6/7/09
Ozan had the car because he was staying with a host in Hafnarfjörður and came to pick me up around 8:50AM. It was a struggle getting up because I went to bed around 1:30 or 2-ish the night before because the day had been so..exhilarating. Apparently Ozan went to the club where his Couchsurfing host bartends, Barbara. I had always thought that place was where a prostitute worked, but apparently it's a gay club. Oops.

Ozan and Flo both smoked. Flo rolled her own cigarettes. Alex smoked on occasion. Sadly, Ozan still hiked faster than I did. That's how out of shape I am. Great.

Got to the hostel and went to the kitchen with Alex to scope out the free food selection. Flo texted Ozan saying she would be ready at 9:40, even though we had planned to leave around 9. Janez had been camping outside at the same hostel, so he just walked over to the kitchen. Apparently he BIKED all the way around the Golden Circle...the whole distance we drove. That's intense. ahaha. Went to pick up Flo, who lives in the colorful yellow house on Laugavegur. We set off around 10-ish, I suppose.

Stopped at a Kronan in Selfoss to buy some groceries. I found that Goji berry juice that Elfa brought to Borgarnes, so I was all over that. We also got red berry and blueberry juices. By this time it was 11-ish, so we ate some in the parking lot and on the way there. Janez said that when they got really drunk at his dorm, they would make a huge pot of pasta, dump it on the table, and eat it with their hands. I found this hilarious.

It was probably about a 5 hour drive from Reykjavik to Jökulsárlón, the glacial lake off of Vatnajökull. Alex, Flo, and I alternated between sitting in the middle seat. Alex showed me some her photos from her hikes around Canada and other places. The landscape was really bizarre. We stopped at Vik and a glacier or two on the way there. There were huge stretches of just very lumpy mossy/licheny rocks. Then lots of lupine. Then just black sand.

Jökulsárlón was different from what I had expected but still beautiful. If it had been sunnier though, I bet we could've seen the reflection of the glaciers in the water, which would have been amazing. We saw a couple of seals, which were adorable, just swimming along. The peacefulness was disturbed by a TON of loud, squawking birds. We just stood there for a while and looked at it. There were amphibious boat rides, but we opted not to do it because it was 4, and we still had many more stops to go. Ozan drove all the way there, and Janez drove back. He was used to stick shift, so he kept wanting to change gears and stuff. ahaha. I think everyone was a bit tired on the way Skaftafell and nodded off a bit, especially Alex though. Drove up a super windy road to get to the parking lot for the trail. (There was a guesthouse or something..Bodin, but we parked there anyway). But then we had to go back down so Janez could make his pasta. It was actually quite good..spaghetti bolognese? He had these cute little plastic utensils that were a knife, fork, and spoon all in one. We sat around by this nice camping site for a bit while he made the pasta. He had a bunch of Slovenia travel brochures that we looked through. Alex was planning on traveling through Europe for the next month or so and was interested in going through Slovenia.

Drove back up the windy road to go on the hiking trail to Svartifoss. It was only 0.7 km there, and the walk was much, much easier than the hike at Hveragerdi. There were a bunch of steps though, and I accidentally tripped on one. It was pretty embarrasing, and I still have a VERY nasty bruise as a result. Svartifoss was pretty cool, and there was this little bridge right in front of it, so we sat there for a bit. It started drizzling, and a bunch more people started showing up.

I got to ride shotgun for the first time because Ozan wanted to sit in the back for some reason. So I asked Janez a bajillion questions about Slovenia. Apparently his friend was at a Killers concert? It was kind of hard to understand him sometimes, but it was pretty cool...learned more about Slovenia than I even thought I'd know. And he played some Slovenian music on his phone too. Ozan and Alex looked at all the pictures I had taken on my camera. Looking back on the hot spring photos, Ozan's face is BRIGHT red, and the rest of him is super pale, which I found HILARIOUS. Gosh.

We got to Skogafoss, got out and snapped a few pictures. There were stairs by the side where you could actually walk up to the top, but we didn't have time. Then we went to Seljalandsfoss, which was pretty amazing. The sun was sort of setting, and you could walk behind the falls. It was kind of hard getting back there because there weren't really steps, just a bunch of rocks. I got soaked getting back there, and my camera got quite wet too. Ozan had to help me get down from the other side because there wasn't really anything to hold onto. I was the only one who got completely soaked somehow..ahaha.

The radio station we listened to (well, two of them) played such a random assortment of songs. One played European and American pop songs and the other played 90s music. They played a bunch of songs from Eurovision. As crappy as they, I'm kind of addicted to them. Ozan and Janez both seemed really enamored with the Icelandic contestant, Yohanna. She's pretty, but not "SO BEAUTIFUL" in my opinion. ahaha. Ozan made fun of the Norwegian winner's song because it didn't make sense. I thought his singing and lyrics were crappy, but the violin part is catchy as hell. We heard it on the radio many times, and deemed it the song of the trip.

The way back was pretty sleepy. On the way back, I was starving the whole time. I ate pretty much a whole loaf of marble cake that I had brought. ahaha. We got back to Reykjavik around 1. It was still pretty bright out. We saw these clouds there were so low, they looked like they were actually touching this lake.

We had to stop by a gas station to figure out payment. Somehow it all worked out in the end. Then we went to Hafnarfjordur to drop off Ozan. Dropped off Flo. While we were stopped at a red light to drop me off, Janez put the car in park. I was like..you don't have to do that with automatic cars..ahaha. It was sad saying bye. Although I didn't like the whole long car ride part, I didn't want the day to end. :( Didn't get back until almost 2 AM.

6/8/09
I did literally nothing. I went to class. Chilled and somehow talked to John on Skype for two hours. Got chicken Pad Thai from Nudluhusid for dinner.

6/9/09
Talked to Ed on facebook in the morning. Went to the library, but didn't get all that much reading done. I was texting Flo and Joao about the trip. I ended up deciding not to go last minute because apparently I would be the only girl on the trip and felt kind of uncomfortable about it.

Went to Bonus. Bought more than I had wanted..again. Saw the hottest guy...had an AMAZING jawline and some scruff and was wearing a long black coat. Guh.

Flo texted me and said she was meeting Joao at Cafe Paris, so I went to meet them. It was awkward because I couldn't find them at first, so I just stood there looking around...ahaha. Apparently Flo went whale-watching with Ozan on Monday and went to the Blue Lagoon with Joao today. I wish I could've gone. I got these Icelandic pancakes, which were pretty crappy. They were filled with sugar and didn't have any whipped cream in them. Around 10:40, we left Cafe Paris, and I took them to the harbor to show them the Viking boat statue since Joao said he had wanted to see it. The sun was setting, and it was really pretty.

6/10/09
Went to class. Ate potato chips during the coffee break for breakfast. I told Akiko that I had always wanted to eat at Sandholt bakery, and she suggested that we get lunch there tomorrow.

Came back. Ate lunch (fried chicken patty, mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli, feta cheese). Was exhausted so took a nap from 1-2. Walked over to go to the Hidden World tour, but the guide never showed up. I talked to this German couple (?), who were very nice and had been all over Iceland. While I was talking to them, I saw Flo walk by and talked to her for a bit. Funny how I keep bumping into the few people I know here in Reykjavik...Apparently she's heard of Chapel Hill because there's some French exchange thing with them, and she knew Maya Angelou taught at Wake! Although she didn't know the name and thought it was in Durham. I was pretty impressed. After we were told the tour guide wasn't coming (30 minutes after the tour was due to start), I decided to go to the library. Saw Flo again. Went to the tourist information center to grab a few more maps. Chilled at the library. Came back and ate dinner. (seasoned chicken..thigh?, broccoli, hot dog, mashed potatoes and gravy). And now I'm being pretty useless...ahaha.

So far, I have met people from Iceland (duh), North Carolina (not a country but thought it was worth mentioning), Spain, Canada, Turkey, Sweden, Slovenia, France, Portugal, Denmark, Hungary, Norway, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia (soon), England, Wales, Colombia, Cuba, Thailand, Japan, Vietnam, Israel. For such a homogenous country, I somehow managed to scope out all the international people...ahaha.