ICELAND

when i got back to my room in paris to pick up my bag.. the maintenance man was there dismantling the bunk beds that i was sleeping on.. i asked him if he owned the place since i never met the real owner.. he said yes.. and so i asked him how i should pay for the last night adn if i could leave now and not pay for the final night. he was so confused. mostly becuase he wasnt the owner and didnt really speak english. had i just kept my mouth shut and grabbed my bag and left, i woulda got 2 free nights! GAH. but he helped me find the landlord, adn i tried to explain that i slept there the night before.. apparently she had no idea, and that i was going to the airport.. she convinced me to stay in the house another night for a discounted rate of the room.. so i took it, headed back to the room to go to bed, i hoped.. but the crazy french maintenance man was still there, smoking all over the room and taking everything apart. i told him i paid to sleep there.. adn it was time to go to bed since i had to get up in 4 hours. he said ok. and wanted to konw about all the american things i had in my bag. .apparently my deodorant and hairbrush were amusing.. and my toothpaste that advertised clean fresh breath. i was just so tired and worn out.. and he eventually got it and left.. i think. i locked the room... and was woken by him at 4:30 instead of my alarm at 4:45... he was taking apart the kitchen. ahh. i was ready to get out. so i left and made it to the airport.. handed the security man my postcards to mail.. so if you never get them.. well thats why.

i got to iceland and quickly figured out that everything is going to cost a fortune. omg. and it was worse a year ago. so maybe this was the worst decision i made for my bank account. .but the country is beautiful and something i wouldnt have seen otherwise.. so im glad i went! i walked from the hostel to town to try to claim this room i reserved online for 1 euro.. the man wouldnt let me in til 2 pm.. so i left.. they emailed me saying i couldnt have the room unless i fronted 113 more euro. i was gonna tell them the customer and her confirmation are always right..and then i didnt. and i had to get back to meet anna! my iceland traveling partner.. i met her on my tour in egypt.. im considering finding another tour because as you see these tour friends are really coming in handy! so i hung aroudn the hostel, and then realized that my clock was an hour off, and waited an hour more.. reading pamphlets on puffins and hiking glaciers, snowmobiling, dog sledding, and all the really cool things i def couldnt spend 100 bucks each on :( anna came and we made a plan! kinda.. found a rental car, and then headed to the blue lagoon.. the most touristy thing in all of little iceland.. yes their pop is 300,000 for the whole country. but the blue lagoon is really cool. .apart from the pre-bathing with the 30 naked old ladies.. ew. we were the youngest ones in there by a long stretch...apparently iceland hasnt caught onto the young backpacker thing quite yet.. the blue lagoon is a heated thermal pool that glows blue! and its in lava crater more or less.. and all this hot water is pumped in this pool.. theres hot pools all over iceland.. its like the thing to there for sure. for our low entry fee, we also got to take advantage of the silica in the buckets all around the pool and leave it on our faces.. we applied it to our whole bodies for as long as we could stand being out of the water... iceland isnt exactly warm if you didnt guess! so i was soft as a babys bum from head to toe and all naturally cleaned from the sulfur and whatever else was in that mucky blue water! adn then we headed back to annas hostel.. where they didnt ahve a bed for me.. and so i slept on the hard ass floor.. at least it was free! we made the standard spaghetti with whatever else i could i could take out of the free bins in the hostel.. im getting overly good at making meals out of the free baskets. people ocasionally complement my food..and i laugh. if they only knew... we talked to uwe for too long about where to go in iceland and the world.. hes been to antartica! and he for sure thought anna and i were a disgrace to traveling.. spending 4 or 5 days in a country.. whatever. he can do what he wants and well just keep trekking along :) hes been in iceland for ages writing a book about trekking there. .maybe youll find it someday and be like ooo.. ashley met him! haha.

the next morning we hit up the grocery store for some food for the week.. STEEEP prices, but defnitiely cheaper than buying meals we later found out. and then we got picked up for our rental car.. sat there discussing the insurance options.. decided to pay for all of them except the windshield one.. only to get in our car and realize 10 mins down teh road that htere is infact a hole in the windshield.. we went back and said hey! what do u think youre doing..and then we did a walk around and got off the hook.. phew... we drove to the 'golden circle' where we saw wehre the american and euroasian plates meet.. well, where they are dividing.. theres a huge gap! so i guess i was technically back on the american continent for a tiny little bit :) this is also wehre the vikings set up the first parliment and decmocracy or something like that.. and they had meeting where they voted for things about vikings and such! it was a really pretty place.. lots of green and pretty deep blue rivers.. then we went to see the geysir... pronounced gay-zeer.. where all the otehr geysirs get their name from.. we watched it blow up 4 or 5 times.. it was pretty darn cool.. and then we saw this huge waterfall where it was too windy for words..and im surprised i didnt get frostbite! after that, we started heading along the southern coast of iceland towards the biggest glacier in europe.. viajkionomoninklm or something like that.. we got to our place nice and late.. and then the guy siad sorry i no longer have beds for you, goodbye.. so we pulled into the campsite nextdoor and slept in the car after our makeshift dinner of leftover baguette from paris, tomatoes that were supposed to be for our pasta we couldnt cook.. and juice and what not. it completely worked. and sleeping in teh car was almost better than sleepin on the hardwood floor.. except for the temperature! it was the first night i was happy my sleeping bag was so warm..

the next morning it was up nice and early because of the sun.. and we had a glacier to hike! we got our gear.. helmets, gloves-thank god!, rock-climbing harness? ice pick, and cramp-ons for our boots so we could scale up ice! the hike was nice.. and cool- in both ways. we saw some blue ice! and i stuck my head in some bottomless ditches where the water went to the depths of the earth it seemed. .if you dont believe in global warming.. you should defintiely head to iceland.. although a lot of it is part of the natural cycles of earth.. you can see how fast the earth is heating up, where the lines of the glacier used to be.. the glacier melts so much that our guide had to find new ways to hike since it melts and changes everyday.. lots of waterfalls in ice! whichi is cool and just awesome scenery.. i enjoyed swinging my ice pick and trying to walk almost vertically up the ice with my cramp-ons.. neither of which were helping the glaceir stay intack longer.. sorry earth! after our hike..we took advantage of the 4 dollar campsite shower and i bought a liter of milk to mix with my spanish version of nesquick that i picked up somewhere.. haha.. definitley made for a good few meals :) we drove lots and lots and filled up our little ford focus with the most expensive gas in teh world.. so it seemed! and we eventually made it to berunes on the east coast for the night. it was of course beautiful the whole way.. o! and we stopped at this glacier lagoon.. which was soo cool! and blue! and awesome! tons of icebergs just floating around like no big deal.. then we wound through the fjords and ran over some sheep before we made it to our little farm house.. now these towns really only consist of one or two houses really.. kinda crazy.and then its ages to the next little house.. with a street sign that is the name of the town. kinda crazy! so we gave into the homemade dinner they were cookin up.. some porkchops and mush and potatoes and icelandic stuff.. it was delicious..and apparently 25 bucks as well. oops... at least it was the best bed ive had on my trip so far! our sleep was all too short before it was up and adam to keep journeying around iceland..

we spent most of the day driving.. we really wanted to get to this 'mosquito lake' that uwe told us about.. but it was raining so it was so awesome to be hanging out outside.. we stoped at this place up in the north that had bubbling mudpots.. they STUNK. horrible. its like sulfur and natural stinkiness on a beautiful backdrop.. and you want to stare at the bubbling pits but they smell so bad.. and then it sprinkled down hard some more.. i whipped out my industrial strength poncho (thanks dad!) ha.. and we hiked up a crater to see a blue lake at the top.. the poncho turned out to be a bad idea cuz it was so windy and i was just as wet as anna who wasnt wearing a poncho.. mostly i used it to protect my camera.. and look like a big red balloon! we were laughing as we kept sliding down the hill wondering why we were attempting to get up this volcano.. that is overdue to errupt.. ooo i want to see lava! well, the blue lake looked about the same from the rim as it did from the parking lot.. but i never really mind a little hike or adventure.. we got back down and headed to the most dangerous steamy volcano or geysir..or stinky steam spitting hill that it was. somehow my lens cap and polarizer decide to just drop off my camera.. and i couldnt just settle with leaving them in the lava fields... so were on this deck that says stay off the ground. and i look around for resources.. i pull the metal pole out of the little walking path fence for lack of a better description, and slowly push the lens cap between the planks of the deck about 20 feet to where i can get on the 'hot' ground to grab them.. it wasnt hot thank god! and they were in one piece. .it only took about 20 mins too.. i felt accomplished rescuing my baby! haha.. so we saw more steam and a hydrothermal plant.. yes all the water in all of iceland is heated by the land.. and therefore it all smells like sulfur. i can still smell it on me i think.. so we kept driivng and saw antother big waterfall.. theres tons of little ones on all the hills we drive thoruhg.. and we saw some green christmas trees and whatnot.. changing scenery from the south coast.. it was another late night pulling into snaeberg.. (the ae should be connected as one letter) where slept in a bit before our drive home to reykjavik.

the next morning.. first thing i had to do was touch the artic ocean.. it was cold. icey cold and put taht cold california ocean to shame even. but now i can say ive touched all four oceans :) whoo hoo! now for the seven continents... we tried to get anna an authentic icelandic woolen sweater..but the place didnt open til 1:30pm.. hmm. so we drove and drove and headed to the newest national park on the western side of iceland: Snæfellsjökull National Park ... thank you google. we stopped in a little port town and had a real lunch.. some seafood soup with lobster and fish and deliciousness. then we drove more and found some cool lava rock stuff.. climbing the black rocks on the stone beaches and exploring the cliffs and lava fields from the top as well.. theres lots of stones piled up everywhere.. theyre harder to make than they look! but as legend goes.. those are trolls.. anna built like 3 trolls.. i oculd only manage one! we made it back into reykajvik at night.. the town where you must be a young mom pushing your bundled up infant in a stroller down the street in town to be accepted. we went to a bar and had some icelandic beer..and then made a friend who is the best chess player.. (and football/soccer player as well) in all of iceland.. and he bought us another one. he was the first stinky man i met in iceland.. although im sure after 5 days in the smae clothes we didnt smell to fresh either.. and hten it was up briggght adn early to drive anna to the airport.. i went back to the hostel for a little nap before returning the car and getting to the airport to head to london and onto ireland!!!!