Annie's first post, at long last!

  It sure has been an exciting few days since leaving Denver on Saturday, 8/3 - our adventure has truly begun. Dad/Steven already talked about our first day's hiccups which truly worked very well in the end.  It would have been way too much in hindsight to go straight from the plane to the all day tour Golden Circle tour as we had planned months ago.  

Monday morning, the 4th, on the Golden Circle tour with Iceland Excursions /Graylines and I realized about 2 hours in I had left my new very small purse bought for the trip from Day Makers of Santa Barbara, complete with cables in the strap to prevent thieves from cutting through them, was MIA back in the common area at the apt where we were staying with three other couples.  Of course my purse had all my credit and debit cards, my driver's license, my new lipstick for the trip and all the other stuff found in a woman's purse. Thank goodness though, I had my passport in my suitcase so it wasn't nearly as critical as it could have been.  But to have lost/had stolen all that on our second day on our three month trip was a tad tough!

To make a long story short, after many hours on the computer and calling banks at no charge to us at the Graylines office the upshot is that last night Reykjavik time, I ordered new credit cards from one bank to be FedExed to Tallinn, our next stop on the trip.  There were no suspicious charges made yet but we couldn't take the chance that down the road the stolen cards might be used.  Had to make sure too that Zachary would be sent a new card as that's his go to card for his almost daily trips to Mickey D's and other fast food outlets while we're gone; and that our Auto Pay bill feature would still work even though we're getting a new credit card, etc.  Lots of things to think about when you lose a purse.  Probably what I'm most concerned with losing are my 5 pairs of small gold hoop earrings I had brought on the trip as one of them was a pair I had given my mum many eons ago for Christmas. Plus a snazzy red coin purse Alexander had bought me for the trip  in San Francisco's Chinatown when Zachary was out visiting him in April.  Sorry about that, bud.  I'll look for a new one in Beijing or Xian and think of you then.

We're still using our backup card as we needed one credit card moving on but checking that account online when our computer works which is another story altogether.

So, on to my impressions of Iceland which is what you really want to know, I am sure.  Went on three great tours while in Reykjavik, all with Graylines.  Glad we did that as we were able to see a fair amount of the island in our short time there.  

• the country's population is 620,000, 60% of which lives in the capital area;
• many/most of the homes in the capital are wood but covered with corrugated metal siding b/c of the fierce winds and rains;
• if you see someone using an umbrella in Iceland (or Island in Icelandic) you know for sure it's a foreigner b/c the rain comes at you sideways and umbrellas are no good!
• the homes in the capital are all heated with hot water that comes from the many geothermal plants not far from the city that transport the hot water in massive pipes; the water only loses 2 degrees of heat from the plants to the homes;
• this was an abnormally chilly summer with temps about 11 degree celsius; they have mild winters with the Jan/Feb average about 0;
• very little in the way of what we would call forests throughout Iceland - the local joke is if you get lost in the forest, stand up!
• remember seeing the big bales of hay all covered in white plastic in farming communities?  In Iceland, they're jokingly referred to as "marshmallows" and trolls come out at night and eat them!
• recent DNA studies have shown that Icelandic men came from Norway and that 50% of the women were kidnapped from the British Isles, mainly Ireland;
• took a bus to the southern coast, then a ferry over to theWestman Islands, a boat ride around some of the islands to see the massive rock formations and the largest puffin colony in the world, whales etc; the boat captain even played his sax in one of the caves he maneuvered the boat through which I had read about on Trip Advisor;
• no nation on earth loves fireworks more - we were told that 400-500 tons are used every year in Reykjavik alone every New Year's Eve!
• you can play golf on the main Westman Island 300 days of the year; after the 1973 volcano when about 400 homes on the island of Heimeney were destroyed and homes were rebuilt very close to the water, so close in fact that when the winds and rain are strong the story is that people can into their back gardens and catch fish!
• went to the fabled Blue Lagoon y'day - so glad we went even though it seemed expensive at $60 each for the admission; had read to put on plenty of hair conditioner first and thank goodness we did as our hair and Steven's beard still felt like brillo pads afterwards; loved the waterfall feature as it felt like I were having a massage with small rocks pounding on my head and back; worth paying the $60 for that and the free silica mud we got from poolside 5 gallon paint buckets and lathered on our faces; water color was a very pale robin's egg blue; you can't see your hand more than a few inches under water;
• loved seeing some of the small native horses, only 80,000 in the entire country; the horse always turn their backs to the wind so we saw plenty of horses's asses!
• a bit of Americana for you - Quizno's (from Denver of course) just opened up in Iceland BUT the country is also known for being the only one in the world where McDonald's went bankrupt!

That's finally it for my first blog post - need to go out and see a bit of Helsinki now and get a bite to eat as it's about 7:30 pm local time and we've been up since 3:30 R. time!  Love to all.  

P.S. Would sure love to hear from you as we miss you all so much!