ÍS: Dynjandi Waterfall

 Dynjandi (aka Fjallfoss) is one of the most popular sites in the Westfjords. A few hours drive from Ísafjörður, it is a set of waterfalls, the crown glory of which is the largest in the Westfjords. The largest of the falls thunders down steps in the mountain created in the Ice Age. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t get a photo that really showed how enormous this waterfall is, even when I used my mom as a scale prop. Although a photo from my visit in August 2013 gives a good idea. We just stopped for a quick visit, but there is a lovely campground area at the base of the falls with water and toilets, if you fancy falling asleep to the sounds of glacial water rushing over a towering cliff.

    [35mm taken with my Canon EOS Rebel 2000. Click here for more pictures from my June Ring Road trip around Iceland]

Exploring the Westfjords: Dynjandi and Látrabjarg

I spent my first three weeks in Iceland (in August) up in the beautiful Ísafjörður for an Icelandic language course.  One  weekend while I was there,  several friends from the course and I rented a car to drive around the western half of the Westfjords. We left at 10am and didn’t return until almost midnight. We started with a visit to Dynjandi, the largest of a stunning series of waterfalls:

Dynjandi

We stopped at a heitur potter (a geothermal hot spring) overlooking a fjord, and went for a swim.

We drove winding roads around gorgeous fjords, stopping in Bíldudalur (population 166) for fish and chips on our way to Látrabjarg. Látrabjarg is the westernmost point in Iceland and, depending on whether or not you count some islands off Portugal, the westernmost point in Europe. In the summer, it’s where you can see a large puffin population nesting among wildflowers growing inexplicably along the edge of breathtaking cliffs.

Látrabjarg

We walked along the cliffs till the edge tilted upwards like the rim of a bowl, laid down at the edge, stared down at the birds circling, watched the waves crashing, wiped the cold rain from our eyes so we could better see the cold Atlantic, and talked about where in the world we could go next. It was overcast and wet, but the sun managed to push through the cloud cover as it set, flickering gold on the water. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

Látrabjarg

Photo by Heather Luther (this is one of the actual puffins we saw up close)

At the end of the day, we drove back to Ísafjörður. Everyone was quiet and those in the backseat were nodding off to sleep. The high beams bounced off the little stakes on the side of the road for several kilometers ahead, outlining the curves of the road with what looked like little lanterns, uninterrupted except for the occasional green eyes of a sheep standing by the road. As we were making our way around a large fjord, the clouds shifted, and a full moon beam shone down on the deep, cold blue.

Hiking to the Troll Seat

About an hour’s walk from Ísafjörður, there is a path up Ernir Mountain to a “troll seat. ” A troll seat is a large depression in the mountain where a troll obviously sat down to rest. We made the short, but steep walk up the mountain last week. The guestbook bolted to a large rock said it was 225 meters high. The view of  Ísafjörður from the top was amazing. It took us about an hour to walk up and 30 minutes to walk down.

Good Morning Iceland.

Good morning mountains. Good morning sunshine. Good morning fjord. Good morning Iceland. How do you manage to be so beautiful first thing in the morning?

I am about to head off to my first Icelandic church service. I won’t understand the words, but I look forward to be in a body of believers worshiping God. I noticed yesterday that this land is a perfect place to read the epic poetry of the Old Testament. Where better to be when the prophets and poets start talking about fire shaking the mountains etc etc. Iceland is a whole new world for me, but God was already here. He took the time to make things grow and move on this big rock long before humans got the chance to marvel at it’s beauty.

 

(Video via the wonderful Inspired By Iceland)

A Little Poem about Ísafjörður

 

There is a reason Iceland’s poet per capita rate is so high. This land is awe inspiring and beautiful in an austere, but charming way. It’s hard to not to write poetry in a place like Ísafjörður. I wrote a little poem about being here in summer. You can read it on the my other blog if you feel so inclined.

Mugison & the Act Alone Festival

Last night, all the students in the  Ísafjörður (town population: 2,600) course took a bus to nearby Suðureyri (population 312) for Act Alone, a theatre festival dedicated to monodrama, the art of acting alone.  Iceland is an extremely creative and cultured country. We’re in the sparsely populated north in a tiny fishing village, and they had some great performers. In order to get to Suðureyri, we went through Vestfjarðagöng, a 6,900 ft tunnel, which has a 3 way intersection and some sections that are one lane with sections to pullover for traffic going the opposite directions. There are eleven tunnels in iceland that allow the population to move more freely to neighboring towns, especially in the winter. I stuck a video of the tunnel at the end of this post so you can see what it looked like.

The first show was “How to Become Icelandic in 60 Minutes.” It was hysterical. I haven’t laughed that hard in quite a while.  The tag line is “A hilarious comedy show NOT starring Björk.” We then had 45 minutes to hang out at the local Kaffihús (coffee house)/ bar while we waited for the next show. Mugison is a very popular Icelandic musician (tónlistarmaður), and we saw him for free in a shed/ bar overlook a fjord and snow capped mountains. He was incredible live, and the setting was so down to earth. For my Americans, imagine The Black Keys playing in a big shed in small midwestern town….for free. Then it was back to the Kaffihús before a comdian closed out the evening.

Mugison playing!

(The pic of the Mugison show via Adam, a fellow student and my housemate here in Ísafjörður. He’ll be studying design at the University of Iceland for the next two years, so you should check follow his blog, Towards Icelandic Design.)

If you haven’t hear do Mugison, you should watch these videos. Then, when your friends are talking about Of Monsters and Men, you can go “Oh, yeah, they are great, but actually my favorite Icelandic artist in Mugison.” You’ll sound so cultured and well informed. Everyone will be impressed. I promise 😉

In other news, I’ve started a linguistic scavenger hunt. There are people here from all over Europe speaking so many different languages. I have started collecting in any language I encounter the phrase “I don’t speak (whatever language)” in that language (ex: Je ne parle pas français.) The rules I’ve set for myself are that I can’t look any up online or double check my pronunciation online. It has to be person to person. So far, besides the basics (French, Italian, Spanish), I have German, Estonian, Croatian, Swedish, Finnish, Russian, and American Sign Language.

Today I Climbed A Mountain In Iceland

Today after classes, I climbed a mountain and  went out for fish soup and drinks with an American, two Germans, a Canadian, a Swiss, an Icelander, and a Frenchman. It’s amazing what you learn being around people from so many different countries speaking so many different languages. Best day in Iceland so far. We climbed up one of the mountains that encloses the fjord. We made it very close to the top, and had  spectacular views of  Ísafjörður and an even smaller nearby town called Hnífsdalur. It took us about thirty minutes to walk to the mountain from  Ísafjörður, two hours of hiking/climbing to get up near the top, an hour to walk back down, and The mountain side was covered in loose rocks, deep springy moss, and dozens of different kinds of hardy little wildflowers. The vegetation and rocks were breathtaking, the wind was invigorating, and the people were fascinating. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera. Others took pictures, so maybe I’ll be able to get some of those later. Meanwhile, I found some pictures online of the mountain. Here’s a picture of the mountain from behind  Ísafjörður (it’s on the left):

Ísafjörður and the mountain (on the left)

And here is a photo of the mountain from the other side and the town of Hnífsdalur. We mostly went up the inland side and ridge.

The mountain & Hnífsdalur.

That’s me on the left!

Intro to Iceland: Reykjavík 101 & Ísafjörður

I’m writing from Ísafjörður, the tiny hub of Iceland’s Westfjords. I’m here for a three week course in Icelandic before I start my master’s program in Reykjavik in the fall). Unfortunately, I left my camera cord in Reykjavik in the bags I’m storing at my apartment (not available till Sept 1, but the proprietor of the guesthouse is kindly holding onto my bags while I’m in “the west”) so I won’t be able to post pictures of this beautiful fishing town till I get back in the “big” city.  I’ll break up this wordy post with some pictures of my February trip to Iceland.

Bar in Reykjavik 101

The overnight flight from Dulles International (Washington DC) to Keflavik Airport (outside of Reykjavik) landed about 6:15am Iceland time (2:15 am Hannah time) on Sunday, August 4. I didn’t really sleep Friday night because I had gone out swing dancing and was way too wired to fall asleep before 6am.  I never expected to get more than a few minutes of nap time on the 6 hour sat night flight over the Atlantic. So, needless to say, I was (and still am) exhausted by the time I arrived, collected my two suitcases and two backpacks and managed to get them to the bus into the city.

A beautiful juxtaposition of old and new.

I saw some gorgeous scenery on the hour long ride. There were great views of the mountains. They looked as if their top halves had been coated with thick layers of cloud. The clouds above the peaks were a single sheet of gray that seemed to mirror the contours of the mountains. The sun was shining through any cracks in the looser clouds above the peaks, and the light created a stunning contrast against the dark green and black of the lava fields (lava covered in moss).

The Blue Lagoon Hot Spring Outside Reykjavik

For some reason, I booked the evening flight to Ísafjörður instead of the morning, so I had almost 12 hours to wait in the city. Fortunately, the proprietor of the guesthouse I will be living at starting in September agreed to store my suitcases so I didn’t have somehow drag them around the city and all the way to the Westfjords.

Reykjavik

But even thought I was tired, the weather today in Reykjavik was beautiful and invigorating. It was a perfect mix of the freshness of spring and the crispness of fall. There was a fall wind, but lots of spring/ summer flowers. Today is Sunday, but I was still surprised at how quiet the city was.  It was quiet for a small town, let alone the capitol city of a whole county. As the day progressed, the tourist activity brought a bit closer to the non stop motion and chaos that I am used to in the DMV, but it was still serene.

Reykjavik

My first goal after dropping off my suitcases was to find coffee and breakfast! The guesthouse I will be staying at is in a more residential area, so it took my a couple of wrong turns and loops around the block before I was finally headed in the right direction. I’m so glad my dad and I visited in February. Having been there before meant the city streets were familiar, I knew where to go find food, and whole experience of moving overseas was less intimidating.

I found a little cafe and watched tourists while I ate. My only complaint about Iceland so far is the size of their coffees. Everywhere just has these tiny little coffee cups. You could fit three (ok that might be a bit of a hyperbole) in an American “small.”  I need my American sized food and beverage portions!

Art in the middle of the street.

I wiled away the rest of the day walking around and deciphering the bus route map so I could get to the tiny domestic airport for my evening flight to the Westfjords.  The little plane was definitely shaky, but the view from the window was out of this world. Right now, the sun seems to drop behind the mountains at about 8, but the sky is still light until about midnight or later. My flight was from 7pm-8pm (or I should say 19:00-20:00 …. I need to start thinking in Icelandic time, money, and units of measurements). There were some clouds, but mostly a breathtaking view of fjords, islands, and rocky outcrops that eased the land into the ocean. The sun shining through the clouds made the ocean look a gold and blue abstract canvas sitting under the intricate shadow pattern cast from a large deciduous tree in the summer. Looking down to land that was under the shadow of a cloud, but catching light from an angle, the land was a dark green with strands and dashes of gold wherever the innumerable streams and small bodies of water caught the light. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.  Ísafjörður is amazing. I could stay here forever. Stay tuned for less rambling about my sleep deprivation and more (and better) pictures and descriptions of the city and my language progress. Sjáumst!

View of Reykjavik from the University of Iceland