original Icelandic Parliament. Apparently Iceland now has the longest-running parliament in the world. Would be nice if they'd just end the damn session already.

Anyway, this lake and surrounding features apparently were created by the divergence of the North American and European continental, plates, which happens at a couple of centimeters per year. This reportedly is the only (or among the only) place(s) in the world were such a plate intersection exists at/near sea level.  Also on the premises is a church and the prime minister's summer home.

Sadly, the home and church are on the same side of the continental split, preventing me from espousing commentary about the planet itself doing what it can to separate church and state. Ha.

All in all, stunning scenery (there actually was an audible gasp from many of the tour-goers when the lake first came into view), and pretty wild to think about the geological significance of the place. Oh, on the way out we also could see a big freakin' glacier off in the distance.  They offer glacier hike tours. Heard they are cool (didn't mean that awful pun -- really), but I didn't have a chance to check it out.

Next main stop (I'm generally skipping over the food/snack breaks, though my first Bjork sighting happened in the gift shop at the waterfall. OK, it was just one of her CDs, but still ...) was the Gulfoss waterfall. It's kind of awesome. And they let people get absurdly close to it. 

Panoramadingdong.

Eons ago (long before the dawn of history) it was to be used as a hydropower source, but the daughter of the farmer who got swindled out of the rights wouldn't have it. She said that if anyone tried to industrialize the waterfall, she'd heave herself over the edge. That threat -- plus the general lack of strong market for electricity in the area -- helped quash those efforts. Then Iceland stepped in and made it a park, and the British energy company that tried to cash in finally understood TLC's warning.

So after the waterfall was the geyser at Geysir. The word geyser comes from this place, though the Geysir geyser isn't too active anymore; it just spouts a little steam. But another geyser (Strokkur) there rocks and rolls every five minutes or so. And sometimes there's a secondary eruption within 10 seconds of the first. I got geysered by a secondary eruption. It was wet.

The excitement around this thing is silly but fun, though I'm convinced it's a sociological experiment. There's a guy with a button deciding when to set the thing off; they just want to see how long people will wait, how annoyed they'll get, how long it take Mr. Bob Dobalina to answer his page, etc. 

But this geyser is pretty groovy. And the water flowing out, shockingly, is quite warm. And the various hot spots spewing steam are kinda cool. The bus driver asserts that Iceland likes to be the best at anything/everything. It has the oldest parliament, the strongest man (competition winner recently, i guess?), the most attractive woman (pageant winner recently, i guess?), and the best and brightest bankers.

Ha. Driver funny. But only in English.

Lots and lots of geothermal water activity going on in Iceland. Provides power/electricity and hot water, generally weighing in at 150-180 degrees Celsius. And it's stinky. I thought they smelt bad ... on the outside.  

I'm still awake for all this. No idea how. On a few hours sleep and cold meds. Crazy. 

So we're on our way back from the geyser, expecting to just head home. We're all tired. But we take a detour through some random town. Nice little suburb. Lots of geothermal pockets. One showed up in someone's living room -- totally f'd up that house. OK, fine, not a critical detour, but not awful.

Then our driver tells us we are stopping at a power plant. Seriously? Just take us back. But the driver says "the exhibition" at the plant is incredible and well worth the small cost. It's the most enthusiastic he's been about anything all day. So some people do the exhibition, some of us just go inside for a snack after failing to share the driver's enthusiasm for the power plant exhibition.

I have somewhat amusing video of this - not posted. So there.

Get back on the bus, someone asks me, "did you do the earthquake simulator?"

What?! If it's an earthquake simulator, say it's a damn earthquake simulator! Ray, if someone asks you if you are a god ...

I did not do the earthquake simulator, though the power plant -- harnessing all that geothermal energy -- was moderately interesting. Meanwhile, the bus driver -- or his assistant tour/driver guy -- yelled at someone on the tour when she asked if he could take a photo of their group at the plant. "Don't you know who I am?!"

Well, considering we only see the back of your head while you drone on about things that are more interesting than you make them out to be ... no. No we don't. Never mind the furthermore, the plea is self defense.  

In all, the sites lived up to the must-see billing. Good stuff.

Thus endeth this tour, and this entry.