FM Belfast and Vestmannaeyjar

(These pictures are all from Vestmannaeyjar on the island of Heimaey)


The last few days have been absolutely jam packed with activity. There is no way that I will be able to give everything the descriptions they deserve here, but I will do my best to give a general overview!!

...I have to interrupt myself here, because a barista just concocted the most delicious chai tea for me!! I usually don't even attempt to order chai here, because they don't seem to have it, but for some reason I had a good feeling about this place. We are in a place called Cafe Rot (with an accent over the o) and are all sitting in these huge comfy chairs, surrounded by cute lights, books, and a nice amount of open space. The guy at the counter happened to have one chai tea bag and decided to try to make me a chai from scratch, instead of out of one of those mixes they use in the US. It is delicious!!! So many extra little flavors! Apparently, he worked in a coffee shop in Hawaii for 9 months and learned about chai lattes there. He told me that no Icelander would order a chai-- interesting! Yum, I could just gulp this down!!!!

Anyway, on Saturday night, the student council political party, Roskva, hosted a "Sweat Party" at Club 101. They had arranged for the Icelandic band, FM Belfast (one of my favorites), to play a free concert there, which was incredibly exciting for me. We got there at 10 or so to ensure having a good spot on the dance floor, but we needn't have worried because the club was small enough that anywhere would have allowed for a good view. The band didn't start playing until about 1 am, but it was completely worth the wait. For the entire show, I was right in front of the stage, probably 4 ft from the band members!!!! I had no idea what I was in for, however, and wound up coming out of the concert feeling like I had been in a brawl for the past 2 hours. Everyone was SO dancy, jumpy, and pushy that kept getting pushed onto the stage, onto the floor, onto other people. There were times when I was a little bit on the scared side, but for the most part it was sort of exhilarating. After the concert started and I began to realize how hard I was going to have to fight to keep my place, I got super determined to stay where I was. I kept telling myself that this experience was going to help me keep from getting boxed in during races because I was getting so good at holding my ground. Probably not entirely true, but that thought definitely made me even more determined.

Oh! On the way to the concert that night, we saw northern lights! It was only our second time seeing them while being here, so we were all super excited! We haven't seen a dramatic show (probably partly because of all of the light pollution) but we definitely have the attitude that anything is better than nothing!

The next morning we got up and began our journey to Vestmannaeyjar (otherwise known as the Westmann Islands). We took a one hour bus to Þorlákshöfn from Reykjavik and then took a three hour ferry ride to the island of Heimaey , the only inhabited island. Heimaey is a incredibly exciting place because of its wild (and recent) volcanic activity. In 1973, Eldfell, one of the volcanoes on the island, erupted unexpectedly. All of the 5000 residents were forced to evacuate and much of the town was overrun by lava. I think all of the lava from the eruption caused the island to grow by 2.3 square kilometers. We could walk around on the lava that was burying the old buildings (400 houses and shops), which felt pretty weird.

We (9 other people and me) stayed in a really cute guesthouse for a pretty reasonable price. We didn't get there until about 3, so only had two hours of daylight left. After plopping our stuff down, we immediately headed over to the town pool for a bit of a swim and hot soak. It still seems so funny to me to bring my swimsuit everywhere I go, but I feel like I use it almost every time I bring it! After that, we ate dinner ( I made a group dinner with 3 other boys, which lead to the formation of our new cooking group) and then decided to go for a night walk. We wound up hiking up to the top of Eldfell and getting some pretty incredible views. The ground was snowy and the moon was bright, so it was pretty easy to see where we were going. We didn't have a trail, so we basically just headed straight up the mountain! One whole side of the volcano was blown out in the 1973 eruption, so we hiked around the rim of the crater up to the highest point. If you dig in the ground on top of the volcano, the ground is still really, really hot-- hot enough to bake bread!!! It felt pretty amazing to sit on the top of the volcano and gaze out at the North Atlantic Ocean, little lights on Iceland's mainland, and the city beneath us. Ahhssdgkljjhdflgkjhsdfg I get shivers thinking about it! A few of us stayed up on the mountain longer than the others, but when the fog started to roll in, we decided to head down. After an uneventful descent, we spent a few hours exploring the town. When we got back to the guesthouse, we discovered that a tiny, cute, black and grey kitten had snuck into our area from the neighbors house! It was a little bit rambunctious and wound up preventing a bunch of us from getting a good night's sleep, but it was totally worth it for a little bit of cute animal love!

The next morning, we got up early (7:30) because we wanted to hike up the other volcano in town, Helgafell, to see the sun rise. It was another steep, trail-less scramble, but we managed to get to the top well before the sun rise. It was FREEZING, but luckily I was pretty bundled. People who weren't quite as bundled as me had some miserable moments, I do believe, but I still think that the general sentiment was that it had been totally worth it!!! After staying on top of the windy volcano for about an hour, a subset of us hiked down the other side of the volcano and then spent 4-5 hours exploring the immense lava flow from the Eldfell eruption and other parts of the town. Talk about a scenic place, my oh my!!!!!! While we were walking along the harbor, we saw tons of birds dive bombing into the water in extremely rapid succession. It looked like one would plow into the water after something and then all of the others would try to follow. We stood on a little black sand beach to watch them dive into deep green water that was backed by smooth, flowing, orangy-brown cliffs capped with pristine, white snow. Absolutely amazing.

Although I spent more money than I would have liked, I think it was completely worth it! It isn't every day that one gets to go to such an unreal place. I wish that photos could do the place justice, but unfortunately they don't even come close. I guess you all will just have to come visit me here!!!