It all began in the middle of nowhere in the Icelandic highlands with an Italian, an American, a Costa Rican, two Swiss, a bottle of vodka and a pair of dice.


On second thought, perhaps I should tell a different story.

It has always been a fantasy of mine to discover a secret waterfall. When Sebastian suggested that we follow the river into the soft-walled canyon leading into the volcano, a waterfall was not what I expected. But as we clamored over the loose pumice, talus, and ash, we traveled further and further back in time, back to when the volcano was just a tuya, a bit of magma coming out beneath an immense glacier, perhaps some 10,000 years ago. The walls of the canyon became high and dark, with stacks upon stacks of pillow lavas, which are usually found when a volcano erupts deep within the sea, but in this case occured where the magma was making its own tiny ocean beneath the ice. He was a reckless sort, always sliding about on the steep slopes and perching on the highest points. I was leading, but really I was following him; his presence made me reckless and invincible, and I slid down slopes and jumped over chasms as my fear and practical nature melted away.

And then we turned a bend and there was the waterfall, our own secret waterfall, cascading out of a notch in the pillows and beating a deep pool into the lava layers below. There was also a wide, wispy waterfall facing it, coming right out of an aquifer in the rock and disappearing before it reached the surface. We leaped around the waterfall, throwing pumice into the pool and watching as it bobbed and then floated away.

We made our return along the river instead of on the trail, jumping from side to side and hiding under a large polygonal snowbank that hadn�t yet melted. He suggested that we climb up a very steep, loose slope to an outlook. In some places there were caves below the ash on the slope from glaciers which have melted out from underneath and which collapsed when you stepped on them. But since he suggested it, I agreed, and we tramped up the slope and loped over the crevasses to the highest point, where he whistled at the people in the camp way below until they acknowledged how deliciously high above them we were.

And Sebastian and I returned to camp, unharmed, and I could add this adventure to the many adventures I�ve had that have taught me this valuable lesson about traveling:

You can do a lot of really stupid things, and nothing bad will happen to you.


More later on how you can do things that don�t seem so stupid and die from them.

NEXT TIME ON... ICELANDIC NEWS.

Comment! (4) | Recommend!

You could say that I�m learning Icelandic the hard way.
As in, 'I wonder what �farin�means?'

Oh... it means 'departed', aka, your flight left an hour ago.

oops!

Comment! (7) | Recommend!

Here are some highlights from Colorado:

Comment! (3) | Recommend!

Well I'm back from Hawaii and temporarily back on the grid.

Here are some highlights:





More later, for now I'm off to explore some sand dunes.

Comment! (6) | Recommend!

@hawaii-->colorado-->iceland

back in a month

Comment! (9) | Recommend!

BwahahahA!

At 3 am they come around and give your car a ticket for being parked overnight. I came out around 3 and sure enough, the cops came around the corner, angling to give my car a ticket. But I was there, getting into my car, there was nothing he could do! I win!

So I moved my car onto Brown property. I just need to remember to move it before the Brown people show up, or they'll give me a ticket. But they're not awake at 3 am, lazy Brown people.

3 am does put you in a different realm of crappy-feeling-ness, though. Having to move your car is like admitting that you're going to be here all night. The other landmark is around 4:30am, when my advisor will show up for work and we'll experience the dreaded OVERLAP.

I'm going to start working like crazy to see if I can avoid that occurrence...

Mercury, ho!

Comment! (4) | Recommend!

Well tonight's the night.

Last night was supposed to be the night, but then my friend called me and asked if I would drive her to the ER in my car.

I was like shiiiiit naw, biatch, getcha own!

Ok, that's not really a request that you turn down. Especially when it's actually her roommate calling you on her behalf since she feels that bad.

So me and my friend and the roommate moseyed on down to the ER and stayed there from about 6:30pm til 1:00am. Turns out they still don't know what's wrong with her, but they managed to stick her 9 times with various needles until they managed to get a bit of blood and an IV. They had to get the blood out of the back of her hand. Apparently she was so dehydrated that her veins retreated back into her skin. In order to hydrate her they had to get an IV in, but in order to get an IV in, they needed a vein. I attententively watched them fishing around in her arm for a vein, and asked questions about how you decide which one is the best. The guy that finally got it (the third person that tried) said that it's all about the feel. The vein has got to stick out, throbbing beneath your fingers.

At one point they thought they got the IV in, and actually it had infiltrated, meaning that they'd stuck the needle in the vein and it had poked through further down and saline solution was pouring into her tissue. Kind of like when you have a cut and you go to the beach, only combined with a terrible bruise-like pain and swelling of your wrist like a balloon. My friend was in a bit of pain, yes, only crying out and sobbing and telling us she wanted to go home. Finally the doctors realized that it had infiltrated and they took it out. I realized that that must have been what had happened to me the first time I got an IV. I remember feeling the solution pumping into my arm and I remember intense, mind blowing pain. I remember telling my mother that I didn't care what was wrong with me, that I wanted to go home right then. I also remember the next time I got an IV and it totally didn't hurt at all. Now it all made sense-- they had been pumping saline solution into my flesh... I just hadn't yelled at them because I thought that maybe it was supposed to feel like that.

I told my friend that this was all just anti-terrorist training, so that when she was captured she wouldn't give away any of our secrets.

So that means that instead of staying up most of the night last night doing work, I'm going to be staying up ALL night tonight doing work....

So I got some chocolate-covered expresso beans, Doritos, and grapes (have to be sort of healthy).

Mercury, ho!

ps--- so a bunch of geologists are in Kamchatka and they got surrounded by 30 bears. Already the bears have eaten two of the geologists and right now the weather is too bad to send a helicopter in after them. They did send some hunters in a 4x4 though, so we'll see what happens. The question this brings to mind of course is IF YOU WERE GOING INTO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE IN KAMCHATKA, WHY DIDN'T YOU BRING A GUN?!!?!!?!?

Or maybe they did, and the guy who got eaten had it, and now they can look out from their yurt and see the bears all around and out in the middle is the guy's arm still clutching the gun but no one wants to run out and get it!

At least it's not velociraptors, that's all I can say.
ps- If you played RISK!, you would immediately know where Kamchatka is.

Comment! (4) | Recommend!

A short meme from brutaly's site

Are you male or female: Female
Describe yourself: debonair
How do some people feel about you: suspiiiiiiiicious...
How do you feel about yourself: Tired
Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend: Warcraft addict
Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend: invisible
Describe where you want to be: HAWAII!
Describe what you want to be: A leopard
Describe how you live: meal to meal
Describe how you love: suspiciously

Comment! (5) | Recommend!