Yesterday was a wonderful day. We left around 10 for our “Hot Golden Circle” tour with Gateway to Iceland. It was fantastic.

Our first stop for pictures on the way to Þingvellir

 Some wildflowers on the ground

A driving photo, so it's not entirely in focus. But the landscape was just beautiful. 

 Because Iceland sits on the mid-Atlantic ridge, it is geologically very active. There are hot springs and geysers all over the country.

Wild thyme. This grows all over here. 

Our second stop for photos. 

The ground is covered with moss--maybe 6 inches thick. Only the top layer is living. The bottom layer turns into soil. This was very soft and springy to walk on.

An interesting plant.

A failed attempt to capture the fields of purple flowers.

 Our third stop for pictures. 

We first drove for quite a while out to Þingvellir, a national park. Þingvellir (pronounced thing-vell-ir) is the place of the first Icelandic parliament, which was held in 930 A.D. Iceland has had the longest functioning parliament in the world (from 930 until now).

The mid-atlantic ridge. One of three large cracks traveling through Iceland. They are expanding each year by about an inch. 

The headwaters of the lake next to Þingvellir.

 The path down to Þingvellir.

Þingvellir!

Þingvellir was just beautiful. After yesterday’s tour outside of the city, I am in love with Iceland. It is just gorgeous. If I could have a summer home in Þingvellir I would be really happy.

 Some beautiful plants by the road.

Purple flowers. For Anna. 

 Looking down the river to the church and guesthouses. You can see where people have thrown coins into the water.

I'm pretty sure that even my poor photography skills aren't ruining these. So that should serve as a fair indicator of how beautiful Iceland is. 

 Yet another beautiful pool. You can see the coins on the bottom. This water is around 12 feet deep, and crystal clear. The water on the other side of the bridge was 20-30 feet deep, and just as clear. But my photo didn't turn out as well. 

Oh and apparently, Iceland was not nearly as cold when it was first settled as it is now. Our guide told us that the globe was in a warm stage when the Vikings first came, and they were able to grow a lot of crops here, such as corn and wheat. It was that way for the first several hundred years, and then the globe entered into a mini ice age, which we are now coming out of.

The next place we went was Gullfoss, which is a giant waterfall fairly close to Þingvellir. We had around an hour there, and I could have easily taken two or three hours. One corner of the falls pours down into a crevice, and the mist from the impact shoots up in a column from that corner. I tried to capture it on camera, but it was hard to take everything from an experience and fit it onto film.

You can see here how it pours down into a gorge. But the mist in the picture doesn't do the magic of the mist in real life justice.

The next three are of the upper falls. 

Pretty flowers. 

The distant peaks on the way to the restaurant above the falls. 

There is a restaurant above the falls where we ate. Our guide, Gummi, said that their vegetable soup is some of the best in Southern Iceland. And it was incredible. It was the perfect meal. The nice thing with this restaurant is that when your soup bowl is empty or when your bread runs out, you can just go get more. They don’t have a limit on refills.

We next went to Haukadalur, a geothermal area. There are active geysers there, and we stood watching them go off for around a half an hour. It was fascinating.

The next two pictures are of two connected hot springs. They are different colors because the water temperature is different!

This is geyser Strokkur. The most active one where we were. 

The area around Strokkur. 

One interesting thing: about 60-65% of Icelanders live in Reykjavik and its surrounding areas. All of Reykjavik’s hot water is pumped in from hot springs outside the city. So it costs nothing to heat your water. In addition, the water that is pumped in is used in the central heating in the houses. So no one has to pay for heating. (And no one pays for air conditioning either, because they can just open their windows.)

We stopped at a lovely little waterfall. A lot of Icelanders don't even know it exists. We felt very lucky. 

To the left of the falls, you can see a salmon bridge. 

A pen for separating sheep near the falls. 

A poor attempt at capturing the landscape. Iceland is fascinating, because it seems like every ten miles or so that the landscape changes significantly. 

Lastly, we went to the Secret Lagoon hot pool area. It was the site of the first pool in Iceland. They have filled the bottom in with gravel and turned it into a hot pool now. We soaked for an hour. I didn't get any pictures, though. 

Gummi, our guide, was incredible. He is very knowledgeable about Iceland. I wish I had time to write down everything we learned from him.

Last night we ate dinner at the Viking Restaurant that is in Hafnarfjöður, the city where we are staying outside of Reykjavik. It was fun, but the food wasn’t as good as some of the other places we have been.

I got 11.5 hours of sleep last night, so I’m feeling really good this morning. I’m grateful, because I kept falling asleep randomly while we were driving yesterday.

Our walk home from dinner. I took these around 10 p.m.

Well, here goes my third attempt at being a blogger. Hopefully it will be the final, successful one.

I'm going to try to document my adventures this summer.

On Saturday I flew to Boston and met up with Von Bringhurst. I spent the evening with him. It was nice. We had excellent Italian food, and some divine chocolate. Unfortunately I lacked the presence of mind to take pictures. So we will have to do without.  

Sunday I went to church. Sarah Gwynn’s flight was delayed and she met me at church. I had already been to one sacrament meeting, and I stayed for another. It was wonderful. I ran into Mark Gould, one of the elders from my mission—he was in the ward that I visited. It was good to see him. After church we walked around Boston for a bit and had clam chowder, which was extremely enjoyable.

Yesterday Sarah and I arrived in Iceland. It is beautiful here, but very different than I imagined. I had thought it would be greener than it is. It’s still quite green—just a different kind of green than I had thought it would be. I have thought a bunch about the Vikings who settled here. They must have been very tough people. Without modern conveniences, this would have been an incredibly difficult land to live in. I can’t imagine that very many crops could grow here, because their growing season is so short. It’s the middle of July now, and the temperatures yesterday were around 45-55 degrees Fahrenheit, and it rained all day. Apparently this is pretty normal for summertime. It is day all the time (at 12:30 a.m. it was still light outside—I don’t think it ever got darker than a twilight), but the light is not very strong. Maybe this is because of the clouds. I can’t be too quick to judge. But I’m sure it must be hard to be here in the winter, when they have 21 hours of night, and then 3 hours of twilight each day. Anyway, I think that the early settlers here grew what they could, and fished the rest.

The food here is incredible. They have a lot of fish dishes, and they are delicious. They don’t have a really fishy flavor to them—they are very mild. We ate “mashed fish” for lunch—it’s a cod dish, and honestly I couldn’t taste the fish in it at all. This is the first seafood (outside of fresh trout in Idaho) that I’ve really enjoyed in a while, because fish in landlocked areas generally isn’t that good. I’ve been shocked at how light the food is. Even though it’s made of ingredients that often are thought of as “heavy,” such as potatoes, meats, cheeses, etc., the food has not felt heavy at all.

We went to lunch at Café Loki. It was fun to eat at an establishment owned by a norse god.

Here we have "mashed fish," a cod delight. Also, some rye bread with butter (it had a very nutty flavor) and green salad with balsamic vinaigrette. 

This was the special yesterday. Haddock with potatoes and broccoli, and some more of the rye bread. 

 Lastly, here was our dessert: bread pudding with whipped cream and lemon.

Loki's place is right across the street from Hallgrimskirkja, the largest cathedral in Reykjavik. 

To the left of the church is a statue of Leifur Eiriksson (Leif Erikson), donated by the US. Leif Erikson was the first known norse explorer to reach America, in around 1000 A.D.

Inside the cathedral: artwork showing the three monotheistic religions coming together. 

Looking over Reykjavik and out to sea from the tower of Hallgrimskirkja.

Another shot of Hallgrimskirkja from down the street.

 Some interesting shot glasses I saw in a souvenir shop. Unfortunately, they were very expensive. 

Fairy tales are real--trolls still live in Iceland. 

Dinner: roast beef with potato salad and pickles. 

In the back: fried fish with shrimp and dill garnish. 

I got a decent 6 hours of sleep last night. That was nice. I’m still tired, but I’ve been up since 3:30, and can’t fall asleep again. Tonight will be better, I hope.

Hezekiah's Tunnel

Well, I suppose now is a good time to post again. It's been a while since the last one. I went to Hezekiah's Tunnel yesterday morning. The tunnel was built by order of king Hezekiah to give the city of Jerusalem a water supply when it was under siege by Assyria. The tunnel runs from near David's palace (outside the city walls) to under the Temple Mount. I just walked the part that is outside the city walls (because the rest of it is closed to the public). The water is still running in it, although the water doesn't look too clean (little wonder, since hundreds of tourists are walking through it each day). Here are some photos:


This is near the entrance of Hezekiah's Tunnel. We saw a family harvesting their olives. I thought it was cool, so I took a picture.


This i an excavation being done right next to David's palace that my archaeology teacher is in charge of (hopefully I'll be able to go to the site...)


This is looking up to the Temple Mount from over Hezekiah's Tunnel.


Some of the ruins of what they believe was David's Palace


The entrance to the tunnel. To my right, you can see the 'Canaanite tunnel', or the dry route. Behind me, you can see the actual tunnel with the water in it.


This is a closeup of the entrance to the tunnel.


Here I am in the tunnel. Notice how the water goes to mid-thigh in this part of the tunnel. This is the deepest part of the tunnel. In the rest of the tunnel, the water goes to about mid-calf or knee deep.


This is a replica of the 'Shiloah Inscription', which was found here. It was written 2700 years ago during the reign of King Hezekiah.


This is the exit from the tunnel. The water runs above ground for about 100 yards, and then goes into another tunnel (which is not open to tourists).


This is the Pool of Shiloah (Siloam). This is just one edge of it. You can see the stairs leading down to where the water would have been. Where all the dirt and trees are is where excavation stopped. The pool was originally a large square.
Jesus healed a blind man by spitting in the sand to make clay, putting it on the man's eyes, and then having him wash in the pool of Siloam (John 9:1-12).


There is a shop outside the exit of the tunnel that sells some of the artifacts of the digs. I am holding here some 'widow's mites' some of which are from around the time of Jesus.

OK. So, after last year's pathetic attempt at beginning a blog, and after many moons of the family seeing no photos, I have been called to repentance by Sarah and am going to make yet another attempt at keeping a blog.
I am going to give a quick summary of my summer:
I went to Vienna for a week and a half, and then went to Frankfurt, where I did genealogy, and met a lot of new friends.
Anna flew into Munich the beginning of July, and we stayed for a week in a little town near the Austrian border. We had the opportunity of singing a catholic mass in the Alps! That was pretty cool.
Anna had her 17th birthday while we were in Germany. Of course, she dressed up really cute, and I got some good pics of her.
After Munich, we went to a few other German cities, visiting archives and doing genealogy. It was a pretty great month.
I am now in Jerusalem, studying Hebrew for 5+ hours each day.
Well, that was the summer in a nutshell. I will try to post fairly often. I don't have any pics of Israel yet--I'll put them up on my next post.