Did you know it's called "Iceland" because it's how the old Norse pronounced "Island"
I can't believe how long I've put this off. Every single time there's a big gap between posting I keep thinking--nah I'll just wait until I have something to Actually Say, and inevitably as soon as I open the post entry tab I have FAR TOO MUCH to say and I put it off some more. *facepalm mcfacepalm*
SO ICELAND
I will do up more about Iceland (I swear, I promise, if I don't tell you the porridge story tomorrow feel free to kick me in the face) but for now, here are a handful of random (lj exclusive!) pics:
They built this church out of concrete to resemble the basalt columns (*hands*)--also the dude is...Leif Erikson? I want to say? Okay you try keeping all the names straight. What I do know is that he (the statue) was a present from ~America~ like how the French gave us the Statue of Liberty. Ours is...slightly smaller, you will notice.
View from the top of the church--beautiful Reykjavik! Guys we got to our hotel at 6AM and they wouldn't let us check in until 2PM, we were awake 24 continuous hours. After this church we went to The Volcano House and watched movies about volcanoes and I was so exhausted I started hallucinating weird shit into the narrative and startled myself awake.
PENIS MUSEUM!! I have more photographs of this place if you guys are interested in seeing them--I didn't want to overwhelm you. Pretty sure this is from a whale.
(Th)ingvellir! Where the tectonic plates are slowly stretching apart. Iceland gets bigger by 1-2 cm every year. One day it will TAKE OVER THE WORLD.
This is volcano that has turned into a lake. Bjork did a floating concert in the middle. I heard some idiot introduced fish to it.
GEYSER. THE WORD ICELAND GAVE TO THE WORLD! Though they do pronounce it "Gay-Sir" so.
Freaking magical rainbow destiny. Iceland, what even are you?
These are just from the first couple days--I don't want to crush you (or me) under the weight of it all at once.
Overall the trip was really good. turns out we came to Iceland at kind of a weird time? Four years ago their banks failed just like ours, but instead of bailing the banks out they sent all the bankers to jail, and did a massive overhaul of the government. I do mean massive--if you had ever held public office in your life you were no longer eligible to run. It got rid of the corruption, and Iceland is actually starting to bounce back economically. But there were still a lot of Icelanders who bailed and moved away. Now there are only about 300,000 people who live in Iceland year round.
ALSO! There's a certain amount of 'rudeness' that's just a cultural thing, apparently, not necessarily because you've done something that deserves someone being rude to you. (Though oh my god, the other American tourists we ran into made me want to claw my face off, jfc.) Largely the people who were handling the one-on-one touristy things were wonderfully smiley and friendly, but (might be a Scandinavian thing) the general attitude is one of "Well you aren't going to be here for very long, why should I make the effort of being friendly?" It's nothing personal, they just have other things to do.
Which--wow, once we found this out (late in the game) it was like a big freaking weight off my chest. I mean, obviously OBVIOUSLY sweeping generalizations like this are not totally accurate, but my family and I are--not to sound braggy, but we're a GOOD tourist family. Not loud or demanding, seriously easy-going friendly people who like puns to an unreasonable degree. And for a while there I was carrying a big lump in my stomach wondering what we were doing wrong.
And part of it was just me stressing because I planned so much of this trip, it felt like it was on me that everyone had a good time. Which they did!
...look how I said I wasn't going to info dump on you. oops.
So--just real quick, if you've read all of that and aren't sick of me yet--yesterday I went to the local sex shop and bought a thing. A dildo. That vibrates. Unfortunately, I........it's bigger than I thought it was? Even though I could see it clearly in the packaging (which has a pic of a naked chick on it, wtf, why) I thought it wasn't much bigger than what I usually use? And it is. At least twice as big.
In my defense, it looked on the smallish side of average compared to the rest of them in the shop.
But now I'm thinking in order to make this work I'm going to need to invest in some lube, which is...not something I have much experience with, actually! So I come to you, my lj friends--what do you recommend?
SO ICELAND
I will do up more about Iceland (I swear, I promise, if I don't tell you the porridge story tomorrow feel free to kick me in the face) but for now, here are a handful of random (lj exclusive!) pics:
They built this church out of concrete to resemble the basalt columns (*hands*)--also the dude is...Leif Erikson? I want to say? Okay you try keeping all the names straight. What I do know is that he (the statue) was a present from ~America~ like how the French gave us the Statue of Liberty. Ours is...slightly smaller, you will notice.
View from the top of the church--beautiful Reykjavik! Guys we got to our hotel at 6AM and they wouldn't let us check in until 2PM, we were awake 24 continuous hours. After this church we went to The Volcano House and watched movies about volcanoes and I was so exhausted I started hallucinating weird shit into the narrative and startled myself awake.
PENIS MUSEUM!! I have more photographs of this place if you guys are interested in seeing them--I didn't want to overwhelm you. Pretty sure this is from a whale.
(Th)ingvellir! Where the tectonic plates are slowly stretching apart. Iceland gets bigger by 1-2 cm every year. One day it will TAKE OVER THE WORLD.
This is volcano that has turned into a lake. Bjork did a floating concert in the middle. I heard some idiot introduced fish to it.
GEYSER. THE WORD ICELAND GAVE TO THE WORLD! Though they do pronounce it "Gay-Sir" so.
Freaking magical rainbow destiny. Iceland, what even are you?
These are just from the first couple days--I don't want to crush you (or me) under the weight of it all at once.
Overall the trip was really good. turns out we came to Iceland at kind of a weird time? Four years ago their banks failed just like ours, but instead of bailing the banks out they sent all the bankers to jail, and did a massive overhaul of the government. I do mean massive--if you had ever held public office in your life you were no longer eligible to run. It got rid of the corruption, and Iceland is actually starting to bounce back economically. But there were still a lot of Icelanders who bailed and moved away. Now there are only about 300,000 people who live in Iceland year round.
ALSO! There's a certain amount of 'rudeness' that's just a cultural thing, apparently, not necessarily because you've done something that deserves someone being rude to you. (Though oh my god, the other American tourists we ran into made me want to claw my face off, jfc.) Largely the people who were handling the one-on-one touristy things were wonderfully smiley and friendly, but (might be a Scandinavian thing) the general attitude is one of "Well you aren't going to be here for very long, why should I make the effort of being friendly?" It's nothing personal, they just have other things to do.
Which--wow, once we found this out (late in the game) it was like a big freaking weight off my chest. I mean, obviously OBVIOUSLY sweeping generalizations like this are not totally accurate, but my family and I are--not to sound braggy, but we're a GOOD tourist family. Not loud or demanding, seriously easy-going friendly people who like puns to an unreasonable degree. And for a while there I was carrying a big lump in my stomach wondering what we were doing wrong.
And part of it was just me stressing because I planned so much of this trip, it felt like it was on me that everyone had a good time. Which they did!
...look how I said I wasn't going to info dump on you. oops.
So--just real quick, if you've read all of that and aren't sick of me yet--yesterday I went to the local sex shop and bought a thing. A dildo. That vibrates. Unfortunately, I........it's bigger than I thought it was? Even though I could see it clearly in the packaging (which has a pic of a naked chick on it, wtf, why) I thought it wasn't much bigger than what I usually use? And it is. At least twice as big.
In my defense, it looked on the smallish side of average compared to the rest of them in the shop.
But now I'm thinking in order to make this work I'm going to need to invest in some lube, which is...not something I have much experience with, actually! So I come to you, my lj friends--what do you recommend?