Iceland 1 – Where’s The Ice?

We arrived in Iceland a couple days ago, expecting freezing weather and ice everywhere.  Instead we find 50 deg weather and rain.  The only ice in sight it at the top of that mountain in the background here — and most of that was gone by our third day.  Though the temperature is warm, it is raining with a very strong cold wind, and the chill factor makes it feel like 22.  We are dressed warmly, but my face feels like it is freezing off whenever we walk around Reykjavík and face into the wind.

The language here is pretty much unpronounceable.  Even when someone says the name to me, I have no idea what I am looking for.  If it is written down, I can then find a matching sign somewhere, but the text does not match the sound, and the names for most places are really long! We later discovered that the words are often compound, where Icelanders combine 2 or more basic words into a single word, with no spaces. That makes the word seem even longer.

Fortunately, everyone here even vaguely related to tourism speaks fluent English, so the language is only an issue when trying to find places. Everyone is friendly, and efficient.  We first saw that coming off the plane in Reykjavík. The luggage was on the baggage conveyer by the time we reached it, we were waved through immigration with a quick stamp in our passport, and there was nobody in Customs to even talk to.  That was the fastest I have ever gotten from an international airplane to the bus into town.

The days are short here in November, with only 6-1/2 hours of daylight (9:45AM to 4:15PM), but you can add half an hour of twilight to that. In February, it gets down to only 3 hours of daylight, and in July reaches 21 hours, so the length of day changes rapidly this far north.

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