I made nine pompoms. (And all without the help of my knitbuddy and pompom-maker extraordinaire, Dani - so wrong of her to move away before I made this hat!) Three go on an i-cord at the top of the hat and three each on i-cords that will be attached to the ear flaps.

We are about to leave for our annual trip to Germany, but before we go, I have to share our latest adventure, wee's big trip to the big city. Earlier this month, I took the boys to visit Grandma in New York City. Last weekend, it was wee's turn!

An all-girl trip has to start with some shopping, right? Wee is constantly talking about going to "the jewel store". (Don't ask me why. She's only ever been inside one jewelry store in her life and she wasn't really that impressed by the genuine articles.) Sensing that she really just wanted to treat herself to some kid-sized, übersparkly things, we took her to the accessories section of Crewcuts (the JCrew store for kids).

She picked out a bracelet and a fancy headband and got her own little shopping bag to carry around the city. She looked like such a little Sarah Jessica Parker with her sunglasses and shopping bag. (Just with much more sensible shoes!)

After shopping, we went to the Children's Museum of the Arts. My mother and I had both seen this place on a recent episode of Work of Art. It looked like a cool place for a kid to do some crafts and have some fun.

Wee played with building blocks, made a mosaic with paper and glue, did some dot painting and had a blast in the ball pond. I would definitely recommend this place to anyone with kids with a creative bent. It's not fancy but it was certainly fun enough to entertain my three year-old for two hours.

Since we were down in Soho, I persuaded everyone to stop by the new PurlSoho store next.

It's a gorgeous store and it's chock full of the same top-of-the-line, amazing fibers and fabrics that they've always had. But the new big space simply doesn't have the charm and coziness of the old stores. That giant center table where knitters bumped into one another and ended up trading yarn suggestions is now way in the back and way less inviting. And the mod and retro fabrics that looked so quaint and at home in the tiny Purl Patchwork store are a little lost in all the space of the new store (although there is now room to see all the exquisite Liberty fabrics on their huge rolls!). But what I missed most of all was the turquoise paint on the storefront. Silly, I know, but it kinda made the place special.

Oh well, this was wee's trip and our next stop was all about her.

American Girl Place NYC on Fifth Avenue. She was in heaven! Wee doesn't have any American Girl dolls for the simple reason that she's not really all that into dolls. What she does love, however, is tiny little accessories. She ran from display to display and studied each little bit of furniture, home goods and food the dolls had. Grandma treated her to a doll lunchbox, filled with a tiny thermos, a tiny sandwich and a tiny cupcake, all of which she shared with a dolly during our dinner in the cafe.

We had to reserve this table for a 5:30pm dinner over two weeks in advance. We were led into the dining room right on time (gotta keep schedule - next seating in 1 1/2 hours), and were immediately asked how many dolls we had dining with us. We had none, of course, so wee got to pick a dolly from a whole row of dolls, to come sit with us at our table. The dolly got her own little teacup and saucer, which wee got to take home with her after our meal. The food was good, especially the appetizers and the desserts and the folks there did a good job making the little girls feel special. Wee loved her fancy dining experience and I have a feeling we'll be back here again sometime. (Perhaps for the slightly less expensive afternoon tea?)

And now, after experiencing all the big apple has to offer, my little jet-setter is setting off for her fifth trip to Europe! I can hardly believe it.

Summer is on vacation here in Germany. It's probably gone to Italy with all the Germans. But it certainly isn't here anymore. Just us. And what the Germans call "lovely fresh air" - translation: totally not-summery, 60 degree, cloudy weather.

We left a warm and sunny Boston four days ago. The kids were excited, which was good because our flight was slightly delayed. Luckily, we found a window seat in the food court and could watch planes landing and taking off and gangways pulling up to and away from planes and just some dang cool airplanes.

who knew the Swiss were so cool?

We flew with Icelandair again this year. We seem to do that every other year. (Primarily because they seem to be the cheapest exactly every other year.) Things have changed at Icelandair in the two years since we've flown with them. Now the seat backs have these fun Icelandic language lessons on them.

this will come in handy later during our vacation

And also, they don't give you any food anymore. At least not any free food. But you can buy a sports bar or trail mix for 2 Euro. Gee, thanks. I wanted to sleep anyway. In fact, everyone slept, including all three kids. (Clearly, we have the best kids ever.) S and I even slept through the entire second flight from Iceland to Frankfurt, waking up to a map of a completed journey. Yay, us!

After the car trip to Oma & Opa's house, the kids were rejuvenated enough to try out Oma & Opa's new toy: the trampoline!

The sun doesn't really go down here until about 9:30, so they pretty much did the trampoline until then. Our anti-jet lag strategy is to keep the kids up mega late the first night so they sleep hard and can wake up at a reasonable morning time. We did and they did. It was our first post-flight, uninterrupted night of sleep since we've had kids. Wow. (Night three was a doozy, however, with wee one refusing to go to sleep at all, but we persevered and have almost ratcheted them back to a normal bedtime.)

The next day was Saturday, so the kids were forced to wait two whole days - which they bounced away on the trampoline - until we could make our first, and arguably most important, outing: the annual trip to Oma's store.

Each one of the kids has saved his/her Euros from birthday and Christmas and has been dreaming about coming to the toy and paper goods store that belongs to Oma's family. They pick out something fabulous every year (and with a 10% family discount!). Wee one knew what she wanted: "Playmobil, big Playmobil." She found the perfect set right away.

notice how she is nowhere to be found while I put it together

It's a sort of suitcase thing that opens up to be a castle and includes like 100 little princessy Playmobil bits. I had the unenviable job of putting together all the littlest bits that decorate the castle. I spent longer putting her castle together than the boys did putting together the things that they bought.

please do not ask me how we will be getting these things home

Man, do they love these race sets! The cars are motorized, so they get some real speed going. The boys have already rebuilt the tracks like six different times. They actually forgot about the trampoline for half the day. Which gave hubby time outside to do this:

The hedge at the end of the backyard that separates it from the fields beyond was a little overgrown and had to be trimmed to get ready for wee one's annual "over the hedge" picture. Coming soon....

Wee one, at the edge of Oma & Opa's backyard. She's come a long way from this.

And the boys, after a year of music lessons, are now able to join in all the merry music-making that goes on in the Hansel household.

My, what big kids I have. All the better to vacation with.

Yesterday, we packed up, left the kiddos at Oma & Opa's house, and took off for our week-long honeymoon/10 year anniversary trip to Iceland. We've never been away from the kids for this long or been this far away. We're on another land mass, over 1500 miles away, for goodness sakes! I almost had a moment while saying goodbye to the kids, but I managed to hold it together and slip out while Oma distracted them all with gummi bears. Once we'd checked in at the Frankfurt airport, we ate lunch at the McDonald's, like we always do, but it was weird looking at the giant rocket playspace and knowing none of our kids was in there.

Our plane arrived at the gate just as we did - not a good sign - which meant we had a long delay. But we were so high on alone, grown-up vaca vibes that we didn't mind at all. While we were waiting, the flight crew kept paging Vijay Singh. I'm not sure if he was just a late passenger with a famous name or if they simply needed a consult on some tricky golf shot. We were not informed either way. Once in the plane, there was another delay - we'd missed our spot for take-off and now were in a traffic jam - but we were still riding high, so we played around with the in-flight entertainment system. The survey appeared to be a fascinating psychological experiment.

oooh, that's a tricky one

Or not. We nearly wet ourselves when we came across this in the in-flight duty free shopping magazine: "...Tooth brush, tooth paste, Mirror..." and...

i really hope that's a typo

"Ear pugs"?! That was enough to keep us laughing until take-off, when we were treated to an awesome view of the German landscape: little villages nestled between green quadrants of agriculture.

It was a perfectly clear, sunny day over Germany and northern Europe. We could even see ships out in the North Sea.

container ships below the islands of Helgoland

We met with clouds and turbulence about halfway through the trip. The cloud cover was cool though.

And as we approached Iceland, the island was shrouded in clouds, making it appear even more mysterious and exciting.

Iceland, here we come!

view of Reykjavik from our hotel

We asked for a room with a view of the old city center. We had to lean a little at the window, but we could wake up every morning and see the town, most notably Hallgrimskirkja church at the far right. And of course the clouds over the mountains. Always the clouds. It is Iceland, after all! In front of the church, right across the street from us, we could see the National Museum of Iceland. We thought that'd be a great place to start our very first day in Iceland!

The building was recently redone and is beautiful. And the exhibition, detailing Iceland's history from early settlements through modern independence, was excellent.

Did you know that, despite having Europe's oldest parliament (established in 930 AD), Iceland didn't become an independent republic until 1944? It seems that the Viking clans and chieftains, couldn't quite manage to keep the peace among themselves, so they became a part of the Norwegian, and then the Danish, kingdom. After Hitler took control of Denmark in the Second World War (and Britain moved into Iceland to keep it away from Hitler), Iceland declared itself independent. The Danish king sent them a note of congratulations.

One of the coolest things in the exhibit was a traditional one-room turf-covered house that was filled with all the things of typical country life well into this century. Like wool. One tiny room, and there's spinning wheels everywhere as well as a basket of carding near the back. If there's one thing the Icelanders did have on their tiny island, it was sheep. (Oddly, the wood for the houses was one thing they didn't have much of. Most of it was either driftwood or was imported.) So, there was wool, wool, everywhere, but the well-known Lopi sweater - the one that every tourist buys - wasn't actually introduced until the 40's.

want to learn how to say Lopi sweater in Icelandic? It's lopapeysa!

But the best part of the exhibit was the "hands-on" room, with historical costumes for dressing up like Icelanders of days gone by.

This dress looked to be about my size, so I gave it a try. It weighed a TON. That was some seriously heavy fabric, let me tell you. Once I got it on, it kinda looked great on me, which was a little depressing. To think that I was made to wear drab 17th century Icelandic peasant garb! While I was trying on this pretty little number, hubby slipped into some Viking warrior gear.

much too smiley for a Viking - that's probably a good thing

After learning about Iceland, we thought it was time we went out and saw it. We took a stroll through Reykjavik, which is a charming, little town. And cozy too....

a knitted lamppost cozy!

Our walk into town took us first past Reykjavik's lovely little lake Tjorn. Reykjavik's one landmark, the Hallgrimskirkja church, is on the far right, situated up on a hill overlooking the city. We wandered up the main street on our way there.

At the foot of the main street lies this simple, little building: the offices of the prime minister. A few days later we accidentally stumbled upon the Parliament building. I only noticed it because of a parking sign! Iceland, home to a mere 300,000 people, obviously has a small government. And Reykjavik wasn't even the seat of government until the 19th century, when they moved the parliament from a valley about 45 min west, where it was founded over 1,000 years ago. There were some problems with the original location (but more on that in a few days...).

Reykjavik, itself, was founded by Iceland's first settler, around 900 AD.

As he approached the coast after his journey over from Norway, Ingolfur threw the pillars of a special chair overboard. Tradition held that where the pillars washed ashore was the spot the gods chose for you to settle. The pillars were found a few years later at Reykjavik - literally, smoky bay (the smoke was from the steam of various hot springs). Unfortunately for Reykjavik, much better, more fertile land had been found by others elsewhere, so it wasn't really a popular destination. In fact, Ingolfur's slaves escaped rather than go there to live. (They were found, of course, and taken care of, the viking way.)

Here's Ingolfur Arnarson on a sad little hill across the street from the government house, overlooking an as yet rather unattractive construction project on the harbor. Remember that all of Iceland is only the size of Kentucky, so when I say harbor, I mean a city square sized inlet with a couple of ships, all about four blocks away.

A much better view than Ingolfur's can be found from Hallgrimskirkja. We went all the way up to the top, which is to say, the 8th floor. (After taking the elevator up to the Top of the Rock in NYC just a few weeks ago, this elevator trip was a leeetle bit anticlimactic.) But it was still plenty high to see all of the old city with its vibrant colored buildings and tiny harbor. Is cute, no? We likey-ed.

Stay tuned all this next week for more posts about our trip to Iceland!

You are Iceland. And here's 5 reasons why you are crazy cool.

1. You are crazy cool because you really like to swim.

And if all of my pools were kept at 96 degrees, I'd freaking swim every day too!

We ended our first day in Reykjavik at the local pool. The sports complex was in an area that was so lousy with natural hot springs that women used to walk out to the valley there to do their washing. Now there's a modern swimming complex there. (Along with some other sports facilities, including a soccer stadium. In fact, when we went swimming, there was actually a soccer match going on and we could hear the cheering from the pool.)

There were strict rules about no cameras in the changing and shower area, along with strict rules about showering (with no bathing suit) before entering the pool and then being completely dry before leaving the showering area to return to the changing area, which kinda made it impossible for me to shower and then go get my camera. But here's an artist's rendering I found on a poster outside the changing area.

The pools are geothermally heated outdoor pools, of course. There was an indoor lap pool, but since this was a typical summer day - about 55 degrees and cloudy - naturally the indoor pool was closed. As soon as you go outside there is a good sized relaxing area with water at about 100 degrees, where everyone was gathered. Behind that, there was a large pool for splashing around and "cooling off" with water about 96 degrees and a huge a water slide for the kids. That pool felt like really warm bath water that you could comfortably sit in indefinitely. There was also a small, shallow kiddie pool that wasn't too too hot and then three hot pots for grown-ups (small round jacuzzi looking pools but no bubbles) that were 100 degrees (38 C), 104 degrees (40 C) and 107 degrees (42 C) respectively. Naturally there were only like two very large and very hearty looking Icelanders in the hottest pool. The coolest of the hot pots was completely full, so, because we were too cold standing in our wet bathing suits in the 50 degree weather to do the celcius/fahrenheit calculation, we hopped right into the 40 degree hot pot. When you enter water that warm from the cold, it feels like the water is literally burning your skin off. Once you settle in though, it's merely horribly hot. We pathetic continental dwellers only lasted about 4 minutes and then we had to get out and cool off again in the main pool. After an hour and half of sitting around in the various pools, we were so relaxed, we felt like we were made of jello, all loosey goosey and go with the flow. It was niiiiiice. I could certainly get used to ending every day like that.

2. You are crazy cool because you know what this means:

"I don't speak Icelandic" tourist t-shirt

The next day was a rainy day. It was also a Sunday. Both of which put the kybosh on walking around town and doing some souvenir shopping. So we went to the mall. The mall was pretty much like any mall, until we went to the food court and there it was, all over the place...

...the Icelandic language. It looks wacky. It sounds wacky. And I love it! I don't understand it, but I love it. What makes it look really crazy, even though most of the letters are the same, is the fact the Icelanders don't allow any English or latin-based words to creep into their language. No "radio" or "telephone" for them; it's útvarp and sími. I'd thought we'd be okay at Domino's but the word Domino's and the word pepperoni were the only ones I recognized. Using the pictures, we managed to piece our order together. I pointed to the giant poster over the counter and ordered - in English, because they all speak perfect English - 2 sneiðar með pepperoni og 0,4 l gos á 550 kr.: 2 slices with pepperoni and 0,4 l soft drink for 550 kroner.

The language is one of the things that makes Iceland so intriguing. Life here looks pretty similar to life as we know it - the food is a little heavy on the fish, but you can get pizza and other foods easily; Reykjavik looks like many other pretty European towns; and the mall is filled with stores with familiar brand names like any other mall - but everything is labeled with this crazy speak. We had the same feeling of what Freud called the uncanny when we first got in the car to tour the countryside: driving is on the right side of the road with all the familiar international road signs, but once you see the landscape, you immediately realize you are not in Kansas anymore.

3. You are crazy cool because under that pale, handsome, and trendy looking exterior, you are still Vikings.

There's no denying that the Icelanders are a good looking people. I've heard that Iceland is very proud of its three Miss World winners, but, honestly, pretty much any Icelandic woman walking around is going to win the title over me! And the men aren't too bad to look at either (at least the younger men!). Modern Icelanders are also an intelligent and peaceful people. Iceland has a 100% literacy rate (and they're reading Icelandic!) and, as we discovered in the National Museum, the only wars they've been involved in were the so-called cod wars with Britain, which involved some maneuvering between Coast Guard and fishing trawlers over how far beyond the coast other lands are allowed to fish. The National Museum had on display the only Icelandic weapon, a sort of hook thing that they could pull along behind a ship to cut the lines off the fishing nets of foreign ships. And these are the direct descendants of Vikings!

We wanted to learn about the real Viking history so after our experience at the mall, we drove to the Saga Museum, which was purported, by my otherwise excellent travel guide, to be a fun stop for kids to learn about the Icelandic sagas. Exciting saga stories, wax figures, what's not to love?

Yikes! Besides this grizzly scene, there was a beheading, a woman burning at the stake, and a family dying of the plague. All in life-like wax figures. Eeek. Both of us felt a little weirded out afterwards and were agreed that we wouldn't be bringing our kids here. But then again, we're not Icelanders. There were Icelandic kids cheerily playing with fake swords in the gift shop as we left. Must have something to do with the ancestry. A few days later, we discovered another saga museum for the faint-hearted like us, the Saga Center, which lies about an hour outside of town.

This is Gunnar, one of the main character's of the best known Icelandic saga: the Story of the burning of Njál (plot spoiler: Njál gets burned alive). Gunnar is one of the main characters of the first part of the saga. He was "a tall man in growth, and a strong man - best skilled in arms of all men....and so it has been said that no man was his match. He was handsome of feature, and fair skinned. His nose was straight, and a little turned up at the end. He was blue-eyed and bright-eyed, and ruddy-cheeked. His hair thick, and of good hue, and hanging down in comely curls." Ooooh, a description worthy of a romance novel. In the exhibit, it literally said, "He looked every inch the warrior." Oh my! Swoon.

We had an audio guide, which wasn't anything but someone reading the large and long info walls aloud. But when we got to the actual story (about 2/3 of the little exhibit), it became this awesome audiobook. The reader was excellent and he made the story exciting and kept it from becoming a giant list of crazy Icelandic names and graphically violent slayings.

So back to Gunnar. Unfortunately, he met Hallgerda, who was so beautiful that he instantly asked to marry her. Too bad he hadn't really taken the time to learn that she had been married twice before, but had had her previous husbands killed by her foster father because they'd slapped her. Poor Gunnar is a good guy, but is constantly getting dragged into battles with others and, because he's every inch the warrior, he ends up killing a lot of people. The lovely but lethal Hallgerda, on the other hand, starts a feud with the wife of Gunnar's best friend, Njál. Lots of people get killed, Gunnar gets mad and, you guessed it, he slaps her. Bad idea. Gunnar is eventually exiled for the various killings on his hands, but he refuses to leave the "fair slopes" of Iceland and while he is fighting off the inevitable horde that has come for justice, this happens...

Naturally, she reminds him of the slap he gave her and says she doesn't care how long he holds out against his attackers. Because he is Gunnar, and every inch the warrior, he manages to hold out a long time without her help, but, in the end, he is finally killed. The saga doesn't even end there. Other folks enter the story and slay each other; murder, revenge, and various sailing journeys ensue. Vikings will be Vikings, after all.

4. You are crazy cool because you use like 80% renewable energy.

That's 40% more than any other country in the world! In Iceland, only the fishing industry and transportation use traditional fossil fuels.

When do you ever travel to a foreign country and think, the first thing we should do is visit a power plant? Only in Iceland!

that's not smoke - it's steam

The most common bus tours from Reykjavik to tour the countryside actually make stops at one of the two power plants just outside of the city. After our weekend in Reykjavik, we were ready to see the natural sites, so we programmed Garmin for Hellisheiði geothermal power plant. (By the way, I seriously recommend having a Garmin if you're going to drive around in Iceland. The car rental places often have them to rent. It's not that there are so many roads, but half the roads don't really look like real roads so it's very reassuring to have Garmin tell you that you are going the right way. However, as we arrived at Hellisheiði, our Garmin thought that we were nowhere!)

you can go through the interactive tour at their website here

At the power plant, they have a lovely visitor's center with several multimedia, interactive presentations explaining how they drill holes to access hot water resources in the ground. When a hole is made, the pressure and heat causes steam to shoot out of the borehole. They capture the steam and direct it right through turbines, which generate electricity. No burning of anything. No smoke and smog. Just steam. Um, well, steam that smells like a million rotting eggs. You see, the water in the earth is full of all sorts of minerals including sulfur, which smells like rotten eggs. So the area around a power plant is green and lush but reeks of sulfur. Now, the water in your shower and bathroom comes from cool ground water, which is used to cool off the hot turbines. That warms the water and voila, bonus free hot water! And by the time it gets to you, it only smells like a large order of boiled eggs. Hooray. It's a small but stinky price to pay for cheap, clean energy.

The reason why the Icelanders can produce all this cheap energy is because they live over hot spots created by the movement of two of the earth's tectonic plates beneath Iceland. The North American and the Eurasian plates are pulling apart from each other right through the middle of the island.

And anywhere this happens, the movie tells us, these cute little volcanoes form along with magma intrusions into the crust down below. That heats up the water under the earth's surface and all you have to do is build a power plant on a big lava field, drill some holes in the right spots, hold your nose, and run some pipes out to the happy, smiling customers. Well, they understand the details.

5. You are crazy cool because you're always full of surprises.

After visiting the power plant, we ventured out into the Icelandic wilderness. We passed through the rocky lava fields and then the horizon suddenly opened up onto a beautiful, green valley, full of agriculture.

view from the lava fields of the Hellisheiði area down to the plains around the town of Hveragerði

It was very windy up here taking this picture. I had to wear my super touristy Iceland hat. There aren't really trees here, so there's always quite a bit of wind. Just as we were getting used to the lovely, green valley, the landscape quickly changed again and we entered a bushy sort of area, with little houses built low to the ground, as if they were hiding from the wind beneath the bushes. We stopped on a little side road rest area to take this picture.

Then we turned around and noticed a bench behind us facing the other direction.

What could be over there? Oh, this old thing? That's a 6,000 year old volcano crater. Just something we have lying around.

this thing is huge, over 250 feet deep - if you look close, you can see a couple who climbed down to the bottom by the water

Kerið crater is the remnant of one of twelve volcanoes that produced the big lava fields in the area. Most of the remains are low-lying and covered with vegetation now, but this one was just sitting around waiting to be discovered.

And that's what Iceland is like. On the way to see one thing, you find something else just as spectacular. Our first day out in the countryside had us getting out of the car constantly, discovering things, taking pictures, then hopping back and saying, "now, that was something!"

And that's why Iceland is crazy cool.

Stay tuned all this week for more posts about our trip to Iceland!

These are Iceland rocks. They're not even rocks we found at some lava field. These were the regular rocks on the path to the Gulfoss waterfall. They were just lying there looking all normal until we bent down to pick one up and realized how full of holes it was. Hmmm... I guess it is a lava rock after all. Seems like no matter where you go here, you can't escape the fact that you are on a really hot rock.

For example, you could just be driving along the road and then suddenly, whoosh, a geyser erupts!

Okay, I'll admit it: after our trip to the Hellisheiði power plant and our discovery of the Kerið crater, we were on our way to see Geysir, the giant geyser that is the origin of the actual word geyser. When you arrive at Geysir, you park your car in the big lot next to the food and souvenir shop and then cross the street to this:

A huge mass of stinky (remember the sulfur?), steaming earth. It's a whole bunch of little hot springs, all steaming away. Many, like this one called Litli-Geysir, have continuously bubbling water bouncing around in them.

geysir is from the Icelandic for "gush" and litli is pretty much the cutest way of saying "little" I can imagine

Big Geysir actually doesn't erupt anymore on its own. The last time it went off was after an earthquake in the area. (Sometimes they force it to erupt, using some sort of soap solution or something, for national celebrations.) But, luckily for all us tourists, right next to it is Strokkur, which is only half as big as Geysir (but still about the same size as Old Faithful) and erupts every 5 minutes or so. Here it comes now...

And then it is quiet again.

Wanna watch a geyser go off with me?

watching a geyser involves a lot of waiting

The next stop on the Golden Circle tour, just a few kilometers down the road from Geysir, is Gullfoss, or golden falls. (Every tourist to Iceland makes this so-called Golden Circle tour of Geysir, Gullfoss, and Þingvellir, the original site of Iceland's 1,100 year-old parliament. They are all relatively close to one another and also relatively close to Reykjavik. The "golden" in the name is from the falls, Iceland's largest waterfall by volume.) So we're driving along, following signs and Garmin, and we know the falls are coming up soon. But we're still driving in the middle of flat earth, as far as the eye can see. Hubby says, "I don't see how there's gonna be a waterfall here in this area." Then we saw a little side road rest area. After our experience with the Kerið crater, which we discovered by pulling into one of these tiny little parking spots, we thought, what the heck, let's pull over and look around. Sure enough there was a little ridge in the land.

We hiked a little closer.

And a little more.

gasp

All that was running back parallel to the road we'd been driving on! And in the other direction...

There it is! That waterfall must be massive if this is the ravine it feeds into. Sure enough, the actual site did not disappoint.

You tend to lose a sense of scale in pictures of Iceland's landscape. See those people walking along the path to get down to the water. Tiny. And the water? Big. Loud. And once you get down onto the path, wet. Iceland travel tip #2: it does not have to be raining in Iceland for you to need your rain jacket.

Wanna see and hear Iceland's largest waterfall?

You could also climb up to a cliff to get a different view of the falls.

Can we talk about how there are absolutely no ropes up there on that cliff? There weren't any ropes by that gargantuan ravine either. I have to say that I'd enjoy a little more ropes. I pretty much felt like I was gonna die any minute at every one of these sites. But then again, to make it all safe, you'd have to rope off like 90% of Iceland. Travel tip #3: be careful out there, folks, okay?!

Now, remember how I told you that when you're looking at one really amazing thing in Iceland, all you have to do is turn around to see another? Well, when we got to the cliff to look at the falls below, we turned around and saw this.

That there is a full-on, g.d. glacier, people! I guess it can't be all hot on an island called Iceland.

Alright, on to Þingvellir, which is neither steaming water, nor frozen rock, or even an old building with a big museum. It's just a valley where Iceland had its parliament until the the 18th century. I thought this site might end up being a bit anti-climactic after all we'd seen that day. Iceland punished me for this thought by taking us there on a terrifyingly narrow gravel road while simultaneously opening up the heavens with the rain it'd been threatening to dump on us all day.

wanna ride on a gravel road in the rain with me?

This was way more scary than I was able to capture. It was very bumpy, with huge potholes. And we were in the middle of nowhere in a crappy little Chevy Aveo! Hubby was swerving left and right to avoid the potholes and then driving treacherously close to the edge whenever another car appeared. And always, there were crests and sharp curves in the road that you'd have to drive over or around not knowing if another car was coming. (Chances are, in Iceland, there isn't, but still...). The real proof of how scary this ride was, is that my husband was totally loving it! He said it didn't really matter what we ended up seeing, that drive was worth it all on its own. But Iceland still hadn't convinced me, so when we finally arrived, it really started to really pour. And out came the rain gear.

Me, being a trooper

To appreciate this picture, you need to know that I have never owned a rain jacket and I certainly have never even thought about owning rain pants. I am just not a let's-go-out-and-hike-around kind of gal. Don't get me wrong, I would not prefer dresses or heels. Just Merrells. On sidewalks. So this was a big deal for me. But I'd made peace with this possibility, er, probability, long before we came, so I just took a deep breath and slipped on the hideous rain pants. Because visiting Þingvellir - Iceland's first national park - is about walking around. And today, it was about walking around in the pouring rain.

it was so peaceful here - the only sound is hubby taking off his rain pants!

We walked through the massive ravine up to the visitor's center, perched high above the valley. After our walk in the rain and a not so quick trip to the bathroom to struggle with four layers of clothing, the rain stopped (I guess I'd learned my lesson by then) and we could enjoy the spectacular view. What a beautiful setting for a people to meet! Every year, chieftains and farmers would meet here in this valley, where the law speaker would recite the laws of the land (this was before there was writing, so he had to memorize them all), new laws would be made, trials would be heard and reparations or punishments decided and carried out. In fact some of the places on the site are named after the punishments, such as the burning ravine and the drowning pool. Here is the Law Rock, where the law speaker would recite the laws:

The massive rock wall behind him would have carried his voice farther out to the people listening. Very convenient, that rock wall. In fact, that whole ravine that we'd walked through is actually a rift caused by the two tectonic plates separating right here through Þingvellir. There are many rifts and fissures in the land here. They are visible in the zig zag path of the water as well. Because of the shifting of the earth, earthquakes are common here too, along with flooding from Lake Þingvallavatn, Iceland's largest lake, which feeds into the valley. Now it becomes clear why this might not be the best place to have the government. Thus, the move to Reykjavik.

Þingvellir, literally shaped by nature

Do you see that unsightly gravel circle on the right there? That used to lead up to a large red building, which you can see in any postcard you buy of Þingvellir and in pictures in guidebooks (including the one we had from 2009). There was no info in the tiny little info stand about what happened to it. And thus, we were left to solve the mystery of the missing red building ourselves. It seems that it was a hotel. A lot of these sites have a neighboring hotel. There is Hotel Geysir, right across from the steaming hot springs and geysers and right next to the gift shop. And there's a Hotel Gullfoss on the road between Geysir and Gullfoss. The missing red building apparently was Hotel Valhöll, which burned down last fall because of a fire in the kitchen. Hubby solved the mystery by finding this youtube video someone took of the building on fire. No one was seriously hurt so I hope it's okay if I say I kinda think I like the view better without it. If only they could get rid of the driveway!

After enjoying the peace and sublime beauty and power of landscape here, we were ready to return to Reykjavik. It was late! But we brought with us one last mystery to solve from our tour of the Golden Cirlce...

sheep or rocks? there are so many of both here, sometimes it was hard to tell

No, not that. These:

We first spotted these on a hill overlooking Geysir. They are stacks of rocks that look like funny little magical people watching the hot springs from above (they tend to have this irregular, pointy shape that reminds me most of the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter!). There were more at every tourist site, as well as every little roadside stopping point near a view.

These are clearly not the work of Mother Nature. What are they? Who is making these? And why? There was no information at any stop about them, nor was there anything in my guide books about Icelanders making rock stacks. Hubby searched the internet and found that they are cairns - something I've never heard of, but which were used in ancient times to mark paths, landmarks, or burial sites. There is a huge field of them in Iceland at Laufskálavarþa, the site of a 10th century farm destroyed by an early eruption of the volcano, Katla. An info sign there explains that each person passing by is supposed to add a stone for good luck. But it seems that the Icelanders build these rock sculptures everywhere. They greet you at every stop! They are strange and fascinating, familiar and yet other-worldly. Just like Iceland.

Stay tuned for more posts about our trip to Iceland!

Since our first trip out to the Icelandic countryside was so incredible, we couldn't wait to get out the next day and discover more! We decided that we would head south from Reykjavik down the Reykjanes peninsula, "where geology happens." If you fly into Iceland from America on a clear day, you will see the cliffs and the lava fields of the Reykjanes peninsula, as the city of Keflavik, home to Icelandair's main airport, is about halfway down the peninsula. (The name Keflavik, by the way, means driftwood bay. It is one of the places in the world where driftwood is carried by ocean currents and collects. This was a huge help to the Icelandic people, who, as we've seen, do not have too much in the way of trees around.)

you mean there's something here?

Shortly after passing Keflavik, we spotted these info signs, smack dab in the middle of a barren looking ash and lava field. They seemed to indicate that there were bird cliffs at the water's edge. We could see the water on the horizon and the fact that there was another car there, sans people, seemed like a good sign so we thought we'd hike out a bit and see if we could find them. Uh, the birds, that is, not the people. But then again, it'd be nice to see some other people out here - not ever seeing anyone else around makes it all even more weird!

cairns marked a little walking path through the basalt ash

This area was like a twenty minute walk from the car. The water had been obscured by a small rise in the land and we were sure that just over that ridge, we'd find the ocean, some cliffs, something.

But in Iceland, each ridge seems to lead to yet another whole-horizon-filling view of the same thing on the other side. In this flat landscape, there is just no way to tell how far away something really is. Without trees for scale, everything seems both closer and farther away. So, having absolutely no clue how far away the water was or even which direction was the best to go, we turned around at the enormous cairn you see there, added a rock of our own, and headed back to the car.

Back by the car, we found Uranus.

I KNEW we were on another planet!

Hubby speculated that the metal model was done at some specific scale and that the other planets were scattered around somewhere at the appropriate distance from each other, based on that same scale. Pleased to have found anything besides more lava and ash, we were eager to search for the other planets on our trip down the peninsula.

Our next stop was a planned one, the Bridge Across the Continents.

This little bridge is built across a, for Iceland, rather shallow ravine that marks a spot where the North American and the European continental plates are pulling apart at a rate of about 2cm (1 in) per year.

This rift here is not unusual (the plates are pulling apart right through the middle of the entire island - recall the giant ravine at Þingvellir). The only thing special about this place is that they've built a bridge here and put up a cute sign.

Because hubby and I are from these two different continents, we were suckers for this cheesy little sign and this quaint little bridge.

We continued down the same road in search of a lighthouse at the very tip of the peninsula (the site of Iceland's very first lighthouse built around the time of the American Revolution). A short way down from the bridge, we spotted... Saturn!

The landscape along the road had been becoming gradually harsher, with less moss, less ash and more and larger lava rocks. Saturn seemed to be right at a transition spot, with a small pond on one side in the still ashy ground and the beginnings of a darker, more ominous looking lava field on the left. This is so cool! It's like space exploration! But the best was yet to come.

now that looks positively extraterrestrial

Ju-pi-freaking-ter! We HAD to get out and climb around on this lava field. It was awesome. We walked out to the mound there on the left, which was a sort of crater with red and black rocks and even some green mossy patches within. We stopped there to take in the whole view, from the lighter lava fields we'd seen before, to the little pond by Saturn, then the ocean (that beautiful blue water looks so out of place in a landscape like this!) and finally back over the black Jovian lava field to the car, where we actually spotted another car driving on the road. More intergalactic travelers!

wanna visit Jupiter with me?

We picked up a little lava rock for each of the kids (one look at those and the photos we showed them of the geyser and they can't wait to come to Iceland!) and off we went to find the lighthouse and the view my guidebook promised us at the tip of the peninsula.

Okay, again, you just can't get a sense of how big this is! The large cliff there, which is called "Karl" or man, is over 150 feet high above the ocean. There is actually a tiny dot/person up there on the far left! Hubby was very excited to go up it. I, however, am mega scared of heights, so I only went halfway and photographed him from there.

It was so windy, I was sure I'd be blown to sea. Especially when hubby convinced me to go up the neighboring cliff, which although just as high, was much much wider so you weren't always at the cliff's edge. I had to sit down at the top and do calming breathing exercises, while hubby made a video of the view for me to look at later.

What a lovely view I missed: the lighthouse (rebuilt around 1900); some nearby steaming hot springs (back to these later); the ocean (which was crashing 100 feet below us); then way in the distance in the water, the cliff island of Eldey which is a massive bird refuge and was the home of the last of the Great Auks before they were killed off in the 1800's; then the lava fields behind us, which naturally include a power plant (where there is lava and hot springs, there is heat!); and finally the lighthouse again. We were so freaking high that the entire parking area, including a couple of tourist buses, was totally obscured by the cliff. I didn't look at anything but the grass until we were back down and finally looked up to see this at the bottom.

how appropriate: I was sure I was gonna die up there!

And then I felt an intense need to add a rock to a nearby cairn to thank the little rock people who looked over me while I was up there.

On our drive back along the crazy gravel road out to the lighthouse, we found ourselves at another hot springs area.

These hot springs areas all have this same look: mounds of red/white ground, discolored by all the minerals being released from beneath the earth's surface. Minerals like that stinky sulfur, which this place seriously reeked of. These rocks were super steamy and the wind was causing all the stinky steam to blow over one of the viewing bridges. Hubby said he wanted to go further and walked right off into the steam. He emerged again after a minute and told me I HAD to see. So I took one last deep breath of only seriously stinky air, pressed record on the camera and went to discover what was on the other side. Come see. I promise it will be worth it!

want to discover hot mud springs with me?

Boiling earth beneath you. Now, that is something! As amazing as it was, however, we had to get back in the car and get out of that air. We followed the narrow road some more and it led us straight past the power plant and to Earth.

Stop! It's another planet!

With Earth so small, we figured the other planets of the inner solar system must be very near. We walked back toward the power plant and there was Venus right at the entrance.

And just a lava rock's throw away in the other direction was Mars.

awesome Mars-scape

We never found Mercury or the sun. We wondered if maybe Mercury had been moved for the building of the power plant. Or perhaps, all these planets were leading up to the power plant and it was the sun. We didn't stop any longer to find out (after all this space travel, we were eager to make it to our final destination of the day!), but later research revealed that it was all part of an exhibit about the Big Bang and the power and energy of the Earth at the Reykjanesvirkjun power plant. The planets outside are a game set up in connection with that exhibit. Having missed the Sun, Mercury, Neptune and possibly Pluto, I'd say, we lost. But we had fun playing! And it got us out out of our car and into the crazy landscape over and over, which was a fascinating and surreal experience.

But now we were ready to relax! And how do you relax in Iceland? In a geothermal pool, of course. And if you are on the Reykjanes peninsula, you go to THE geothermal pool known the world-round, the Blue Lagoon. Which is literally a pool in the middle of a lava field.

want to drive through a lavascape to the blue lagoon?

They know how to make a dramatic entrance here! You walk down a path between massive rock walls.

And then you get your first glimpse of the water, which was originally formed from runoff water from the nearby power plant.

This water is kind of all over this area, forming this little pool in front of the building and even running up to the street. The swimming facilities are on the other side all separated off and made fancy and fabulous, but it's the same water. This light blue, opaque water, full of minerals, algae and silica, which is supposed to be v. good for your skin.

The pool is mahvelous, dahling. (And it should be for an entrance fee of 30 Euros a person.) The facilities are gorgeous and the water is divine. It's natural seawater heated in the Earth and then pumped over here at a heavenly temperature of about 37-39 C or 99-102 F.

There is a bar in the pool, where you can order sparkling wine or a blue lagoon cocktail (which I did, of course). They have a clever little system that allows you to charge your drinks (or snacks at an indoor cafe) to a wristband that you can wear in the water. You pay after you get changed and leave.

We didn't ever want to leave. We stayed at the Blue Lagoon for four hours until it closed at 9pm. We missed dinner, but we didn't care. It was so amazing relaxing in such heavenly water surrounded by such an out of this world landscape that you just never wanted to get out.

So I guess what I'm saying is, life on Mars is pretty good.

Stay tuned for even more posts about our trip to Iceland!