{"id":2753,"date":"2024-02-04T10:52:30","date_gmt":"2024-02-04T15:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/?p=2753"},"modified":"2024-02-05T20:29:37","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T01:29:37","slug":"day-18-saturday-iceland-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/?p=2753","title":{"rendered":"Day 18 Saturday, Iceland 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is our last full day in Iceland. Sadly, our fantastic adventure is coming to a close. We were out the door after Paul\u2019s visit to the pool and hot pots. The outdoor section was open today, so there were new hot tubs to try, including a salt water one. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019ll start by following up on last night\u2019s food walk. \u00a0<\/span>We walked to Harpa, the main concert hall and public meeting building. \u00a0We found our tour guide just moments after the President of Iceland walked through the lobby. \u00a0You have to watch closely or you might miss him. \u00a0He often travels without an entourage and only occasionally uses his state-provided driver and vehicle (the one with two flags on the hood) in place of his favored personal vehicle.<\/span><\/p>\n

This walking tour has never cancelled due to bad weather. Walking along between buildings and around street corners, we occasionally had to brace our backs to the winds-driven snow. \u00a0The guide talked about the ever-changing weather, sometimes just minutes apart. \u00a0Paul said it was like being in a snow globe, not knowing when you were going to be given a good shake. \u00a0Our guide, Nokkvi, liked that and said he was going to add it to he repart\u00e9. \u00a0Although Paul came up with that on the spot, he checked when we got back and it\u2019s not an original idea\/metaphor. \u00a0As in most cases, when you think you have an fresh idea of your own, you just need to check the web to verify it\u2019s not the first time someone thought of that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nokkvi was great and offered lots of amazing comments, historical facts, and interesting tidbits of life in Iceland. \u00a0He<\/span>\u00a0also explained how the families here can trace their genealogy back to saga time. They have an app based on government-maintained lineages for their long family histories and interest in keeping their family connections alive. Additionally, they still have all their great church documents because they haven\u2019t had any terrible wars or natural disasters to erase them like other countries have. \u00a0 Their app also has a fun feature that will automatically let them know if someone is a close cousin, very helpful if your are looking out for any tricky dating situations.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the US, most Americans can trace back to at least grandparents, their great grandparents, and possibly their great great grandparents. In general, we don\u2019t really keep track of our family history the way other countries such as Ireland, Iceland, and others do. Possibly because America\u2019s built up of a nation of people from many other countries who often times start anew and forget their links to the past, or at least losing contact with their links of their home country. Or, maybe because they really didn\u2019t have to worry so much about marrying a close cousin.<\/span><\/p>\n

The little travel booklet called What\u2019s On in Iceland offered a page on notable events in the history of Iceland. I this particular entry for the year 1000 AD highlights the Icelandic humor I\u2019ve encountered over the years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c1000 AD Conversion to Christianity, the discovery of America. Parliament decided everyone would be Christian or at lease pretend to be. Leifir \u201cthe Lucky\u201d Eirikson got lost and found America, didn\u2019t like it and came home.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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For today\u2019s adventure, we hit the road and headed west toward the town of Arkenes. \u00a0Instead of taking the direct route (through the tunnel on Route 1, a.k.a. the ring road) we could see the weather would be turning against us so we turned to take the long way along the harbor road. \u00a0We have been this way on our firs trip to Iceland, but this time we took some side roads and took in some new beautiful views.<\/p>\n

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Clickable for larger view<\/p><\/div>\n

About three fourths of the way around, the weather changed with incoming gusts of wind. This caused the snow to move off the mountains and cover the valleys, obscuring the landscape and enveloping the homesteads in its wake. \u00a0We also pasted the location of our the farmstead featured in our homepage banner image, so we took another photo (though you may not recognize in engulfed in snow).<\/p>\n

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As we got closer to our destination, the snow and sleet started. \u00a0We could see the wind was lashing the waves agains the shoreline, so we drove closer for a look and some photos.<\/p>\n

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There we discovered a campground in a great location on right on the shore of this bay. \u00a0Next time we are here camping, we will have to come to Arkenes. A great location for your first night out on the ring road, not too far out of Reykjavik. \u00a0We found a great little spot to grab a bit to eat in town called \u00a0Galati. \u00a0Got a yummy pizza, probably the best pizza I have ever eaten outside the US. \u00a0I highly recommend stopping if ever in the town and looking for a bit to eat.<\/p>\n

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We made our way back to our hotel in blizzard-like conditions and snow covered slippery roadways. \u00a0Even the Icelanders slowed down from their usual zipping through the snow. Occasionally, a plow could be seen trying to clear the road. We tried to keep our wiper blades and windows from freezing up, getting out to clear then at one red light. \u00a0Safely parked in the city parking garage, we headed up the street and were welcomed with little snow pellets. So we stopped at the pub below our hotel. We both got a hot coco spiked with whisky for out nightcap before heading upstairs to finish up this post.<\/p>\n

We head home tomorrow leaving here at 5 :00 pm and, thanks to pickup up some time zones, will \u00a0land in DC at about 6:00. I will write \u00a0the final post on the plane and post when we arrive home.<\/p>\n

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Today is our last full day in Iceland. Sadly, our fantastic adventure is coming to a close. We were out the door after Paul\u2019s visit to the pool and hot pots. The outdoor section was open today, so there were new hot tubs to try, including a salt water one. I\u2019ll start by following up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[240,227],"tags":[266],"class_list":["post-2753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-240","category-iceland2024","tag-iceland","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2753"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2781,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions\/2781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debbiewebbie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}