The Magical Land of Þórsmörk and Volcano Huts

The little bowed bridge at Húsadalur. Photo by the fólk at Volcano Huts.

GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: The Volcano Huts at Húsadalur

This is such a quaint scene, taken out at Þórsmörk (Thorsmörk) by the people behind the Volcano Huts at Húsadalur. They posted it on their Facebook page, and gave me permission to share it here as well. 

Þórsmörk is one of the most lovely areas of Iceland, tucked away beyond a glacial river that needs to be forded with expert care. This isn't a location you get to by rental car! The Krossá river rages fast and icy-cold in summer as winter snow melt from the highlands and glaciers fill its wide, flat basin. Every year the river carves new paths along the

Nights and Evenings Down by the Sun Voyager

Has everyone had enough of politics for the time being? I have, so here's a pretty shot taken a few weeks ago down by the bay. The sky turned red right around 10 pm, so I bundled Óðinn into the car and zipped the few blocks down the hill to the Sólfarið (Sun Voyager) sculpture to try to catch the light. I didn't get quite the dramatics I was hoping for, but this is still lovely.

Back in the 90's I had the strangest experience at this very spot. I wrote about it a few years back, and in the interest of getting as far away as possible from current affairs, I'm going to share it here now. I hope you enjoy the read:

it’s decades ago, i’m a jaded baby, and i’ve been drinking. summer night

Iceland at a Crossroads: Elections, Elves and Old vs New

That's literally 10kg of plastic waste in a net tacked to the wall. There's even a white toy pony in there.

A couple of days ago this temporary wall was covered in street art and today it's got this great infographic instead.

Street art rocks (and we've got some masterful spray artists here) but I like that someone thought of utilizing this space to get a message across. Plastic is such a huge issue and plenty of cities across the globe have banned lightweight plastic shopping bags and even, in the case of San Francisco, plastic-bottled water being sold in public places.  Here in Iceland we've had to pay 15 - 20 króna for plastic bags since forever, though it's just in the past few years that shoppers seem to be really getting into bringing their own bags when going out for groceries. Change takes time, and

Meditating Under a Volcano: at Snæfellsjökull

Óðinn under Snæfellsjökull a few years ago

It's obvious from my past few posts that I'm not exactly non-political. But at the rate that things are changing here, I'm pretty glad I haven't written up anything since our first lady, Dorrit Moussaieff, was revealed to have links to Mossack Fonseca in the Panama Papers leak. 

If I'd have jumped on the news that her husband, our president, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson decided to run again for office, edging out the frontrunners with his older conservative constituency, or that our former PM Davíð Oddsson, a man deemed responsible for the 2008 crash, then said he was running, upsetting the polls even more, the public seeming to now have to choose between

A Nice View, and Me Trying to Avoid Delving Deeper Into Our First Lady's Affairs

A view from Hallgrímskirkja 

Find the clump of trees in the lower left corner of this photo, and that's where I took the last post's cat pic. It's a shady corner of the the garden behind the Einar Jónsson Museum, a favorite spot for locals to ponder and chill, adults, kids and cats alike. As a matter of fact, the cat in the previous photo is one of four who live across the street, in the building with the red roof and all-glass corner 'penthouse.' They come across the street with their human, who enjoys

Who is Iceland Actually in Bed With, or Here's a Picture of a Local Feline Because Cats and Internet

A Reykjavik feline in its native habitat, totally not connected to the article 

I got some interesting feedback on my last post, including an enlightening conversation with a friend who's employed as a diplomatic correspondent between a certain extremely high-level European country and Iceland, via their embassy here. He hadn't read my piece when we sat down to talk, but I gave him the general rundown, including some details that had yet to occur at the time of writing, including that Iceland finally (almost unanimously)