More Touristy Stuff in Iceland

After a couple days in Reykjavik, we hit the road and headed to the Golden Circle to check out some of Iceland's most popular tourist attractions.

Þingvellir went way over our heads in terms of historical/cultural importance. We got out at a rest stop, went in an uninformative gift shop, snapped a few pictures, used the bathroom and left. Tourism in true American fashion.

Next stop: Geysir. Oh, hello gift shop that I thought would be tacky but turned out to be a hipster, urban-farmer clothing store mecca.

I've never been to a windier place than this.

I wondered, "How do I know that the wind isn't going to change and blow this steam right in my face?"

Gulfoss was our favorite of the three attractions by far. So beautiful! So Lord of the Rings.

I don't think these pictures do it justice.

We randomly pulled over here and happened upon a giant 3,000-year-old crater.  That's just another roadside attraction in Iceland.

I really wanted to go hiking in the steam valley at Hveragerði to a heated spring where you can go swimming, but let's just say I am no Mark Trail. I was confused about where the trail started and ended up leading us on a trail from one parking lot to another parking lot. That took an hour and we didn't have time to go on the actual trail because we had to book it to dogsledding. So a scenic parking lot trail it was. Thank God Julie is a patient person!

This is a neat little stepladder over a barbed wire fence cutting through the trail.

After dogsledding, we stopped for dinner at Fjöruborðið, which is renowned for their amazing lobster. Holy cow, that was the best lobster I've had! They were miniature lobsters swimming in butter, as lobster should be.

I think this picture Julie took is so cool, but it looks like it was taken during the Great Depression. Why do I look so doleful? I'm about to dig into a lobster feast!

We went horseback riding at Hestar on our last full day. It was cold and rainy, the kind of rain that comes at you sideways and stings your face. To say I was miserable would be an understatement. Not only miserable, but really scared of the whole endeavor, which could not end soon enough. I keep forgetting that I hate horseback riding. It always sounds fun, but in practice, I never have fun. As soon as the horse starts galloping or even walking quickly, I'm holding on for dear life and imagining myself just bouncing out of the saddle and into the mud.

My problem is that I know that I am not in control, and that it's the horse whose calling the shots, and that is not a good feeling. I admire those who are good at horseback riding though! Julie was a natural, and at least she had fun. I on the other hand, refused to dismount from the horse during our break because the instructor said, "Be careful, the horse might run back to the paddock with your foot still in the stirrup." I just assumed my horse would do that and refused to take the chance.

Cosmo Couture at the Artisphere

Project Runway might be getting a little long in the tooth in its 9th season (!) but the concept is still so much fun. I was reminded of that on Wednesday at Cosmo Couture, a charity fashion show that challenged interior design firms and architects to create garments out of fabric samples and furnishings. My company had an extra ticket for the runway show at the Artisphere, and I was lucky enough to attend and help support our team.

In 2011, when no one has to make anything by hand and most things we see around us are mass-produced, it's fun to see what talented, creative people can create with the most unlikely materials. Creating something from nothing.

OK, maybe I'm waxing philosophical. The whole event was just plain fun. As the evening's emcee noted, Lady Gaga has nothing on these designs.

It is really hard to take photos at fashion shows. I just got a fancy new camera that I love, but I obviously still have a lot to learn about it, because my photos didn't come out very well. I put it on "Sports" scene mode. There ought to be a "Runway" mode.

Here's the judging panel, taking copious notes.

People using their iPads as cameras at events cracks me up. Maybe this is the new normal, but for now I say it looks silly.

There goes Audrey, wearing our firm's design. It was the prettiest one, in my estimation. The others were aiming for edgy, not pretty.

I didn't know that my former coworker Jenny was going to be in the fashion show. Not only was she in the show, she won the award for best model! She was so fierce! Mohawk, crazy eyeliner, badass attitude. She had a better walk than a lot of America's Next Top Model contestants I've seen, and I've watched at least six cycles, ha.

Luther and I sat near the stage, and Jenny told us after the show that she heard us saying "Jenny? Is that Jenny?" right as she turned the corner. It almost made her break character.

I loved the venue too. The Artisphere is enormous! It's new-ish, modern, with a sweeping staircase and an auditorium. If you get the chance to go to a party here, take it.

Grown-up coloring, cocktail in hand.

Could this turkey sculpture actually be a ride, like outside grocery stores in the '90s? There was a coin box, and I had to try it out. I put in my 50 cents, waited, and nothing! I've been scammed. But then, just as I was about to walk away, the turkey started bucking like a bronco. Everyone in the vicinity turned around to stare at the galloping turkey. It would be worth a trip to the Artisphere, just to see that, right?

Tunes Tuesday: "Benny and the Jets, " TV Girl

Is it humanly possible to not sing along with "Benny and the Jets"? Or at least refrain from saying "B-B-Benny" quietly under your breath? I say it can't be done.

If you like Elton's song, you gotta check out TV Girl's similarly-named track. It's a sunny, little slice of pop. With a chugging beat, doo-wop chorus and So-Cal lyrics, the band captures the fun of the original, without being too derivative. OK, towards the end, there's an echo of "Benny, Benny," but that just feels right.

Click here to listen to more retro-pop from TV Girl. Thanks for sending me this song, Carolyn!

Touristy Stuff in Iceland: The Blue Lagoon

The people in our hostel dismissed the Blue Lagoon as expensive and touristy, which it is, but they left out the part about it being really fun!  And beautiful, of course.  I say, if you are a tourist in Iceland, you ought to go.  This is the Disneyland of pools.

The entrance looked foreboding.

And the water was an otherworldly blue.

Everyone scurried out of the changing rooms and jumped into the warm water. The air was freezing. But there was a secret door from a hot tub inside to the outside pool, which was a nice touch. We wished that the temperature of the blue lagoon could be cranked up just a tad, but perhaps that is too much to ask.

Here's Julie relaxing in the indoor hot tub. She has silica on her face, as a beauty treatment. There's boxes of silica around the lagoon, don't grab mud from the bottom of the pool, which we contemplated doing at first. We also got 20 minute massages in the Lagoon, which was really nice, even for someone as uptight about massages as me. When in Rome, right?

And if you go to the Blue Lagoon and value your hair, PLEASE wear a swimming cap. The water in the pool absolutely destroyed my hair. I put leave-in conditioner on it before I got in, but the next day it felt like straw. It was so dry and disgusting. I told my mom that when I got home, and she said "Yes, I was going to say that your hair looked weird," a statement which was definitely true, but still put me in a terrible mood. I wish I had sprung for the 100 kroners or whatever it was to get a swimming cap, and then I wouldn't have had to buy $26 hair mask from Sephora when I got home (this one is awesome though) and gotten 1.5 inches of damaged hair cut off. Learn from my mistake!

The inside of the spa was uber modern and sleek. Very lovely. They had fancy lockers that opened via a wristband. Of course it took me 15 minutes to figure out how to use it, grumbling the whole time. They are very serious about showering in public pools in Iceland, which I can understand. We went swimming almost every day at the geothermal pools around Reykjavik and I became a lot less prudish about public nudity, ha. Oh, the ravages of age that I have to look forward to. Just kidding. Sort of.

The first time I went to the pool, at the gigantic Laugardalslaug complex, I made the critical error of wearing my glasses instead of my contacts. I have terrible vision, so when I took off my glasses, all the naked people turned into pink blurs. Ha. If I couldn't see them, they couldn't see me, right? Maybe that was a good way to ease into the spa scene.

But I really loved the Icelandic swimming pool culture. Pools are open most of the day and night, and swimming was a fun thing to do when we had a spare few hours. We were often the only tourists at the public pools, which was great. It is the exact opposite of American pools in the summertime - instead of jumping into a cold pool to escape the heat, we ducked into a hot tub to avoid shivering in a bikini. I thought it was interesting that Icelandic children and pregnant ladies hung out in the hot tubs. Your fellow swimmers would probably have you arrested if you tried that in the U.S.

The night before we went dogsledding, we checked into a hostel near Laugarvatn Fontana, a brand new spa. It was gorgeous, Scandanavian-chic, overlooking a lake with a bunch of different saunas, hot tubs and pools. We were the only ones there, and I walked briskly from the locker room to a long, rectangular pool, trying to avoid hypothermia. I hopped in the main pool, and quickly realized that the water came up only to my knees. Ahhh!! So freezing out. I thought the water would get deeper so I could swim, but no, it was still knee-deep. I ended up sort of frantically half-crawling, half swimming the length of the pool toward the hot tub. I'm glad there was no one around to see that. What is the point of a 3-foot deep pool? No clue. Please weigh in, Icelanders.

Where Is My Mind?

I have always hated getting up in the morning, but high school was especially difficult for me.  Our school started at 7:20 a.m., and that start time combined with me being a lazy teenager and the fact that I hated school already made for a difficult four years.   I didn't use an alarm clock.  Instead, I was awakened every morning by the sound of my mom screeching at the top of her lungs, "Adele!  Get up! Time to get up!  You have to get up!"  Every single morning.  Flash forward to the present - I have to get up at around the same time for work and I still don't like waking up.  I've gotten into the terrible habit of sleeping in and only leaving myself 20 minutes to get up and get out the door.  Some things have to fall by the wayside with just 20 minutes.  Like makeup.  Using a hairdryer.  Packing a lunch.  Maybe toothbrushing? So it's accurate to say that my mornings are rushed.  Yesterday after dinner, I was putting away a bag of chips in the cupboard where I keep my cereal.  I opened the door, and sitting on the bottom shelf was a gallon of milk. That is so not the refrigerator.  It was a brand new gallon of fancy organic milk too.  The humanity!

Dogsledding in Iceland

We checked off goal after goal for this trip - pet horses on the side of the road?  Done.  Dogsledding?  Done.

I had visions of gliding through the snow on some glacier, but it turns out that by September, all the snow has melted and it's already too icy and dangerous for the dogs to go up on the glacier.  So instead we drove to the Southwest coast and went dog "sledding" on gravel in a cart.  Close enough for me.

When we arrived, the dogs were barking like crazy. They were ready to run. We got to help put on their harnesses and get them ready to pull the cart.

What I learned from this experience - it is very difficult to get 10 dogs to all do the same thing. There were a lot of stops and starts in the beginning. One of the dogs was a seven-month-old puppy and it was his first run with the cart. He would run for a little bit, then get tripped up and fall on the ground, the other dogs dragging his prostrate body. His first day on the job, poor little thing. This happened multiple times and was upsetting, but the dog trainer gave him a longer lead and he got the hang of it.

Some pictures from the "Photo and Petting" segment of the tour. Ten dogs pulled a cart and four people, which is pretty amazing.

Here's a video of Julie getting a lesson on how to drive a dogsled. As you can see, it's a bumpy ride. I was scared to drive because I always assume I will crash whatever I drive, but I was able to clear the mailbox to the barn and coast in smoothly. Yah! Mush!

Stretch it out!

After the ride, we got to coo over two-week puppies. The trainer popped the top off the dog house, to the pups' mother's chagrin.