Icelandic Observations

Just some post-Iceland observations (an always growing list):

- I took my shower's in geothermally heated water...and the fantastic thing about that is, you never run out of hot water...imagine if we had this during the holidays for our family; needless to say things would be a little bit better.

- Although I was technically in the country of Iceland, I spent time during the past week in 3 different areas: North America, neutral Iceland territory, and Eurasia. How you may ask? Iceland has the North American and Eurasian techtonic plates dividing the country and there is an over mile wide region in between them that is officially neither and just Iceland.

- The week before I came the town Reykjavik experienced a 6.3 earthquake...and as it turns out I was experiencing plenty of earthquakes during my stay, I just couldn't feel them because they were so small.

- Icelandic Coca-Cola is outstanding! It blows away the others I have tried in Europe and that can be credited to the equally outstanding water that they drink...pure water straight from the tap.

- There are virtually no trees in the country. The trees that did use to stand were wiped out way back when, during the settlement.

- Despite the typically bad weather, bananas are grown 30 minutes outside Reykjavik. There is a town famous in the country for their greenhouses and that is where they apparently grow bananas, among other things.

- I was only 10,500 miles away from Antartica, beat that!

- Jules Verne's "Journey to the Middle of the Earth" was said to take place in an Icelandic volcano, which I saw in the distance on one of my tours.

- Volcano Hekla, which I also saw during a tour but at a much closer range, was previously thought by many Europeans to be one of the two entrances to Hell.

- Hella, Iceland was hella tight.

- Because of the consistent wind, umbrellas are typically useless in Iceland as the rain falls at an angle.

- Iceland Air really knows how to do things! On both flights I had a small meal which included as much bread as I wanted. Going back to Denmark, there was even a chocolate bar included with dinner and I took advantage of the free soft drink rule and had TWO FULL CANS of Coke. Can you imagine the fuss that would created if you had the audacity to ask for TWO FULL CANS of Coke on any American domestic flight. You're asking to get kicked off the plane, if that's possible. Also, they had a movie planning on both flights: Jumper and 27 Dresses (the later, I admit, wasn't too bad).