a day of panoramic landscapes

Mom asked, "Will we get to see a live volcano?"

"I hope not," said our bus driver. "I will drive the other way if that happens."

We're off on our adventure! We're in a 14-person tour group, including our party of 5 (aunts have joined us; they landed in Reykjavik yesterday evening).

I conked out at 10:30 pm last night, due to getting two-ish hours of sleep on the flight the night before. My body thought it was a nap, and kept waking up every 90 minutes or so, but needed rest so it was all right with going back to sleep each time. I finally woke up for good at 5:30 am. I feel like an old person and/or HGR.

(An interjection from worm: "YOU ARE IN ICELAND? Where are our photos?")

It was a day of panoramic landscapes. The area directly outside Reykjavik is volcanic soil and rock, covered in lichen and short grasses and occasionally dotted with free range sheep. The sheep are let completely loose for the summer months and then rounded up afterward (how?). As we drove farther away, we saw ravines and waterfalls, distant mountains wreathed in clouds, pillow-shaped volcanic rocks covered in moss.

We also stopped at some geothermal vents. (The water at the restroom was very warm.) (As we were leaving Reykjavik, we saw a pipeline bringing geothermally heated water to the city.) There was a geyser that erupts every 10 minutes, so the rope was constantly crowded with three hundred tourists holding out their cell phones for 9.5 minutes to get footage of the big boom.

The capstone visit of the day was...a tomato farm!! Their tomatoes comprise 40% of the Icelandic tomato market. They have a restaurant inside a greenhouse, serving tomato salad, tomato soup, and bread. We got a greenhouse tour with generous samples of soup and bread. It was quite good. However, we were also standing in coats in a greenhouse eating spicy hot soup. One of the ladies on the tour literally pulled out a fan and started fanning herself. What a queen.

That evening, we had dinner at our hotel in Selfoss. It was kind of a fracas. The first course was seafood soup - rich, creamy, and flavorful, but also mega salty. I thought "must just be a salty dish in Icelandic cuisine" and tucked in. It was not. Our tour guide sent back his bowl after tasting it. The next course was salmon and mashed potatoes with hollandaise sauce. Mine was fine, but one of my aunts' salmon was mostly raw ("it's fuckin raw!!"). Another lady on the tour doesn't like salmon and ordered cod instead. Her garnish was cold; the cod was lukewarm and partially raw. oops!! After that we were all placing bets on whether and how much our breakfast tomorrow will be messed up, although I rather think it will be fine since breakfast is a lot harder to goof.