Puffins

Before going to Iceland I tried to do some planning but also tried to stay flexible. One thing on my must-see list was puffins.

A book I read as a child took place on Puffin Island. It sounded amazing but I never thought about seeing puffins myself until I started reading about sights along our route.

Látrabjarg
65˚30'N 24˚32'W

We headed out the westernmost point in Iceland (and Europe, if you don't count Maldives, which I don't since it is in Asia, although it is a sovereign state of Britain).

It was not very crowded when we arrived and I had a moment of panic. What if sunny, breezy weather was bad for puffin watching? What if they decided to hang out somewhere else today? The ranger thought it was odd when I asked if he had seen a puffin today.

We headed to the first viewing spot and there they were!

We were allowed to explore the cliffs but 

were encouraged to lie down in order to avoid falling off the potentially crumbling edges.

We all took so many pictures. Here are a few (some pictures by D. and A.).

The cliffs are filled with birds, like a high-rise apartment building.
No wonder the ranger thought it was an odd question!

It was a very satisfying visit! Now I am reading my childhood book again.

Labels

I appreciated the labels of everything in Iceland, even if I could not read them. Every creek we crossed had a name, every part of a waterfall, every little street.

Dynjandi

Strompdljúfrafoss

Göngumannafoss

Hrísvaðsfoss
(hmm, I am not sure how to type the Icelandic d, know as eth)

Bæjarfoss

Near Geysir, seen on the first day.
According to this site the name means The Royal Spring,
in honor of the visit of Denmark's King Christian IX in 1874.

My sister lived in Sweden for a year and I lived in Denmark for year. Despite our combined language skills we could not pronounce or understand most Icelandic. Icelandic does no use Q or W but has several extra vowels. In addition to the eth  (ð,Ð) there is also the thorn (þ/Þ). We had no problem getting by in English.

p.s. Found another sign among my pictures.
The signs are related to the rocks and the tradition of carrying them to show strength and
the ability to be a good defender, or so I gather from reading different translated pages.

Knitting

 Just as singing seems to be a big part of Icelandic culture, I get the feeling knitting is, too.

We saw sweaters for sale in person

and advertised in the paper.

Even more amazing were the knitting supplies available in the convenience and grocery stores.

These two pictures were taken in a small grocery store in Búðardalur,
population 266, but maybe it might have been the only store in the area.

This picture was taken at the store in the center of town in Ísafjörður,
population 2571 and the largest town in northern part of the Westfjords.
On the right side and in the back you can see pattern books, needles, etc.

We stayed near the airport the last night and these pictures are from a store in Reykjanesbær, population 15,129. I guess the people need something to do between choir practices.

I did not buy any yarn. I am still trying to use up the yarn I bought in Scotland in 1991.

World Cup

Iceland has a population of about 340,000 people and does not compete with most other countries, except in Eurovision, which it has been a part of for about thirty years. That changed when Iceland qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1947, when the national team was created.

Just one of the displays at the airport.

Not to mention the games on television in the airport.

Jokes by people who don't care,

All the headlines in the local papers are about the games and the English paper has plenty, too. 

Áfram Ísland = Go Iceland

It was entertaining to see all the things for sale and the funny articles, but the highlight was watching the first game in a small cafe about 15km from the closest town of 60 people.

Ed. note - The center of this photo shows the large television and to the right is a painting of a choir, which seems to be like bowling leagues used to be in the US. This article says there are nearly two hundred in the country and I am guessing the stage at the cafe is used for performances.

Adventure

I have relatives traveling the world for a while and they invited people to join in. Even though it had never been on my list of places to visit I was glad we got to meet up in Iceland for a week!

With only a week it was hard to figure out what to try to see so we copied someone else's itinerary. We spent a bit of time in Reykjavik and the Golden Circle, but most of our time was spent in that bit in the northwest part of Iceland called the Westfjords. One new guidebook doesn't even write about it and the car rental people told us it was boring there. I guess that is why only 14% of visitors make it there. On the positive side it was not crowded and we thought it was beautiful.

One of a gazillion waterfalls we saw that were not the big waterfalls.
We stopped the car and got out for this one.

Just another waterfall, just kept driving.

One fjord

and another.

So many sheep! By the roads, on the fields, on the hills,
on the road (!!!), and on some people's plates.

 I could write endless blog posts about the trip, but I'll try to keep it to few. Stay tuned.

Great Gift

Despite the same number of pesky (non-native) squirrels as usual we had a much better orange harvest. This led to a birthday request for a manual orange press. Or maybe it was traveling back to Barcelona where a lot of cafes have orange juice machines.

Delicious!

Only some oranges were easy to pick so D. bought an orange picker (fruit harvester).

They taste better than they look!

Random Pictures from May

I take pictures with blogs in mind and then they sit patiently to be used. Here are some that will not get their own post.

Spirograph on family art night

A gift from a friend

A's project

Near the botanic garden

Our car has a lame-o digital odometer. Good thing I went home and got to see my dad's!

Best reason to change planes in Midway

Live music around town

It just wouldn't move.
I thought we should jump over it but the other people suggested we be patient.