Frankfurt - Tehran

Our gate to Persia was Frankfurt Airport. Even though the airplane of IranAir already is Iranian ground we were not forced to wear a headscarf.
According to the last census in 1992 Teheran had 7 mio. inhabitants - the real number today must lie somewhere between 14 and 15 mio.
Orientation within the city is not easy in the absence of distinctive landmarks. The distances are huge, public transportantion even with knowledge of farsi not very useful and major historical sightseeings are missing.
On the way to and from the airport one passes the Freedom tower: It is 45m high and was build 1971 under Mohammend Reza Shah on the occasion of the 2500 year festival of the Persian monarchy.

We only stayed one night at Tehran. Later we got informed that all the phone lines out of the hotels are tracked.

Trip to Iran

Due to organizational and other problems my trip to Iran was shortened by a week but therefore I got to stop by Switzerland for 2 days. The flight from Keflavík to Frankfurt was amazing! Because of the great weather over Europe I enjoyed a panorama view over Holland and Germany.
On Tuesday I went on a shopping trip to Lucerne with my mother. Again I had to realize how beautiful my home country is!

View on the lake and the mountain panorama!

Hot river...

The highlight definitely was our last adventure. I've promised Silvia and Jules to take them to swimm in a naturally hot river. Due to bad time management we arrived with the car at around 5pm (it gets dark at 7pm)... so in very cold weather we started the hike that I remembered to be 20min. Actually it took us 50min... So we dragged ourselves up the hills through a lot of snow and mud. Our shoes got dirty, wet... our feet wet and frozen. We walked... walked... it started to get dark... finally I could see the river. What struck me was the fact that there was no steam coming out of it... we got closer, dead tired and i realized it wasn't hot... barely warm... I couldn't believe it! I dragged my friends out here through all the mud and the bloody river wasn't even hot. To get it better I slipped and fell head over into the mud... But to have an adventure, Silv and me decided to get a bath in the coldish river anyway. We took our clothes off and dived in... just for the sake of it :o) getting dressed in the freezing temperatures was deadly and the way back in near darkness in all the mud was also not funny.... we did not lose our humour though :o)

Crazy wind

The weather was crazy. We nearly got blown off on the beach in Vík.... not even the waterfalls fell down straight - but they were blown away before they could touch the ground...

Jökulsárlón

Another attraction definitely is the glacier lagoon. At the time when we arrived there with the car the sun was shining. I am not joking now but 5 min. later - before we could put on our jackets and get out of the car it started to hail like crazy!
It took at least 30min untill we could leave the car. So we had times of frustration and times of fun while waiting in the car :o)

Höfn

The second night we stayed at the youth hostel in Höfn. I need to quote the Lonely Planet on this:
"The name of this town, which means 'harbour', is pronounced like an unexpected hiccup; if you're not prone to hiccups, just say 'hup' while inhaling." - wonderful description :o)
Again we were the only tourists staying at the hostel so we checked in at 7pm. The friendly owner left us a key and went home again. We cooked and talked... At 11pm I wanted to get something out of our room. I went upstairs to discover that we have looked ourselves out of the room, leaving the key inside. So we had to call the owner again - who had to come back and open us... this all in wind and rain... he didn't seem that nice this time... I wonder why...

Impressions from all weather conditions

Skaftafell

The second day we spend hiking up the Skaftafell National Park. The hike took 5 hours and was not as easy as thought. The snow was rather deep...
Julia of course had perfect equipment - Adidas shoes :o) luckily she did not break a leg.

The view on the glacier was rewarding. On the way back we lost the path and got back into adventure by jumping over frozen rivers etc...

Hvoll

Our first night we spent at the YouthHostel Hvoll. It is located in the middle of a very strange landscape - lava field with a lot of moss over it :o)


We were the only ones in the huge hostel so we enjoyed our privacy :o) and the cute ducks are still there! yey!

We had a great night - Silv was very creative - a bottle opener can also be transformed into a bird :o) I haven't laughed that much in a while...

Waterfalls

We of course hit some of the famous waterfalls... such as Seljalandfoss.
I love the benches they put close to every waterfall. As if it would ever get warm enough to have a seat and enjoy the sight ;o)


And Skógafoss with a beautiful rainbow!

South coast

While having the two girls here I took off some days from work and took them for a 3 day trip along the south coast. Again we rented a Toyota Yaris and got a phantastic Toyota Corolla even with seat heating :o) So we packed our stuff, put on good music and went off for a great road trip!

One of our stops was Vík í Mýrdal with its beautiful beach and the rock formations!
The weather was extremely Icelandic - it changed every 5min.

Julia in Iceland

There is nothing greater than having your best friend coming for a visit! Jules managed and came for 2 weeks to Iceland!!!! We had soooo much fun discovering Iceland's beauties.....
talking for hours and hours....

going through all types of adventures and fun! It was so terrific to have her here! Some people are just irreplacable and what makes it so special - it was as if we were never apart :o)

Hereford

During the time my visitors were here they had to spend quite a few evenings entertaining themselves, as I still am a workaholic and spend basically every night at the restaurant. Here a photo in our wonderful purple uniform...
And one with my good friend and coworker Gunni at our bar :o)

Birthday party

To have birthday and not have a party is not possible in Reykjavik, sooooo... I had to organise one in our purple house, and it was GREAT!
Most of my guests were of course people from Hereford :o)
Here are Hanna and Helga - both have stopped working at Hereford though...
Here we have Dammý - one of my best friends here! She also quit Hereford :o( but we still see a lot of each other! There is no-one better for a good chat or party!
And not to forget Anna, my flatmate, here with Hanna in Hressó! What a great evening!

The classical Golden Circle Tour

Geological activity

Silv and me getting a great view on the exploding Strokkur.
We spent hours trying to get shots of all different stages of Geysir :o)

Another site that I've never seen before. The slag crater Kerid is the northernmost one of the crater row called Tjarnarholar. It is elliptic in shape, 270 m long, 170 m wide, and 55 m deep. The pond in it is 7-10 m deep, depending on the ground water level of the area.

Impressions from Gullfoss

Einar Jónsson

Einar Jónsson was Iceland´s first sculptor. He attended the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1896 to 1899.
Jónsson drew inspiration from the Icelandic folklore heritage for "Outlaws" and other works from the first decade of the century, but also used mythological and religious motifs. After residing in Rome from 1902 to 1903, Jónsson completely rejected naturalistic depiction and publicly criticized the classical art tradition, which he felt had weighed artists down.
Einar Jónsson was a groundbreaking figure in Icelandic sculpture and his influence on the visual arts in Iceland has been considerable, though indirect.

Birthday and visitor!

Silvia, a good friend from Kanti came to visit me in Iceland!!! She arrived on March 1st. Her arrival was fun as she was waiting outside Hotel Reykjavik and so was I. BUT there are two hotel Reykjaviks here :o) one in the western part and one in the eastern :o) but we found each other!
On my birthday we had a great breakfast with pancakes and Canadian maple sirup!

Then we went on a hike to Grotta - a light house in Vesturbær.