Oh, hey, Iceland.

So I have a very grand excuse for not updating since my first (rather silly) intro post a month ago. Three words: Scotland. Archaeological. Tour.

(With a 2-day stopover in Iceland, just in case SCOTLAND and ARCHAEOLOGY wasn’t over-the-top enough.)

I had initially planned on blogging every few days or so while I was on the tour, but in retrospect that was a ludicrous idea. For one thing: Time? What time? Even the long bus rides were full of interesting scenery to look at, or amusing stories from our tour guide, so…nope. And then afterward? Straight to bed from sheer exhaustion. Plus, there were the photos to consider. Dad had the FANCIEST CAMERA so I didn’t bother taking pictures of my own, which meant that if I wanted photos in my blog – and obviously one must include photos – I was going to have to wait until we got home and got those photos edited, etc.

(If these all sound like mighty fine excuses for not blogging: hi, have you met me?)

At any rate, the last of my excuses just ran out this morning with the arrival of 7,500 photos from Dad. So, DAY 1 OF ICELAND! WITH PICTURES! AND LOTS OF CAPS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS!

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6/17/15 – After traveling all day and night, we arrived in Reykjavik (7:30 AM, their time) to a marked contrast from the 80-degree weather we left behind. Wind! Rain! Cold cold cold! Add to that our extreme exhaustion and I was not feeling particularly charitable toward Iceland.

But then this:

I didn’t really know what to expect when my mom said she’d booked us for the Blue Lagoon Geothermal Spa. It was much, much weirder than I could have imagined. Yes, there was marvelously hot water (my parents break the thermostat on their hot tub so it can go above 103 degrees, so the 110-degree parts of the spa were just about perfect). But since this was a natural geothermal pool, there was also very lightweight, EXTREMELY SQUELCHY mud in one corner that I simply could not handle. There were also weird dips and bumps in the floor that were hidden by the cloudy water. There was white silica mud in buckets at the other end, so we slathered that on ourselves to look even more eerie and ghoulish. Everything smelled like sulfur. Even the landscape surrounding the bright blue-white water was alien – all black and jagged and volcanic. Like it should have been straight out of Sci-Fi or Fantasy.

What I’m trying to say is: it was AWESOME.

But then we had to survive the rest of the day, jet-lagged and hangry (I seemed to have more-or-less constant hunger pangs regardless of how recently we ate)…and I had no idea what was yet to come.

You may not know this about Alex, but – like her mother and father before her – the introvert is strong in this one. And by the time of that last picture there, after forcing myself to stay awake for over 24 hours, I had lost most of my coping power. I wanted to go curl up in the hotel room and sleep and avoid everyone, but it was only 2 in the afternoon. Looking back, I am actually really impressed with my parents for being so determined to EXPERIENCE ICELAND whilst jet-lagged, especially since mom hates crowds as much as I do. But at the time, I mostly just felt resentment that my whole family was forcing me to stay awake. In crowds of strange – yet ridiculously attractive* – people.

But once I reconciled myself to “yes, this is happening,” there were lots of interesting things to see:

There were also lots of live music events going on throughout the day. Realizing that I need to actively engage in my surroundings or else fall over, I selected a “Men’s Choir Concert” event for us to attend. I was expecting something like this ethereal magic:

And instead got this:

So that was a bit shocking. And yet they were so charming and funny – even though I didn’t understand a single word they sang – that I forgave them for not being Árstíðir.

Finally, the food:

After we escaped the crowds to eat our pastries, I promptly fell asleep. I think it was around 6PM.

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Tune in next time for Day 2 of Iceland: the Golden Circle, where EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL AND THERE ARE TINY SHEEP AND PONIES.

*Obviously irrelevant to the story. But I felt it needed to be said.