A Day in Iceland

Day 3

May 4, 2008

A day in Iceland... this is one of those places that really makes you wonder. Ice and snow, rain and wind. Lots of wind. These people are very hardy and handsome. The ones we have spoken to are very gracious and helpful. Most speak very good English. We have a great guide and a big touring van. Our guide Omar, a native Icelander owns a timeshare in Key Largo. Kinda wonder why he came back.

Omar, 30, says he doesn’t know how long he can take the weather. His father lives in Italy and his mother somewhere in France I think. Guess the weather got to them too.

We were wondering why we saw so few people out this morning. Omar says that on the weekends the hard working Icelanders start partying at midnight and don’t stop until 6 AM. So he says the entire country is hung over and asleep.

Driving around we saw glaciers, natural hot springs that bubble hot mud and water. Jim, in an effort to see how hot was hot for us, almost boiled himself as he came soooo close to falling in and giving Iceland there first Florida lobster. We saw huge waves crashing on the dramatic lava rock coast. And then we saw it.

Jim says we have now done it all and we can now die. Nothing left. The “Blue Lagoon” is where everyone goes to get warm and bleach out all the alcohol from the night before. It is a “natural” ala Disney hot spring. Bright blue and steaming. This island prides itself on its being “Green”. Well it is but it cheats. The readily available geothermal steam provides heat and electricity with zero bad emissions except for a slight sulfur smell. 95% of homes and buildings are heated geothermally. Very cool, sorry hot. We should start importing steam from the nice people of Iceland.

Unfortunately, I understand steam turns into water pretty quickly and would be a little tough to ship. We could freeze it prior to shipping! One of my favorite people figured out how to do this back in the 40’s. Gracie Allen Burns would freeze boiling water in ice cube trays so she would only have to thaw it out when she wanted a quick cup of hot tea. She was brilliant! We ought to thaw her out and let her run for president. PS: Food is great here. Off to Helsinki tomorrow!