Another day, another hotel, still some toast for breakfast. Today I had toast with strawberry jam because they did not have blueberry jam, which was really sad, but they had one of the fun and silly toasters that’s a conveyor belt so that was a plus. For the record, there have always been other options as well, but I can’t eat a lot for breakfast, so toast is the best for morning sustenance.
We hit the road at 9 am and headed out to our first stop… Well kinda, we made some pit stops along the way. Our first stop was walking through a field. In said field there was a rock, a rock with a story behind it. Supposedly, the land there was cursed and no Pagan could step foot on the land, but one guy did and he died and the rock marks his grave. The rock of course is just a natural formation. We also got to see in said field how the lava dries and cracks over time.
Our second stop was to see some of the local Icelandic horses. The horses are slightly bigger today than they used to be, but otherwise are the same as when they were first brought over by the Vikings. The horses have similar genetics to those of Shetland Ponies. The Icelandic horses are special because they can have up to five gaits that they are born with. They have the usual walk, strut, and gallop, with the additional flying pace and tölt. Some only are born with four though and lack the flying pace.
Our third stop was at a field where Ólöf taught us a line of a children’s song that we ended up singing for our bus driver Jakob. This was in learning about how in Iceland kids celebrate Ash Wednesday by dressing up in costumes, going around to businesses, and singing songs for them to receive candy.
We stopped a couple more times at a couple outlet glaciers and then at a broken down bridge that broke due to flooding. Finally, we made it to our main destination for the day which was Jökulsárlón. There we got to see a glacial lagoon and the diamond beach, which is referred to as so because of the chunks of ice that end up on the beach and in the water.
On the way back, we stopped at a Pagan church that was converted to a Catholic church when Catholicism took over. It had a turf roof. We also learned while there about Icelandic ghosts and how to essentially create one based on the Icelandic stories, would not recommend doing so personally, does not sound fun. We also learned that Iceland doesn’t have any traditional stories about witches, but that they believed that the Priests were magical. Our last stop of the day was at a crater on the way back, which was very large and crater-ous.
Finally, after a stop for food, we made it to our next hotel where we wound down for the day.
Swanson School of Engineering 