The Legendary Blue Lagoon

So this was possibly my very favorite spot in all of Iceland. I might even come back just to go again! The Blue  Lagoon is a bunch of natural hot springs that were developed into what is basically the world's biggest all-natural outdoor hot tub. Love! As you know, I have a soft spot for warm things, and this fits right in there perfectly. I couldn't take my camera in the water with me, so I snuck out when everyone left to take some pictures of what it looks like when it's empty. 

Circles of Gold

Actually it's called the "Golden Circle" - a series of natural wonders especially geared towards tourists like myself. First was a bunch of geysirs (what's the plural for geysir? And what do you call a group of them?) They were pretty neat. Well, only one was really active anymore. It went off about every 7 minutes.

Next on the list was a pretty intense waterfall. I don't remember the name of it now. It was shorter than the ones I'd seen before, but quite a bit wider and louder. 

Iceland's national park features huge rock faces - where the North American and European continents meet. I stood right in-between them with Europe on my left and North America on my right. This was also where early settlers established their government, so it was a meeting place for everybody for a long time. 

And finally we visited one of Iceland's dormant volcanoes. Even growing up in Hawaii I'd never seen one as up close and this. Neat! 

Glacier Lagoon

As anyone who know me well knows - I'm not a fan of cold, or snow, or anything remotely related. But I'd be insane to pass up the chance to see Europe's largest glacier, especially since it's right here in Iceland! So we spent an afternoon heading out to Glacier Lagoon. I know I only saw a teensy percentage of the glacier, and that was huge!
Hopefully the pictures can speak for themselves as to how pretty it all was.

we went for a little ride around the lagoon on this. 

   Glacier ice melts 5 times slower than other ice. 

Waterfalls in Iceland

While much of Iceland is covered in small, mossy hills, a good portion of the southern coast is occupied by some really big mountains (and volcanoes). Mountains plus melting glaciers and snow from long winters equals -- waterfalls! Tons of them! We stopped at a few different ones. 

This one had a path carved behind it, we walked back there hoping not to get went. The breeze sent a little water our way, but it wasn't bad. 

These waterfalls are much colder than the ones in Hawaii, so I really didn't want to get wet. 

The next waterfall we visited was hidden within the mountain, but it didn't take too much hiking to get to. 

Just behind the ledge is a huge drop to the bottom of the waterfall. 

You could also walk or swim into the hidden falls, but the water is so cold I wouldn't recommend it. 

Down the road a few miles we came across yet another huge waterfall. 

This one was made for tourists (like me) and featured 365 stairs to get to the top of it (I counted them). 

The river ran into the mountain for hundreds of miles, the source isn't even visible. 

Icy Green Iceland?

I decided to take a trip out to Iceland this summer.  Don't worry, it wasn't entirely that random. One of my best friends lives here. I've been here for about 3 days now, and have a couple weeks to go still - so hopefully you'll be hearing more from me.

For those of you that didn't know: Iceland isn't icy at all, it's green! Except for the glaciers - those are icy. And I think it's cold, but I think everywhere is cold so that is probably just me. It's a beautiful country. Very quiet and peaceful. The neighborhood's (at least where I am) are calm. The sun doesn't go down until about 11 p.m. this time of year, but don't ask me when it comes up - I'm asleep (hey, it's a 6-hour time difference from Idaho!)

I'll never pick up the language, so don't even ask. It's far too complicated. Beautiful, though. I often just sit back and listen to all the talk around me. I'm definitely glad for the handfuls of people that do speak English - I'd be very lost without them.
The vikings first settled this land, so there's a lot of history about them around. I'm hoping to hit up some museums next week sometime. This is just a little play ship in a souvenir shop we went to (that serves very delicious ice cream!)

Speaking of food - nothing is drastically different (so far), and I've enjoyed nearly everything I've tried. I really like the milk and dairy products out here, they just taste a little better than what we have at home! This is from my first dinner here. I didn't partake in the lamb head jam they made, but it was an interesting process to watch anyway.
I wish I had taken a picture of dessert - an amazing Icelandic cake with chocolate and whipped cream and fruit.

These are some nearby hot springs. My camera didn't capture quite as much steam as was actually coming out. Iceland is full of natural hot springs, but the ones here only showed up a couple of years ago after an earthquake.

You can see how hard the sulfuric mud was boiling in this video. And trust me, it doesn't smell very good.

This river runs from the glacier. Very cold water. And a cart got stuck down there somehow. 

The Greatest Road Trip Ever

I've been meaning to blog about this for a couple of weeks now, ever since I got back. I went on a roadtrip back to my mission in British Columbia, Canada with some girls that I served with up there. It was a blast. We had so much fun every single day and had a really hard time making ourselves come back home.
Kiddy Bardardottir, (don't even try to say it, she's from Iceland and her name doesn't sound at all like it looks!) my companion of 6 months whilst in BC and one of my best friends, came over to the States to visit for a few weeks so we planned the trip more or less around that. She, Rochelle, and Ashley carpooled up to Rexburg on Friday June 12th, and we headed north! We left Rexburg at about 4PM, arriving in Kelowna BC at 4AM, thirteen hours later (I can add, don't worry... there's a time difference). We drove Charlie, my '99 Mali and he held up super well. I'm glad we didn't have any car problems, that would have made the trip more adventurous for sure, but also much more stressful for me! And we borrowed Lola, a GPS, from some friends. Those things are amazing! I've definitely got one on my Christmas list now.
The first people we saw, and stayed with, were Jodi, Taylor, and Ava in Kelowna. It's funny cause none of us ever actually served in their ward, but we knew and loved them so much we couldn't resist crashing at their place! We had a blast with them!
We spent Saturday in Kelowna. We had a party of sorts at the beach (we also really really wanted to go swimming, but alas, the cold weather didn't humor us). It was still tons of fun seeing old friends. Kelowna is a fairly central place to all the cities we served in in the Okanagan, so we thought it would be easiest if we had people come to us there. It worked out pretty well!
That evening we decided to see what we could do to paint the town red. We went back to Jodi's and got all cutsy for our night on the town. We ended up going to dinner at Whitespot (one of our favorite BC-only restaurants), and driving around to see some old sights. We went to the marina and walked around and watched the sunset. We also drove past the old Sisters' apartment, where Kiddy lived when she served there 3 years ago. We ran into some rather funny French-Canadians there! There was a group of about 5 young guys hanging out on their balcony and they waved at us to come over. Well we drove by and talked to them through the window of the car for a second. Long enough to find out they don't speak very good English. The funniest part was this:
Kiddy: Oh, you speak French? I'm from Iceland!
Guys: From where? Victoria?
Kiddy: No! Iceland! It's an island.... in the middle of Europe!
(At this point the rest of us are dying laughing)
Some other dialouge, I don't remember what else was said.
Guys: Bye! I love you!!
Kiddy: I love you too!!!
Okay, maybe I didn't present it as hilariously as it was. It was one of those things you had to be there for.
Following our Quebecan encounter, we met up with some YSA's in Kelowna to go cosmic bowling! Well, we didn't actually bowl, as we instigated a spontaneous dance party in the bowling alley. Way fun. I'd never seen such an intense bowling alley before. They had projector screens that played music videos! So cool! Plus we might have "cranked that soldier boy" in the parking lot. After bowling/dancing we headed out to Boston Pizza (yet another BC favorite) for dessert.
All in all, we had a fabulous time in Kelowna and were super sad to leave. I love the Okanagan, it's so different from the rest of British Columbia and we all really wish we could have spent a little more time there.
Next stop: Penticton for Church Sunday morning! The adventurous story here? We completely missed the first hour! We waited and waited and waited for Kiddy to do her hair. It turned out fine though, we showed up just as everybody was leaving Sacrament meeting, and we had only told a couple of people we were even coming so the suprise on many of their faces was priceless!
This is Mimi with 3 former Penticton sister missionaries and one current! Mimi's going on her mission soon and we're all very excited for her!
Penticton was my last area in BC, so I was there exactly one year ago. I love it dearly. Here are a few more pictures of the ward and members there.
This is just the beginning of that awesome week. I don't know if I'll ever finish blogging about it, so I thought I should just go ahead and publish this since it's been in the drafting stage for a month. One day I'll add more!