It can´t be bedtime--it´s still light!

wow, great couple days in Reykjavik. yesterday we went straight from the airport to the Blue Lagoon to minimize travel time. The buses left for the city center after 90 minutes and after 3 hours. We couldn´t imagine with suiting up and all that 90 minutes was enough, so we shot for the moon by catching the 9 o´clock bus (if you haven´t noticed yet, there is a minimalization of capitalization and some other idiosyncracies in this post--foiled by foreign keyboards--again!)

much of iceland is ethereal, otherworldly, and the Blue Lagoon is no exception. Floating around the water, which has as many inlets as Iceland itself, one encounters anything from rock to squishy light grey mud on the lagoon floor. Then there are facial stations (named as such by yours truly), where you can take pleasure in caking your face with silica mud. We´re suspecting they´ve saved the finest mud for the spa customers, as ours was intermittently milky and filled with *accents*, shall we say. (it should go unsaid, that I can neither find the quotes key either)

I mean, there is a bit of a rush. it´s 1215 in the a.m., but so hard to know on account of the dusk now unfolding outside this cafe window. the easiest way to know it´s late is that we went down the stretch that has all the bars and cafes and nobody was serving food anymore. We thus had to resort to *10-11*, which i guess is like 7-11, only it is open from 8 to 12. What is this world coming to when 7´11 is open 24 hours and 10-11 is only open 16 (insert question mark here--several in fact).

Today we figured out that renting a car is much superior to taking the bus in Iceland. For one, because certain photographic enthusiastics must stop at places of spectacular sunlight and pretty flowers. (Yes, i said pretty flowers, and i wasn´t talking about *me*!)

It also mean we could take our time going from Pingvellir to Gullfoss to Geysir. (Note to reader--best not to use this post for any of your Iceland spelling and or writing, as essentially every word has a slash or some dots or maybe a little curlique)

Wait! I find them on the keyboard--þ, Æ, ð, Ð, etc...if you don´t have an Icelandic keyboard, they might not come through anyway. Aber schade!

So Pingvellir, Gullfoss, Geysir--
-Pingvellir is the world´s first site of a parliament. And they met outside! Pingvellir was reportedly chosen for its route accessibility and wide supply of firewood. The assembly met every day for about 2 weeks, i don´t remember how often, and commoners could watch, but from an outer circle.
-Gullfoss is a f****** incredible waterfall. Wow. It´s cacophonous and misty and even changes direction halfway through! They also have a disturbingly low guardrope, which is so close to the edge, that if you tripped over it, it´s bedtime for Bonzo. (But don´t tell my mom! This kind of stuff makes her nervous!)
-Geysir is the reasons we called water eruptions out of the ground Geysers. There could be a really impressive one, but it hasn´t spoken since 1918, so we just watch it mist. Then every 4 to 5 minutes, this geysir nearby, the *butter churn*, does it´s stuff. Oh, it´s cool! This German guy advised us that east side had less wind, so we were there for a while, and then wanting a different perspective, circled around to the west side. Oh yes, that is definitely more wind. Might explain why Trevor and I were darn wet inside of 4 minutes (actually, 1st eruption had us covering our cameras and running for drier ground.) And that was standing *behind* the rope. (In this case, the rope is for sissies. If you *know* where to stand, you can get great vantage points. If you *don´t* know where to stand, well, let´s just hope you have some dry undies in the car.)

It´s still dusk--but I´ve had Trevor set the alarm for an early hour, so it´s time to go. 'bout 530 on the West Coast--time for most of you to go too!

Ciao for niao.