Vacation, all I ever wanted

I’ve been wanting to wait until I can get through editing all the pictures (about 2,000) before I post about our trip. I would never blog again. We got to go somewhere I’ve been wanting to go for a long time:

ICELAND!

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We were only there for two days. You could spend weeks. I’m going to have to go back another time, in the fall, to be able to witness the Northern Lights.

A couple of things I learned.

1) The Icelanders favorite snack or fast food isn’t some kind of seafood. It’s the “pylsur”:

Mine is on the left. We went to “the best hotdog in town” Baejarins Betzu Pylsur. The way to get a pylsur is with everything on it. Everything includes some kind of white sauce, some kind of yellowy-tan sauce and caramelized, French-type onions underneath the dog. The sauces are a mix of savory and sweet. It was really very good.

2) Icelanders love their geothermally heated pools. There are seven, I believe, in Reykjavik. They do pools like we do Starbucks.

3) There are actually trees in Iceland. Apparently the settlers cut them all down. That’s the short story. Icelanders are trying to reintroduce trees that are native to that climate so they bring them from Siberia and Alaska. 

4) Almost every Icelander can trace his or her roots back to the Vikings and Celts that arrived 1200 years ago. This is the Solfar sculpture.

5) Icelanders like to go out. And stay out late. And talk real loud when they’re out walking in the streets in the middle of the night. They don’t get much sleep in the summer.

It was an amazing two days.