So lately I’ve been fascinated with Iceland. Why, you ask? No particular reason. It just seems like a somewhat obscure location for your typical American tourist. And I don’t know much about it- try finding a ‘Rough Guide’ for Iceland. I’m going to the UK sometime in the next year, more specifically to some of the outlying islands. I have this obsession with bleak and uninhabited places that still have accessible airports. Iceland looks so incredibly beautiful, and I figure, hey, if I’m taking a trip, I’m taking a trip. So what do you all think? Anybody been there?
I went through an Iceland fixation about a month ago and got online and read a bunch of stuff about it.
Never been but it looks like a lovely little place, doesn’t it? So pretty and clean!
Iceland is great. I am into bleak and uninhabited too, particularly the once-inhabited.
I loved Thingvellir, a half hour or so from Reykjavik. Look it up in a guide book. Site of the first parliament, a thousand years ago. You stand there with nothing around, giant cracks in the ground spouting steam, and you can just picture the Norse chieftains coming from all around to discuss, hold trials, etc.
When you land at the international airport and drive into Reykjavik, you’ll see some of the most barren land on earth: blackened, folded, and broken lava rock and hardly anything else. It’s kinda cool.
The wind never seems to stop. The ocean seems to always be in mid-tempest.
The people were pretty friendly. Their “national” drink (I forget the name–flavored with carroway?) is despicable. The history (the Sagas) is interesting.
The Westmann Islands have some interesting history, too. Definitely worth a day trip. (Remember Keiko (Free Willy) the killer whale?)
The Blue Lagoon smells like sulfur dioxide, but worth a stop. You might like going riding on Icelandic horses.
All in all…a pretty neat destination.
I would love to go there. However, as it’s chock full of my relatives, I think I’ll stay around here for awhile.
It’s also home to The Icelandic Phallological Museum from the site:
(Note to Mods, it’s a clinical looking site and nothing explict, mainly just a buncha pics of really pale people looking at stuffed and mounted :eek: phalluses. If you think it shouldn’t be linked, then please kill it and accept my apologies.)
You know, it’s funny how I’ve always been interested in Iceland myself.
You think it might be Reykjavik?
