The Land of Fire and Ice: It's February Already?

But really, it's February already? It seems impossible that a month has already gone by since I flew to Iceland; time flies when you're surrounded by beautiful landscape. This week has once again been rainy, though we also received a day or two of snow. When it snows here, it really snows, yet it has been melting very quickly as well. Nothing monumental to report in the area of school... classes continue as usual. We do, however, have our first field trip tomorrow in Icelandic Nature and Culture Legacy! On Tuesday Sierra and Laura, my two Canadian housemates, and I went on a walk by the sea. It was a beautiful sight to say the least. By the time we left the sun was setting behind the mountains. Michigan has beautiful sunsets, but there is something about the sun setting behind the grandeur of these mountains. When the weekend rolled around we were debating whether or not to go on the excursion we planned for Saturday because of potential bad whether that had been forecasted. In my mind, if we waited for perfect weather every weekend we wanted to explore Iceland, we would never leave the city. Much to my excitement, we decided to go on our journey! The plan was to drive along the southern coast of Iceland and stop at multiple (about seven) points along the way. Surprisingly, we made it to most of them within the 7 hours of daylight we had. The first two stops we made were waterfalls, Seljalandsfoss and Skógarfoss. Seljalandsfoss is a magnificent waterfall that has a path leading behind it enabling tourists such as myself to see it's beauty from a completely different view. We were soaking wet by the end, though completely okay with it. At Skógarfoss we had the option of climbing at least a millions stairs to go around and above the waterfall, and hike around high up above the fields below. The view was absolutely breathtaking. The third stop on our journey was a small peninsula called Dyrholaey. Driving out to the peninsula we had to cross a road that had sea on either side of it. I'm not talking about a bridge, I mean water right on either side. The sea was literally blowing over our car as we drove. When we reached a place to park we could barley open our doors due to the tremendously strong wind. The sight from the edge of the cliff was picture perfect. Black beaches surrounded the peninsula and the waves were some of the most powerful I have ever seen. It very well may be my favorite place in Iceland thus far. The power and beauty of the nature was far beyond anything I have ever experienced. We continued on to stop at a town called Vik where we witnessed the beautiful black beaches first hand. It was a quick trip though because the strong wind made the sand fly painfully at our hands and faces. The last stop we were able to get out and explore was the lava fields in the city of Eldhraun. Sounds like it's straight out of Lord of the Rings, doesn't it? Though lava and volcanoes in general are not my favorite subject right now, these were pretty amazing to walk, or I should say hop, around. It was a field of large lava formations all covered in thick, fuzzy moss. As one of my housemates stated "it's like a soft playground!", and that it was. We decided that was a place to go back to when it was warmer so we could lay on the moss as long as we'd please. Now on to the first week of February!