Words by Tony B
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Yeah, anyways we did a bunch of dope shit today so you better get fired up.
The morning was spent in an educational oasis as usual: The University of Iceland. Highly respected experts in Hydrogen Power, Hydrology and Sustainability Implementation were the featured speakers. Not only were these lecturers highly physically attractive, what they had to say was fascinating too. In fact, you might be interested to know that Germany is currently working towards storing vast amounts of energy in the form of pressurized Hydrogen gas (an environmentally friendly alternative to gasoline). This is great because the Hydrogen can easily be converted to electricity via fuel cells with a greater efficiency than that of a combustion engine. Of course the most exciting application for Hydrogen fuel is in cars, buses and even boats. The Hydrology lecture was also extremely informative. I bet you didn’t know that the average annual glacial run-off is equivalent to 1460mm of rainfall, did you!?
Now, if that doesn’t get your juices flowing, I don’t know what will, and I don’t know how to fix you.
Anyways, after school it was all grass prancing and photo glancing. We started our adventure at 2.30pm in the KEX Hostel common room with our personal guide to Iceland, Mama Caitlin (PhD Candidate). We rolled out gangsta-style: hoods up, boots tied, shades on. First we hit the statue of Ingolfur Arnason on a grassy knoll in downtown Reykjavik. He was a fashionable (scarf-wearing) Viking descendant that arrived in (and named) Reykjavik, Iceland in the year 874 AD. See picture below. Then we mosied our way west along the coastline toward the Seltjarnarnes Peninsula. It’s a prime destination because of a) the geothermally heated foot pool, and b) the lighthouse, which is just a delightful sight in general.
The coast we walked along is lined with an enormous wall of rocks in most places. Needless to say, we frolicked the shit out of those rocks and examined any flora and fauna we could find. Of interest were some birds hanging out near a small rock jutting out about 20m from the water’s edge and some stringy-looking algae growing in small tide pools. These organisms are shown in the photos below. The birds are Eider Ducks or Somateria mollissima if you are into latin names. These ducks are commonly found on coastlines throughout northern Europe, Siberia and North America. Their colouring and vocalizations are quite beautiful. I haven’t figured out what kind of algae we saw, but I’m working on it.
Anyways, after a dip in the “hot pot”, a peep at the lighthouse and an amazing construction of the word “Iceland” with our bodies (mad shout outs to Erica and Matthew for being the bendy letters) we crossed a field reminiscent of LOTR. To everyone’s delight, Alex has little self control and could not stop himself from bursting into song. We walked through a swanky residential part of town, passing by lots of epic-looking houses. We wondered what those kind of places would sell for, and later found out from Mama Caitlin that they go for around $1 million US – doable. Next we arrived at the much-anticipated ultra-posh swimming pool. And let’s be serious, you should know by now that almost everything in Reykjavik is geothermally heated. After a quick lesson on the strict changing room protocol (must not EVER be wet in the locker area or angry old man yells at you) we were sitting in a 47 degree C hot pot, which was almost unbearable. There’s just no need to be that hot…. Among other things we slid down the slide, did flips and dives into the pool to impress the local children, swam lengths and discussed sustainability with English accents.
After a lovely stroll back to the hostel a few of us sampled Reykjavik’s ethnic cuisine at a quaint Pakistani restaurant downtown. The chef was overweight and clearly livin’ life to the fullest. He and a team of only three staff prepared food for six of us and several other tables in a very reasonable amount of time. The food was in the high B range, which we were very impressed by. We ate hard, and all had like nine glasses of water and stole like nine post-meal candies each. Now listen up, these candies were little strawberry chews with perfect texture and tantalizing flavours! Wrapped daintily in red and white wrappers with the scent of wild rice. But watch your back, one of our team mates is now ADDICTED to these candies to the point where she will eat them even if they have already been in someone else’s mouth.
Just when you think this day couldn’t get any better, IT DOES! We had lost track of time in the restaurant and were late for our group meetings! The next 10 minutes were a mad book to the hostel and a bloated scramble up to the 3rd floor kitchen where we found not one, but zero professors. All that running was for nothing. Only a keener named Kate was there sitting with arms crossed and a single tear glimmering on her cheek. “Where are the professors?” she demanded, whipping a glass across the room and shattering it to pieces against the wall. Turns out our professors were getting blackout with the local university faculty. No doubt they were discussing the awesomeness of each and every student in the program and playing Never Have I Ever. They stumbled in about half an hour later carrying the scent of stale whiskey and Icelandic hot dogs.
Only one group had their meeting that night. Everyone else went to bed and the meetings were repeatedly put off for a solid week and a half.
Oh Yeah: Kate did not cry or throw a glass, and the Profs weren’t quite blackout (more of 0.07).
Until Next Time!
