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!

A Muggle in London

Hellllooooooo!  (Said in Jon Stewart's Queen Elizabeth voice)  My trip to London was fantastic!  I got to London around 7 am after an overnight flight from Bahrain.  I was able to drop off my bags at the apartment I rented, then because it was way too early to officially check in, I just took my purse and camera and started walking.  I came across a large number of people standing around waiting for something, so naturally, I had to know what was going on.  Apparently I got to London just in time for Remembrance Sunday, and had come across their veteran's parade in front of the Cenotaph on Whitehall.

The band played next to me for the whole parade!

It was really special to be there and witness all of the veterans and their families, especially on the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I.  They were even saluted by a member of the royal family.  The really nice British ladies behind me were able to explain what was going on, but were shocked when I didn't know who Prince Andrew was.  "We thought Americans LOVED our royal family!!!"  Yeah, if it's not the Queen, Charles, William, Kate, or Harry, I have no idea.

Allegedly Prince Andrew saluting the vets

One of the coolest things I did was visit the Tower of London.  This place is really interesting in and of itself, but this year, two local artists created hundreds of thousands of ceramic red poppies and placed each one in the moat of the tower.  There were 888,246 poppies in all, one for each British soldier killed during WWI.  The poppies were placed over a period of four months, and were taken down just two days after I saw them (so I saw them at the height of the exhibition).  It was incredibly awe inspiring and tragic when you stop to think that each one represented a life of a soldier. 

White Tower at Tower of London

Henry VIII's armor

Poppies!

So many poppies

From the outside of the Tower of London

Poppies on crosses to commemorate WWI at Westminster Abbey

Poppies on crosses to commemorate WWI at Westminster Abbey

Another of my favorite things in London was the British Museum.  They have some of the most famous historical artifacts in the world!  I walked around there for hours, just amazed at the massive collection.  I couldn't believe I was actually seeing things that I taught about for so many years.  A world history teacher's dream!!!

World's first writing, cuneiform

The Rosetta Stone

Alexander the Great

Keeping with the world history theme, of course I had to see Stonehenge!  Though it was a few hours outside of London, Stonehenge was well worth the trip.  The stones were placed about 5,000 years ago, but no one really knows how or why.  Prehistoric man got some of the stones from as far as 250 miles away!

Me at Stonehenge!!!

Really old rocks

Sheep at Stonehenge

The day before I left London, I did something super touristy, but it ended up being one of my favorite activities... the Harry Potter Studio Tour!  I took a train to a town called Leavesden (about 45 minutes outside of London) to the studios where a large portion of the Harry Potter films were shot.  I was concerned when I got off the train that I wouldn't know how to get there.

I was able to figure it out.

Nearly every prop, set, or costume that you could think of from the movies was here in Leavesden.  There was also a lot of information about makeup and hair, animal trainers, special effects, visual effects, sound and lighting, etc. It gives you such an appreciation for how much work goes into making a movie! 

It was one of 3 places in the world to get Butterbeer, obviously I had to!

Potions classroom

Wands of all the major characters

4 Privet Drive

Animatronic Fawkes

Model of Hogwarts used for movies 1-6

Harry's clothes from movie 1 (in the Great Hall)

Tri-Wizard Cup and Golden Egg from movie 4

Chamber of Secrets door (it actually moved!)

Obviously London has a lot to offer, but unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take pictures in a number of places that were really great!  Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral were incredibly beautiful.  The National Gallery had some amazing (and really famous!) artwork.  Windsor Castle was enormous and exquisite.  The Crown Jewels were super sparkly.  Even though I couldn't photograph anything in these places, I have those pictures in my mind! 


I've been working at the school in 3rd grade since returning to Saudi Arabia, but I'll try to get Iceland pictures up soon!  Sneak peak:  it was cold there.