The Land of Fire and Ice (...mostly ice)

Beautiful.  Expensive.  Proud.  Cold.  Volcanic.  Brian and I spent a week in Iceland in November, searching for the elusive Northern Lights, and finding a whole lot more.  

First off, the reason for the trip:  THE LIGHTS!  Unfortunately, to see the Northern Lights you have to visit Iceland from end of September to beginning of May (when it's frigid 24/7).  The lights are still out other times of the year, but because Iceland is so far north, it doesn't get dark enough to see them in the summer or fall.  In our case, going in November meant that we would probably freeze to death, but we would have ample darkness to see the lights.  The sun didn't really start to rise until 9:30-10 am, and it would be dark again at 5:30-6 pm.  The other unfortunate part was that it has to be a clear night to see the lights, and it was very cloudy on all nights except the first.  We did get a great show that first night though!

Does this remind anyone else of the Dark Mark?  Maybe I spent too much time at the HP Studio Tour...

The only time the lights were any color besides green.  It was fleeting, but it was beautiful.

To be fair, it's not this vivid in real life.  The long exposure captures more light and gives it a brighter color.

All the stars came out to see us watching the Northern Lights.

Standing perfectly still for a 15 second exposure is hard! 

What else was there to see in Iceland?  Hmmm, well, there was ice.  Lots of it.

Iceberg dead ahead!

Black sand beach with ice!  Note:  this picture was not taken in black and white.

Just a lovely day at the beach!

Sometimes the icebergs got a little carried away from the glacier...

There was also melted ice.
 

Gullfoss "The Golden Falls"

Skógafoss

Hiking behind Seljalandsfoss

And there were rivers of ice.

We were pretty excited to see a glacier up close

Glaciers!

At the foot of the glacier

Vatnajökull glacier

Besides ice, Iceland had a lot of other interesting things to see and do!

Peaceful and picturesque villages

The continental divide between Europe and North America

Soup in bread bowls... or as I like to call it, carbs inside of more carbs

Enormous basalt columns on a black sand beach

Geothermally heated water (nearly boiling!)

Fresh seafood

REALLY fresh seafood

This scallop was in the sea about 2 minutes ago!

Sushi on a fjord cruise

Bread and eggs that were baked in the ground

With more seafood on top (pickled herring...yuck!)

Icelandic horses

That let you hug them...

...as long as you fed them first

This creepy two-headed cyclops lamb that haunted my dreams the whole week

Icelanders are really proud to be from Iceland.  Our guide, whose Icelandic name meant Rocky Rock (so that's what we called him) told us some really interesting things about Iceland.  Namely, that over 75% of Icelanders believe in elves, or "hidden people."  Only one person in all of D2:  The Mighty Ducks was actually from Iceland.  Also, James Bond was Icelandic and Icelanders created the CIA and MI5.  Oh and Icelanders knew where Osama bin Laden was before the CIA did.  Their one blip in history, the Vikings, who pillaged and plundered and did a whole bunch of terrible things, "weren't that bad."  I think that maybe some of his facts weren't all that historically accurate...

We enjoyed our time in Iceland but are looking forward to going home to Virginia and Louisiana for our next vacation!