Iceland day two: Laleinia's choice. Oddly enough, Lain loves all things geology. Rock formations, plate tectonics, erosion, you name it, she loves it. So the plan for day two was to do the Golden Circle. We got up before the sunrise (about 9:30 a.m.) and headed out in our rental car.
Our first stop was an unanticipated (benefit of a rental car vs. tour buses) stop by a field full of horses. There are so many horses in Iceland, and they're smaller and furrier than their British and American counterparts. My goal was to jump on one and see what would happen, so I jumped the fence with some bread. All of a sudden, there were about 30 horses nipping and kicking each other and blocking me in! I got out and we took some photos. No riding, I'm afraid.
Next up was Þingvellir, the site of parliament since 930 AD, and the scene of the separating tectonic plates on the mid-Atlantic ridge. It was pretty cool to see nature in action. Laleinia was in her element, teaching me a thing or two about the earth in which we live. We walked around and admired a beautiful river and church, which was really cool.
The next stop was Geysir, the one that all geysers in the world are named after. By now, the sun was at its highest, which was not very high! We were expecting Geysir to be really cool, especially when we walked into the area and saw a sign that says its eruption is about 75m. However, we came to learn that it doesn't erupt anymore because they used to throw soap in there to make it erupt more often. Lesson learned. We did see the Strokkur geyser, which erupts every few minutes. That was really cool. You can see the water pulsating before it erupts, and right before it goes, it forms a big blue bubble and then shoots water high in the air. It was really cool.
The last part of the Golden Circle tour was to a waterfall called Gullfoss, which just so happens to be the biggest in Europe. It has two tiers and looks really nice. We can add that to our collection of Niagara and Victoria falls. Not bad! We met a Scottish guy and I was talking to him while walking up some stairs. Really nice guy. When we got to the top, he said "You've lost one" referring to Lain, who was taking her time up the stairs. I laughed, told him that Lain is pregnant, to which he replied "You a**, go help her." It was funny, Lain got a laugh out of that one!
On the drive home, we were driving into the sunset (about 4 p.m.), which was really cool. I pulled over a few times to get pictures, which don't really do it justice. The sunset was almost surreal. We stopped at a large stream/small river because Josh and his wife told me that the water from those streams are delicious. They were absolutely right! Nice and cold and tasty (which I didn't think was possible for water). It was fantastic! In fact, I wish I had some right now!
After a quick game of skittles, games at the arcade, and some ice cream (very popular in Iceland, regardless of the weather), we headed out on a tour bus to try and catch the northern lights. We were supposed to go on a boat, but there was a storm at sea and so they changed the trip to be by bus. Since there was a lot of cloud cover, we didn't see anything really impressive. Unfortunate, but we tried. We "chased" the northern lights, and lost. Then we went back to out hotel in Reykjavik and hit the hay!