Iceland

Well I just got back from Iceland for an EVE gaming conference and let me say that Iceland is one really cool (forgive the pun) place to go! For a long time I've always wanted to go to Iceland, the idea of lava and glaciers in the same place is just too weird to pass up, combine that with the northern lights and scandanavian women and you've got my interest perked ;) So when I heard of the gaming conference set there I immediately signed up and along with 5 other friends headed off to see the last of the scandanavian countries that I hadn't seen.
The first thing that we all noticed as we were approaching the island was that it's actually a lot larger then you think when you look at atlas's, in fact it's not much smaller then the UK and certainly a lot more interesting to view from the air. Much like most "cold" places I've been it isn't actually that cold, I think the coldest it got while we were there was about -8 or so and maybe a few extra degree's for wind chill factor, but generally it was around 0-5. Now before you all go screaming at me that I'm a freak and that -10 is cold, think about it from the perspective of Russia which has many cities that AVERAGE well below -20 the entire year round, the gulf stream saves the entire European continent from a lot more then most people realise and this extends to Iceland which of course, sits between the European and American continents.

The first day we headed off on what was to be the first and last of our tourist trips. We did a trip around the eastern part of the island which started to give us all an appreciation of just how spectacular the nature really is in Iceland. We went and saw the geysirs which every 7-12 mins would burst up ~20m into the air in an explosion of water, sulfur and pure force that was quite spectacular. Equally fascinating were just the hot pools that were so hot that they'd basically sterilized the water and had a clarity to them that was amazing allowing you to peer down into what seemed like the depths of the earth. From there we headed out to Gulfoss waterfall which was the site, 10000 years or so ago, of a glaciar melting in a day due to geothermal activity and the resulting watershed carved out the single most impressive waterfall i've ever seen. At this point though it was about 1600 and the sun set and the temperature started to fall to what seemed like the depths of the waterfall in fact. We immediately started jumping around to try and stay warm which in turn resulted in a mammoth snowball fight on a treacherous icy path located just above a 100 meter fall into the abyss. Fortunately no one fell off, but few dodged my snowballs (of course throwing them is for girls, point blank is more my style!).

The next few days were mostly spent around the gaming conference, which conveniently, was located in our hotel. As usual Iceland is the epitomy of all things scandanavian, great women, high standard of living and amazingly expensive. Even coming from London, my normal fallback for when people complain about cost, didn't save me from wincing on the odd occasion when you pay 5 pounds for a standard beer. There was the usual drunk stories (actually some of them were more then "usual" given that 2 of my friends were scousers) one of which I'll relate as I thought it was quite amusing. Ritchie decided on the first night in Iceland that he'd have a big night and proceeded to get very drunk. By very drunk I basically mean insensate. By the time the night was winding down Ritchie was basically unable to walk and unfortunately for him he was staying in a hotel just down the road. At this point we got a storm warning and high winds as Ritchie and the guy he was sharing with leave for their hotel. Ritchie managed to fall over 27 times onto bushes, cars and basically anything next to the road. Then about halfway back to the hotel he just did a runner. We got a frantic call from the other guy saying that he couldn't find Ritchie and was worried he would die of exposure. A few people got back out of bed at 0500 and start to search, but after 30 minutes we couldn't find him so we all head back to bed. At 0600 Ritchie turns up back at our hotel saying "i'm cold, i just woke up on a building site". Scousers, got to love them.

In summary Iceland was a lot of fun, though a little too disconnected for me. Even though it's a first world country and in Scandanavia, it still lacks a lot of basic things that most big city dwellers take for granted, so while it's a great place to visit (and I'll be back even if just to see the aurora borealis which our trip was cancelled due to poor visibility both nights :( ) it's off my list of countries where I'd like to live.