it's all video, video, video

Here's a video that I made of video clips that we [mostly Robbie] took on our trip. We're still figuring out the video settings on the camera so it's not super great quality.

Is it cliché to make a video about Iceland and have the soundtrack be a Sigúr Rós song? If loving this song is wrong, then I don't want to be right. [Rest assured—this is indeed my last post about Iceland.]

Also, I know that my TA Justin from my old film classes reads this blog from time to time—Justin, I'm sorry that I apparently learned nothing in TMA 185.

[Or, if you're feeling like you don't have time for a ten minute video—here's some Icelandic sheep.]

camping is in tents

Lots of people gave us quizzical looks when we said we were going camping in Iceland. "You know it's cold and wet there, right?" was the common response. To be perfectly honest I was really nervous about the camping part of our trip—I thought we were going to freeze to death or blow away in the wind.

Neither of those things happened. It was actually really comfortable! The key is preparation—we had 20 degree sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and a great tent and we were super snug the whole week. Some of the benefits of camping in Iceland—the sites are always by something really cool [such as a crater, lighthouse, the ocean, or a waterfall], they aren't that crowded [and probably even less crowded in the off season], and they are ridiculously cheap [about seven bucks per person to camp]. We brought our own freeze-dried meals from REI just in case there weren't places to eat nearby [which did happen most nights] and that was kind of fun. Our car had fold-out tables on the front seats which worked perfectly for dinner time. 

There are also really great hospitality laws in Iceland regarding camping. If you decide to do wilderness camping and end up in someone's yard or farm, they can come tell you that they don't want you to stay there... but you can still stay the night. Seriously—friendly country. Oh, AND—there are no ants or mosquitos in the whole country, thanks to the late ice age! [I read that somewhere—I didn't just make it up.] Bugs are the worst thing about camping, I think, so that made things a million times more comfortable.

Anyway, I just needed to preach the camping gospel. We were supposed to go camping this weekend but we were a little burned out and decided to spend this Labor Day at home in a real bed instead. But if you're thinking of camping in Iceland, just ask us about it. Robbie thinks that I am a bit of a wuss but after a week of semi-regular showering and crazy camping hair, I think I've proved him wrong. Right? Please tell me I'm right.

day six: heimaey, blue lagoon, and garður

Our last full day in Iceland (or what was supposed to be our last day...) was meant to be as relaxing as possible. We woke up early to catch the early ferry out of Heimaey. While we waited for the boat to leave, I explored some other cool places near the harbor—the ruins of a 15th-century fort called Skansinn (most of it was buried by the lava from the 1973 eruption), the maternity hospital Landlyst, and a reconstructed medieval wooden stave church. Landlyst was especially interesting to me. It's now a medical museum, but it used to be where a midwife named Sólveig attended to patients. Until the 1840s, the infant mortality rate on Heimaey was 80%, until Sólveig was sent abroad to learn midwifery. She brought her skills back to Heimaey and drastically turned around the number of infant deaths. That's pretty cool, as my girl Miley would say.

After we arrived back on the mainland, we sped off to the Blue Lagoon, the only thing on our Friday itinerary. I had seriously been looking forward to this the whole trip. Blue Lagoon is a spa that was created after locals realized that the runoff water from a nearby geothermal plant was mixing with seawater in the earth, and then spouting back up to create these warm, milky blue pools full of silica and algae that were really good for skin ailments. Now they're just making a pretty penny by getting people like me in there. Ahhh it was amazing. We spent something like seven hours there. I was so sore and tired from driving all week and it was just what I needed (especially after I, um, had an unfortunate incident driving the car while we were taking a sharp turn on a gravel road). The water was full of minerals that I could feel on my skin and in my hair for days (seriously, my ponytail grew a size) and they had mineral masks that you could massage into your skin. Pretty awesome, and my skin totally cleared up the next day. And I got a sweet tan because it was a sunny day. They also had a relaxation room that I fell asleep in a couple of times. It was really perfect. Bless you, Blue Lagoon.

Our campsite was close to the airport, on a peninsula in a town called Garður, where we camped under a lighthouse. Really idyllic. We also found out later that Garður was Iwo Jima in the movie Flags of Our Fathers (one of our friends from the Reykjavík branch was an extra—he played a soldier and he had to go through boot camp and everything, which I think is hilarious), which is cool.

Anyway. I guess that's it for Iceland. The rest of the days we were there were so low-key I never even got out my camera. We just hung out with our friends and slept in every day. It was a perfect vacation.

day five: kirkjubæjarklaustur, fjarðrárgljúfur, mýrdal, skógafoss, and vestmannaeyjar

Try saying that post title five times fast. Also, sorry about the abundance of pictures. We just did a lot.

Thursday's drive was just retracing our steps back down the southern coast, but stopping at the places we had skipped along the way. In Kirkjubæjarklaustur (or just "Klaustur" works) we saw some cool basalt formations (that were once mistaken to be ancient church floors), taught Robbie to drive stick, ate more pylsa and some ice cream, and washed our filthy, filthy car. Near Klaustur is an amazing gorge called Fjarðrárgljúfur—Robbie's favorite stop during the whole trip. Someone I talked to called it the Grand Canyon of Iceland, but it's much smaller than that. There are cool lookout points over the gorge which really tested my fear of heights. It was a beautiful, sunny day so we took advantage of the warmth and hiked to the end of the gorge, which overlooks three waterfalls that feed into the river that carves out the gorge. Unfortunately, the sun made for difficult picture-taking. But at least I have the memory...

After the gorge we drove back through lava fields to the other side of Vík's beaches at Mýrdal, where there are some beautiful basalt columns (the ones Becca referred to in a comment that are in this Bon Iver video) and cool rock formations out in the water. I wish we could have spent more time here... there is supposed to be a great hike up there, but we were running behind because of all the time we spent at the gorge (I told you Robbie liked it...).

We then drove through Skókar to Skógafoss, a beautiful waterfall where I saw a legit double rainbow. Geez. It was amazing. There's a nice hike alongside the waterfall where you can overlook the river above the falls.

We literally ran from Skógafoss to our car and broke the Icelandic speeding laws (I found out later they have speed cameras on the Ring Road! Argh!) because in true Hamill fashion, we were running late to catch our ferry to Vestmannaeyjar, or the Westman Islands. We hopped onto the ferry literally two minutes before the ladder came up and the ferry moved out of the harbor. I think we would have planned that timing better, but we had just decided the night before that we should camp on Heimaey, the only inhabited island of the fifteen islands. I'm totally glad that we decided to make that trip—there are so many cool things about Heimaey. I mean, we camped in a CRATER. I think this was totally awesome but not as many people reacted with shock and awe like I did. Our campsite was right next to the Mormon monument—in the 1800s, when there were only 800 inhabitants on the island, 200 of them got baptized and left for Utah to join the pioneers. A monument was erected in their honor just a few years ago by their descendants. It's a cool idea, but a weird monument—it looks like a fairy girl holding out offerings to the ocean. After we stood baffled by the monument, we walked over to the cliffs by our campsite, and to our delight, we discovered PUFFINS!!! They were nesting up on the cliffs and swarming around like flies! It was amazing. (How many times have I used that word?) I seriously just wanted to see a puffin during this trip, and I got hundreds instead. So cool. We talked to some other people who went puffin-watching during the day and didn't see any, so I guess we timed it well by showing up at dusk. They were all over the place.

As it was getting dark we decided to explore the rest of the island on foot. The island has a crazy history. In 1973, a volcano erupted, forcing the inhabitants to evacuate for months and resulting in half of the island being obliterated. The island was barely saved when the lava stopped short of reaching the harbor (fishing = the island's livelihood). If the harbor had been destroyed, no one would have come back because there wouldn't have been a point without fishing. After the eruption, the island's size actually increased because of the hardened lava. Crazy. So now, they have an excavation site they refer to as the "Pompeii of the North" where they have begun to excavate some of the houses. They also have a house graveyard, which we walked around at night and really freaked me out. The houses were buried twenty meters below our feet and there were markers at each site saying what had stood on that spot before the volcano erupted. It was, well, eerie (to use another over-used word).

Heimaey was cool. I'm glad we got to go in the end, because it was like discovering another Iceland. Robbie's old roommate who lived in Iceland for a while referred to it as the Texas or Hawaii of Iceland—even though it is big by Icelandic standards (4,500 inhabitants), it is relatively remote and they just kind of have their own culture out there. It felt really different from the rest of the places we visited. Not rural at all, but not big enough to be as bustling as Reykjavík. The only complaint I have is that the whole island smells like fish and bird poop. No biggie though—you just learn to breathe through your mouth after a while.

day four: vatnajökull, jökulsárlón, and seyðisfjörður

We did a TON of driving on day four—it's all beginning to blur together in my head so I hope I get everything straight.

The distance between Vík and Seyðisfjörður (our final destination in the Eastfjords) was something like 500 km, or about 6 hours of driving... AND taking into account that we'd probably be stopping at places of interest along the way. So. That was a lot. And the drive, during parts, was a bit like the boringness driving through Utah or Nevada, except instead of vast expanses of dirt it was vast expanses of lava fields. However, the boringness in the stretches on the south coast was completely trumped by the breathtaking beauty of the Eastfjords. And by Icelandic ponies with hilariously short legs. [Fun fact—if an Icelandic pony leaves Iceland IT CAN NEVER COME BACK because the breed is so pure. Banished.] It was also trumped by the sheer terror of me driving a stickshift on a 12% grade uphill and then stalling in the middle of it. Good one, Hanner. That whole stretch was horrible (the hill). I don't want to think about it. But then we finally got over the hill and we ascended into a cloud, which was NUTS. AHHH Iceland.

Okay, back on track. Before we left Vík we headed down to the black sand beach and did a little bit of bird-watching. Pretty fun. We also went to a woolen goods store and got Robbie a sweater. Although we both love our sweaters (I bought mine later that day in Höfn [you say "hup!" while breathing in... sorta]), whenever we wore them around Iceland we felt a bit like the people in DC who wear those DC shirts they buy from vendors on the streets. Okay, it's different, but I did feel a little self-conscious, especially when people would start speaking to us in Icelandic and we had to admit, "No, we're not Icelandic, we're just posers and like your woolen goods. But look—I have blonde hair! That must count for something."

After Vík our next (long) stop was Jokülsárlón. The best way to describe Jokülsárlón is that it is a bit of an iceberg graveyard—huge chunks of Vatnajökull (the largest glacier in all of Europe) break off and float slowly away into the ocean... if they don't melt before they make it out of the lagoon. It was beautiful and eerie, and a bit sobering. We actually ended up coming back to Jokülsárlón on our way back down the coast for a driving break and the colors of the ice were even more blue and brilliant because it was sunny out. Really cool stuff. We even saw a seal swimming around in the lagoon, which was really cool (and added to our list of animals you hope you'll spot while you're in Iceland).

We never went up close to Vatnajökull (Robbie's biggest trip regret), but it was always looming in the distance. Glaciers, man.

The rest of the trip just included a lot of white-knuckle driving while Robbie filmed me cursing under my breath every time I crept up one of those long hills up the fjord. The view from the top was spectacular, though, and I felt like I had won a prize by the end. I earned that view, man!

We finally pulled into Seyðisfjörður as it was getting dark, which is a real bummer. Seyðisfjörður is a cool port town at the bottom of a fjord (if you couldn't tell from the name) and it gets a lot of traffic from people taking the 30-hour ferry to and from continental Europe. In fact, we were shocked that our campsite was packed with RVs and all-terrain vehicles from Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and who knows where else, but it was because the ferry was leaving the next day and everyone was there to catch it home. After we set up camp, we walked around the town and enjoyed the fog and the eerie silence. We ate dinner at a charming café and had the best bruschetta-esque appetizer of my life. If anyone wants to help me recreate it I'd love you forever—slices of toasted baguette topped with a piece of lettuce, Serrano ham, diced chili-roasted almonds, and a rhubarb chutney. Apparently it is a local specialty, and I died and went to heaven.

I really wish we could have stayed in Seyðisfjörður longer, but alas. Maybe next time.