And This Is Just Such A Precarious Spot

Last night I had a pretty delicious din at Vegamont -- lobster pasta in a cream sauce and my usual pint of Viking. I ended up drinking some more Vikings over at Cafe Paris at the bar, trying to look as lonely as possible. That didn't work, but I did need to call an abrupt end to the night, as something with that pasta was not sitting well. Let's just say, it's a good thing my hotel was a block away. I turned in to get some rest for my big day ahead: glacier hiking and ice climbing. Woke up in the middle of the night with that lobster pasta still flopping around in my stomach and didn't get a great night's sleep after that.

Got up for my 9am pickup, stomach still not feeling great and real tired. Had another really cool guide named Ingolfur, though. There was also a guide-in-training named Fet, and two slightly older woman, an Australian named Jade and an Italian named Sara. Took about 2.5 hours to drive down to the Solheimajokull glacier (glahs-ier) in that bumpy van. We got there, harnessed up, got fitting for crampons, and got ice picks. Walking on that glacier was pretty awesome, not too cold and the weather held off for the most part. Ingolfur and Fet found us a good wall to do some ice climbing, so we learned the basics of that. Turns out ice climbing is really difficult, as evidenced by my burning hands and forearms at the end of the climb. Ended the trip with a little sandwich, juice box, and cookie for munch, which was great considering I didn't really eat much breakfast and it was now 3 oclock. On the way back, we stopped off at Skogafoss waterfall, where I took about 1,000 more pictures, including a few of some more birds.

For din tonight, went to Tapas Barinn. Another awkward night of eating alone at the "bar." Most bars here aren't really bars, they are just randomly placed stools at the area of the counter where the waiters put stuff. The food was really good, and I accomplished my mission of eating puffin and minke whale, but I still contend that tapas is a ripoff in a major way.

- CM