Festival of Lights and a Blue Lagoon Birthday

Libby showing our confusion in the car. Does he know where we want to go?

One of the best attempts

My vegetarian shepherd's pie has at least 15 more minutes to bake, so I thought I would take this time to catch up on at least some of the events that have transpired over the course of the last few days! I continue to be amazed by how much fun I can pack into a single weekend. I also feel as though I haven't even made the slightest dent in all that I want to see and do before my time here is up-- I have to get moving!

Last Thursday I got to race an outdoor 10k! It felt so good to run quickly surrounded by other people! I don't think I had realized how much I was missing the social aspect of running until I was in the midst of it again. When Stefan told me about the race, I really had no idea what to expect. He picked me up in wild, windy, cold, icy weather and we drove out to one of Reykjavik's hot pools, Árbæjarlaug. No one seemed to be deterred by the nasty weather-- I suppose one just has to suck it up if they want to be a consistent runner in Iceland. After a couple of minutes of instructions in Icelandic, I recognized the familiar sound of the gun and we were off! I forgot to start my watch, and if there were any splits, they were called in Icelandic, so I was pretty much running in the dark, both literally and figuratively. Because I didn't know where I was or who was in front of me or behind me, it made it a wee bit difficult to run a tactical race... I just sort of ran and hoped that I was going at a reasonable speed! I wasn't expected a good time, given the strong head wind and icy paths, so I wasn't too concerned. After an unknown amount of time, I saw a little flare on the ground and realized that I was finishing! I wound up being the third girl, I do believe, but hopefully next month I will be able to run with the girls who beat me. I wasn't particularly tired, so it seems within reach. I came home feeling happy and excited about training once again!!!

On Friday night, some of my friends in Gamli surprised me with an early birthday cake! I had known that we were having a pre-valentines day party downstairs, but I didn't know that there was going to be a birthday bit!!! Libby and Alex made a DELICIOUS carrot cake (because of how many carrots they witness me eating) with "Happy Birthday" beautifully written across the top in Icelandic (see the picture). Two other people had made three pies, so I was in hog heaven! It made me feel so good! After eating a ton of dessert, Libby, Dom, Sam, and I were having a dance party in the common room that turned into a photo session. We were trying to get the best picture we could of the four of us jumping off chairs. I included the one I thought was the best here. After hanging out at home until 1:30 or so, we headed downtown for a few hours. It was a pretty good time, but the downtown scene is getting a little bit old. There is only so much bar time I can handle.

On Saturday, I finally figured out how to run all the way around the mini-peninsula that I live on! It felt like such a success! I had gotten almost all the way around several times, but had just been missing this little connecting bit. It is such a beautiful place to run. Gorgeous green blue water, beautiful snowy mountains, a picturesque city, the smell of seaweed! Yayayay!

Saturday evening a group of us participated in a night walk up Esja that was part of Reykjavik's Festival of Lights. We got a free bus ride from the parking lot right across from our building (handy!) to the foot of Esja. We had been wanting to climb Esja for a long while since it is the thing that stares down on us every time we walk outside our door, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. There were probably 60 people or so gathered at the bottom of the mountain for the 10k hike. We took off in the late dusk, so it wasn't long before it was completely dark. It was cool to look behind me and see this long string of bobbing head lamps coming up the hill. We didn't go all the way to the top of the mountain because of increasing amounts of snow, but we stopped at a place that gave us a great view of the lights of Reykjavik. The city looked so much bigger than it feels! I think I stay in such a small part of the city that I forget that there is more to it than just the downtown region! The walk down was pretty painful due to my sooorrreeee quads, but it was a good kind of pain! The footing was also super precarious in places because there was a nice layer of water over packed snow. No one seemed too concerned, however, and would just cheerfully pick themselves up if they went down!

When we got home, we ate a quick dinner and then scampered across the field to the Nordic House where a Reggae pop band from Greenland was performing. Because reggae and Greenland typically do not mix in my mind, we were pretty curious to see what it was going to be like! Their definition of reggae turned out to be pretty different than the Bob Marley type reggae that all of us are accustomed to. In fact, they pretty much seemed to be a normal rock band. But that was ok! It was still enjoyable!

The next morning, I opened my door and in popped a collection of five balloons! Not realizing what they were, I screamed, assuming that it was probably someone trying to attack me! I don't think the balloon giver was really going for the scare effect, but it certainly made it all the more exciting!It sort of felt like I had gone downstairs to find my decorated chair (what happens when I am at home), which was cozy! At 1 o'clock, Libby, Allie, Sam, Dom, and I took off on our mission to hitchhike to the Blue Lagoon. Hitchhiking is supposed to be really safe and relatively easy here, so we were pretty confident that getting there was not going to be a problem. We took the city bus to a place where we could easily walk to the main highway and managed to get off at the right stop! We broke up into two groups since one group of five was unlikely to be picked up. Sam and Allie (the group of two) walked about 75 m in front of us and almost immediately got picked up. It took my group about 20 min to get picked up, but it finally happened! When I opened the door to the car, we quickly discovered that the man driving spoke no English! Funnily enough, he was the first Icelander any of us had met who didn't speak English! We got into the car, but really were not convinced that he had a clue where to drop us off. He didn't seem to recognize the name Blue Lagoon, but luckily Libby happened to have the translation written down. She drew a little picture of a lagoon looking thing next to what she thought was the correct Icelandic name and it worked! He drove us all the way there, even though he had to go about 10 km off of his route to get us there!

Even though the Blue Lagoon is incredibly touristy, it is totally worth a visit. The water is such an unbelievable color and it is pretty darn fun to have this huge area to swim around in. We spent about 4 hours in the water, which is probably the longest consecutive amount of time I have ever been in a pool! They have these little silica mud stations set up around the lagoon that you can rub all over your face. We had a really good time with that and left feeling fresh faced and invigorated. The pool is really neat because the temperature varies pretty dramatically in different parts of the lagoon. The majority is a temperature that feels really warm, but is cool enough to stay in comfortably for a really long time. It is pretty shallow, for the most part, and much of the bottom is covered in this weird feeling goop. At first, the goop felt sort of disgusting, but I think it grew on all of us as we squelched our toes through the muck. They have a few cute little bridges and have created a cave out of the lava. The entire thing is surrounded by bumbly lava that is encrusted with thick mats of moss and lichens. It was fairly misty on Sunday, but every now and then enough fog would blow away to show us that you could actually get some pretty spectacular views of mountains and lava fields from the lagoon on a clear day. Off to the side of the lagoon, they have a dry sauna, a steam room, and several cold showers. What a day of luxury, my oh my!

While we were regrouping in the lobby after changing back into our regular clothes, this boy sitting at the table next to Libby and I asked us where we were from with an American accent. It turned out that he was from Idaho, which was exciting for both of us! A bordering state! He was actually the first person from the West Coast that I have met! We casually asked him where he was staying and how he had gotten to the Blue Lagoon and wound up wrangling a ride for three of us back to the city! We had to walk back from their (his and his "friend" who we think might actually be his step dad...) hotel, but that was ok! They were a funny duo. Clearly EXTREMELY wealthy and proud of all of their world travels.

When we got home, Constantinos (one of the members of my cooking club) had made us some delicious potatoes and a huge omelet! Awfully nice to come home to an already prepared meal! Later that evening, while I was chatting with my parents on Skype, Dom, Allie, Alex, Sam, and Libby vigorously knocked on my door and then proceeded to sing me happy birthday! They also presented me with a carrot, half a tub of Skyr (one of my favorite foods here), and a nice, home made card. They all did such a good job of making me have a wonderful birthday. It was clearly not a typical 21st birthday, but I'm pretty positive that it was way, way better! I remember being worried before I came that I wasn't going to have any friends who were close enough to even know that it was my birthday, much less do anything for it, but they certainly proved me wrong!!!