The Boots, They Did Not Fail

Yes, the boots came through. Girls, boys, and ponies were all quite willing to give me the time of day, and my feet were incredibly comfortable the entire time. Those boots were damn expensive, and worth every penny.

I have no photos of Winthrop, which was the last leg of this trip, and that is no accident. We had to spend the night in Boston on the way back from Iceland, and I went terribly, terribly wrong with the hotel. Sooooo . . . . I booked this hotel called the Inn at Crystal Cove in Winthrop, which was close to the airport and looked like a reasonably nice place on the internet . . . . ah, the lies of the internet. I can't understand it, I've even gone back and looked up reviews on it, and they are mostly great!!! The people were nice -- but the bedspread had holes in it and the neighborhood was a little scary. It mainly seemed to be a place where people stored their fishing boats.

But we made it home in one piece, and the boots have earned a well-deserved rest. Neither the boots nor my 10 pound laptop are with me in Southern California, where the sky is currently gray and the sun is orange.

I got to be home for about 20 hours, and that's where I'll end this blog. I'm not unpacked, I'm not even home, but the Iceland trip is over. I loved it every bit as much, and maybe even more, than the first time I went. You can be sure of two things: I'll be going back to Iceland, and I'll write a blog about it.

Last Day in Iceland

So on my last day, I finally made it down to the Tjorn. This is a picture of what I think is the Mayor's house, which has a huge scale model of Iceland on its ground floor, as well as some incredible photographs of Icelandic wilderness.

ITC had discovered Kaffitar, the best coffee shop in Reykjavik earlier, so I went there afterward and got a latte and a tuna sandwich for the road. My love of tuna sandwiches never fades.

Here is also a picture of the moss-covered lava fields. It was taken on the way to the Blue Lagoon, but you see them on the way to the airport too.

Last Night in Iceland

So I'm trying to finish up the blog here. I'm in Southern California now, typing on my parent's computer, (which has the worst keyboard in the entire world -- hmmmm, Christmas present idea??) but for the sake of geographical cohesiveness, will just ignore the fact that I am now back in the U.S.

Almost every night, I stopped and pictures of this building, which turned out to be real estate office. The panels cycled through several colors, some faster than others, and I must have taken pictures of it 60 times trying to catch the orange. I finally got it -- ITC took a picture of me staring at it transfixed, as I really almost couldn't walk by it each night without stopping. What can I say, I am easily fascinated. This was on the way to see the Magic Numbers at NASA -- I think I like their personality more than their music. Except for their cover of Beyonce's "Crazy

in Love." Which they didn't play, but they did throw a cover of "Running Up That Hill" in there.

The building next door to it is the post office, which had bands playing in its basement during the festival.

Is It A Food, or Is It a Lotion? It Puts the Skyr on its Skin . . .

So I bought some purple fishskin armbands today. It's what all the kids are wearing.

Also I finally tried Maltol, which is this non-alcoholic beverage that is really packaged like beer. I wish they had it in the U.S. Much like Skyr, which I recently learned can be used as a treatment for sunburn, as well being a tasty yogurt-like snack. By the way, ITC and I were amusing the bus driver on the way to the Blue Lagoon yesterday by pretending to be locked in a deadly argument over who got to eat the rest of the skyr back in the hotel room. In reality, neither one of us can eat a whole tub of it by ourselves, it's so rich.

It's been storming like crazy all day today. After walking around attempting to shop earlier, I finally gave up and switched to the sensible activity of drinking tequila while looking out the window at the lashing rain. And blogging. I've got Jaguar (an Icelandic funk band) on to drown out the storm.

OMG PON!ES!!!

So I made ITC stop yesterday when we were driving around the Golden Circle to try and get some shots of scenery (which didn't come out), and these ponies came running up to the fence. Obviously they are used to tourists stopping and giving them sugar. We didn't have any sugar, unfortunately -- once they figured that out they turned around and walked off huffily.

I can just imagine them thinking "No sugar. Bastards. Think they can just stop and take 20 photos of us without sugar -- I'm biting the next person I see, I swear."

Below is a picture of some scenery that did come out. This is one of the views from close to Pingvatn, where the law rock is. I'm not going to explain what the law rock is. Just google "Law Rock Iceland," you can figure it out.

I Made Salad Dressing with Beer and Mustard

And it wasn't bad. We have a kitchenette, so we bought some food and have been eating it. $7 limes! $7 EACH.


There's no way I'll even get the half of the high points of the last 36 hours into here. ITC and I went everywhere last night -- Lido, NASA, Idno, Gaukarinn. We saw Seabear, the last song of Ultra Mega Technobandid Stefan, !!! (Chk Chk Chk), Ra Ra Radio, etc., etc., etc. We also went to the Blue Lagoon Airwaves Party and the Reykjavik fleamarket, Kolapordid during the day. Man, it was even scrummier than I remembered, but I got a great pseudo-metal T-shirt which I then wore out everywhere last night. Check out the eyeliner. At no point did I stop jumping around, screaming, and waving my arms last night. Every show was fantastic. I'm surprised I can talk/move today.


Then today we rented a car and went on the "Golden Circle," which is what they call the tour where you see Pingvellir, Gulfoss, and Geysir. Pingvellir is a park, Gulfoss is a waterfall, and can you guess what Geysir (yes, that is the right spelling) is? I knew you could.

And we're going out again tonight. It's not even officially the Festival still, but The Magic Numbers are playing at NASA.

Below is a picture of some of the scenery we saw today around Selfoss. Supposedly this is the area where much of Njal's saga took place.

The Typewriter

Wooooooooot!!!! I made it until 4:00am!! I'll pay for this tomorrow. Maybe I'll pass out while listening to Fluokids at the Blue Lagoon, but it will be worth it.

I'm constantly looking around at what people are wearing to these shows. The Icelanders are all about the pegged jeans and the '80's revival. And then there are the guys who come out to the shows wearing suits with frilly shirts, or stripey sweaters. Suits and stripey sweaters are so hot.

I saw so many bands tonight! And ate pyslur (hot dogs) from a van, and got covered in feathers from pillows getting thrown into the audience and being ripped up, and lost one of my hats (not the good hat).

Of Montreal were great. That's their guitarist, wearing wings. I was right up front against the barrier for about a third of the show. The rest of the time I was one person back from the front -- I don't normally like to be at the very front because I am worried about getting smooshed. You know, a tall person looking at their eye level might just think, "There's nothing in front of me, I'll just move forward a little more --- what is that odd resistance I'm feeling?" I was reassured though by the politeness of the Icelandic concertgoers -- I would have even been happy being two people back from the front, but this tall guy put me in front of him, which was really nice. His girlfriend was at the same depth as me, and she wanted him to be next her instead of behind her, but he pointed at me and was like "short girl -- needs to be further up." She kind of pouted, and I even pointed to her and was all "It's OK, stand by your girlfriend, I can stand behind these short people over here" but he shook his head and indicated that his girlfriend could just cope. All of this was communicated through elaborate hand gestures, of course.

Mum was good, but I don't know, I didn't feel it. Caught the last two songs of Ghostdigital, a couple of other songs here and there, and some Icelandic girl with her hair pulled back very tight and a GIANT chiffon bow on her head. Also saw a crazy Icelandic band called Hairdoctor. Note to Priya: They would be very good to dance The Typewriter to.

Ambient Evening

For everyone who is dying to know how the blue wash I attempted to put into my hair turned out, here you can see me fortifying myself with tequila at home before stepping out last night. There is no blue to seen in my hair whatsoever, but it's kind of a dark burgundy/brown/black up close.

Last night was our first night of music. We only made it until about 11:15. I really like Slow Club, was disappointed by Jenny Wilson and Lay Low. I just wasn't in the mood to be mellow, despite the early bedtime. I wanted to rock out like the girl drummer in Slow Club who played a chair (Slow Club is the band in the picture below).

I certainly am in no way adjusted to to the time. Was dying at 11:30 last night, slept briefly, then woke up and saw ITC was up reading some time later. I assume it's about 2:00am or so, and I feel wide awake, so I throw down a couple of Ambien and go back to bed.

Fast forward to the next day -- you notice I don't say "morning" --- ITC is messing around at the sink when I get up and I'm like, man, I'm still kinda sleepy, maybe I should sleep a couple more hours -- "what time is it?"

"It's 2:30."

"In the afternoon????!!!!!"

It was light out, so I was pretty sure it wasn't it wasn't 2:30am, but I thought I'd better make sure.

We were talking later and I was expressing surprise at my extreme sleeping. ITC told me he woke up around 6:00am and read for a awhile -- so that's when I took the Ambien. Yep, two Ambien at 6:00am will put me out until about . . . . 2:00pm. I have taken the advice to check the time before taking Ambien again under consideration. Then again, who cares about being awake in the daytime anyway? Now I'm in the perfect position to stay up until 4:00am. At least.

Edmund, We Need A Bigger Room

So, there was a line to check in at our hotel because of course the bus dropped us all off in a cluster, and we all had to be patient and calm even though every cell in my body at least was screaming "SHOWER!! SHOWER NOW!!!! No more plane! No more bus! shower shower shower!!!!!!!!!!" And I thought ITC was going to drop where he was standing. So even though none of us have a room, and are very tired, this guy already staying there comes down and kind of gets in line while we are all befuddled like cows in a dipping chute and we end up behind him. And what Mr. Already Has A Room And Bed And Shower wants is a bigger room. A room like "my friends in 312 have. I want a room like that one. My room is too small." And he kept raising his voice to the desk clerk and I'm thinking "buddy, there are no other rooms, you are screwed, baby." So the clerk is trying to find him something and this whiny 20-something Virginia Tech student 'roid loving weenie is worried that maybe the clerk doesn't understand how upset he is, so starts getting agitated and repeating himself over and over. Finally the clerk tells him he'll see what he can do after everyone checks in.
When we get to our room, it is perfectly fine. You can do yoga in it if you want to. There's plenty of room. So now we keep demanding a bigger room to each other, because really, if we wanted to flood it and ice skate, we couldn't have very long races.

These Are The Boots

These are the boots that will walk me all around downtown Reykjavik on my trip. These are the boots that won't ever pinch my toes, and will keep my calves warm, and that will make me irresistable to Icelanders of all sexes.
Do you think I'm asking too much of them? They're Pikolinos, I think they can handle it.

Again!

So, I'm going to Iceland again. This time, it's personal??? Er, no. This time, however, I do have a traveling companion. I will have to consult him to find out if he will be referenced by name, or simply known as "Iceland Travelling Companion" (ITC for short).