Iceland Last Batch of Photos ... until our return in September

 At the end of our week in Iceland, we immediately began planning a 3-day layover as part of our return flight back to the US after our tour of duty on El Galeon! There were just too many things we had wanted to see but just ran out of time. 

Tired old volcano

Welcome gnome at a random shop in town

Public art in Reykjavík: part Viking longboat and part sun salutation

Random street corner; there are more random street photos in the first photo dump

It’s dark-dark-dark for 5 months per year. I’ve never been anywhere that had so much sparkly artsy lighting in public spaces. (But all of it on motion sensors and LED).

Living their values, in this case living sustainably and eco consciously. Everyplace is heated with geothermal energy, and every hotel had 3 or 4 recycling/trash bins. Took us a bit to understand the system at the hotels also: there’s a slot on the wall where you insert your room key to activate room lights and other systems. No wasting power leaving lights on when you’re not there. Also, you don’t misplace your room key with this method. At the same time, heated bathroom floors and towel warmers are da bomb, jus’ sayin’

Okay, it wasn’t all perfect. Someone ran into our car’s back bumper while we were parked at one of the touristy spots and didn’t leave a note. (Thankfully we always make sure to get insurance). We got a flat tire on the last evening, and next morning the guy from the front desk had his friend come by to help us change it out for the emergency spare. (All the normal tire places were closed until Monday.) What lovely warm helpful people!!! It took a crew; those living nuts were right and the wheel didn’t want to let go of the axle. L to R: Dan, Brendan from Sri Lanka, Casshie (???) from Poland, and Lakmal also from Sri Lanka. (Does this make us high-maintenance tourists?) In the end it was just a slow leak and the rental company charged us a minimal amount. Worth it to learn how warm people can be in this chilly country.

View from our hotel window, at sunset. (Which was around 22:30! It started getting light again around 03:30, which totally whacked out my biorhythms.)