Iceland is COOL

First things first, it's not actually THAT cold here right now. Today was quite warm, and I walked around in a t-shirt, only time I had to put on my fleece was when I hit a big shadey area.

Second, you have to excuse anything in this e-mail that is mispelled or doesn't make any sense. There is a very good reason for this. Contrary to the time of the post you see, which is NY time, it's actually 10:30pm (22:30) right now. And in the past 4 days, I have gotten the cumulative sleep of about 14 and a half hours.

I am dog tired. I was alone for most of the day today. While the other 5 members of the crew visited the large Gulfoss Falls and the Strokkur Geyser and a Lobster restaurant, I was boarding a single prop plane with just me and the pilot this morning at 10am. I wore the headset and everything. He steared the plane with PEDALS! The width of the plane was the width of my shoulders and his, so like, 6-7 feet. We did gain an extra bit of room when I was hanging out the window with the camera, which was for about 1 hour and 15mins of the 1 hour 40min flight. It was only supposed to be an hour, but I conned the pilot, Johanis, to squeeze some extra out of it. He was a really nice guy. He even let me tell him what to do, so if I wanted more in a shot, or to get something again, I could just ask him to bank left, or to do a circle. Go lower, go higher, that kind of thing. Iceland is a beautiful place, that's for sure. I would say to see the country like that, in a small plane is a must if you visit. It was well worth the 25,000 Kronurs. That's about $388 USD.

So that was probably the most awesome thing I have done in my life, to date. The rest of the day I just drove around Reykjavik, to get a feel for the city. It's a holiday today and tomorrow, so all the shops were closed, only restaurants, bars, and ice cream places were open. And EVERYONE was having Ice Cream (wierd!)

After driving around and filming another 30 mins of B-roll footage of stuff, I headed back to our hotel to get some dinner. The Nordica Hotel, where we are staying is really posh. I finegeled the hotel to include Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner on them for all of us, as well as single rooms for everyone. The dinner is Pre-fix for us because of that, so I just walk in, sit down, and they put food in front of me. Yesterday I was so tired, I had no appetite, so the meal went to waste. TODAY however, I was famished. I had some kind of salad with cheese on it (their salads are really salty) and then the entree.....cod....over mashed potatoes.......with.........MUSHROOMS!!! Most of you know, that I don't do the shroomies. They are a fungus and grow in poop, and have a weird texture and smell. But today my friends, today, I ate them. They were just regular "button" mushrooms, says the waiter, whatever THAT means. I think it was the cream and mushroom sauce that made them so good. I only ate them out of politeness, but instantly realized I wasn't hating it when they were all gone.

Then I had desert, a chocolate mouse with fresh blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, and Iceland raspberries (which were tart and looked like cherries the size of peas, but a few on a branch.)

I had three cups of coffee in the space of about 10mins.

Then I fell asleep. Right there at the table, sitting up, with my pen in my right hand, my left forearm over my trusty journal, and my left hand still grasping the coffee cup.....for about 30 mins!!! I was a bit embarrased when I came to and the waiter's were looking at me from across the room. Not making fun of me or anything, I think they were just amazed I fell asleep like that.

Ok......so the quick blog turned into my whole entire day, but that's ok. I can't wait to come back and post some photo's up. And tomorrow id our trip to Hofn, to go snowmobiling on glaciers and look at Icebergs in a lagoon. Should get some nice shots there.

It's 23:54 (11:54pm) and it's still light out, and then the sun wil be rising in about 3 hours, so......I guess I should get some sleep....or something......I'm not sure. But it sounds reasonable.