Heading home soon

It's beautiful even in the fog....

It's amazing how fast two weeks has sped by and I still have a ton of photos and posts to share about Iceland in the coming days. Hopefully as I return to "normal life" I'll have more time to organize myself. Iceland is an amazing place and there is so much more to see, but time has run out and the weather too. Today was our first day of very rainy weather, fog and wind all day. Quite miserable but typical I hear. I'm getting excited about returning to my home in Utah, my family and supportive husband Allen. Tomorrow. I leave Iceland at 5 pm and get into Seattle at 5:45 pm-now that's fast work. The plane will be racing the sun, but losing out. Then it's time to fly to Las Vegas and meet up with my spouse about midnight. We'll spend then night there in a nearby hotel to the airport before heading home after a very long day and a half for me!

Trying to stay dry and warm wasn't always easy.

We are touring the south west area of Iceland today.

Incommunicato

Last night was the first night I couldn't hook to the internet in Iceland. We are in the north now and I'm still back posting activities of a week ago. So frustrated not to be able to hook in so I read a book about vikings instead and learned lots. It is very cold windy and raining today in Hosfos. Will post about this place later-too much going on with lectures, driving, historical museums and natural parks to visit everywhere. Only 3 more nights here then it's time to head back to America and home. Two weeks doesn't even touch the surface for this amazing country-it's so beautiful. I'll just post some miscellaneous shots from today by the sea as dinner and a program are soon. The scenery is spectacular....

A little behind

Talk about jet lag-trying to keep up with my blog while traveling is a little tricky. I'm trying to upload my hundreds of photos to picasa.com. Will let you know when I accomplish that. I have seen and learned so much in a short time-it will take months of blogging to share it all and that's okay. Today I'll show you the Lutheran cathedral at the top of the hill in Rekjavik. Someone asked what the unusual architecture was-it's called Halgrims Kirkja or church.

That's a statue of Eric the Red in front

An early Viking leader

Massive ceilings add to the effect

Truly impressive

With a pipe organ and choirs too

Just beautiful

Views of Rekjavik from the tower

You can see the harbor and city

Surrounded by water it seems

Marathon anyone?

Here we are the Snorri Plus girls ready to walk-run a marathon

l-r Marilyn, Fern, Christa and me

Here's the Snorri Plus group: l-r Fern, Dale, Astra-our director,

Garth-a real runner, Krista, me, Marilyn and David

Marilyn and I proudly walked the 3K race and came in last

but we both got medals! This was my first and probably last race!

Serious runners from many countries

The whole day was a celebration with free entertainment and fireworks in the evening

We walked around this lovely lake and the sun was even shining!

Reykjavik sites

Time for breakfast at the guest house!

Continental breakfast-yummy! Exotic breads, cheese, ham, boiled egg,

yogurt and granola, peppermint tea, juices and fresh fruit every day

More fanciful furniture designs

Fat tires for climbing up glaciers!

Dramatic architecture inside and out

Love their cool designer furniture

Fun meeting room, we had a group lunch here-delicious salmon

The City of Reykjavik

A red house-why not?

The door plaque has house number and the year it was built-1920

Love the bright cheerful colors everywhere.

Fascinating little shops everywhere.

And a harbor, that's why the city was built here.

Not a large city but spread out with quaint narrow streets and challenging roundabouts. Filled with many small shops although I hear there is a small mall outside town and a landmark cathedral at the top of the hill.

I'm HERE!

Sunna Guest House-my home this week-there are seven in our group

and we are all staying in this hotel so we walk to classes together

I have a lovely private bedroom with its own bathroom

Money is quite strange as 1 dollar equals 1000 Icelandic krona about

Enjoying lunch together and getting acquainted the first day:

five Canadians and two Americans, 3 men and 4 women.

Two other members of the group, both Canadians in downtown Rekyjvik

Brightly painted house, lace curtains and window flower boxes add charm.

Sunset on the Atlantic

We're on our way across the Atlantic ocean!

Time for the sunset-very late as we are far north!

Touchdown in Iceland, it's past midnight!

Orange Juice toast over Greenland

On the trip to Iceland I sat next to a friendly woman Carol (in photo below) from Texas who was enroute to Iceland for a professional photography workshop. We hit it off and talked for hours. Then we were going to pass over Greenland and wanted to catch a glimpse of this exotic place that neither of us had ever seen. There was lots of cloud cover but miraculously when we passed over the tip of Greenland and looked down we could see land-snow covered mountains and floating icebergs. What a thrill so we ordered two orange juices and had an orange juice toast over Greenland. Check out her blog for more photos and info on Iceland.

I'm amazed I know so little about Greenland so click here to learn more. Not sure I'd ever want to visit it since it's so snowbound. The story goes that Erik the Red named it Greenland to encourage others to come and settled there...lol! Iceland is much greener and Greenland has more ice, so they could have switched the names.