Better and Better.

I have no words for this place, and it just keeps getting more amazing every time I turn around. I woke up a little before ten yesterday, and got to watch the sunrise a little before eleven. Quite an experience, and I can't tell you how glad I am to be here at this time of year. It is worth the cold, which mostly isn't that bad at all.
I spent a good deal of time at the front desk of my hostel with maps and adventure programs. The stuff that goes on here is fantastic. I had to decide between the Black and Blue tour and the Blue Ice tour. In the end I chose the Black and Blue due to the descriptions from the desk guy who sometimes leads the tours, and the votes my friends turned in on facebook. Then I chatted with Heather. I think I may be doing both now.
After figuring out a couple of activities, I decided to go explore the old town while I had sunlight. It is such a fun quirky area! Tons of little shops and many have fabulous carvings of fairytale creatures around them. They have many stories of elves, giants, trolls and fairies here, and are regularly thought of as real. This is definitely my culture!
I had lunch in a little cafe down the street (food is almost as expensive here as it was in Switzerland...almost). It was a traditional meat soup. So good! Filled with tons of vegetables and herbs, it was rather salty (which I love), and had big chunks of meat in it. I can't wait to have more food. I especially look forward to trying the lamb, which is a specialty here and apparently the main Christmas meal, and possibly the shark, which I am slightly turned off to just because it's expensive, seafood, and the term translation for how they cook it is putrefied. Sounds kinda iffy to me, but it is their renowned dish. Maybe if I can find a sample platter with it or something.
I checked out the church and when I got there I realized how close to sunset it was. At 1 in the afternoon. It really is quite an experience there. And if anything, I have been getting far less sleep than more. I may not make it anywhere after this because I will be passed out and comatose at the rate I'm going.
Around 5 in the afternoon, I checked in at the front desk for the Northern Lights (AB) and found out the conditions looked very good. Still no guarantee, but that was what I had been hoping to hear. So I booked to go on the 7:30 tour that night with Ben from my hostel. Their tours are amazing. They pick you up at the door of your hostel and take you out. For this one they told us the tour could go from 3-5 hours depending on the lights and how many places we had to move too. I was quickly convinced that if I saw no AB, it would not be to the fault of the company who conversed with each other and other tours constantly for the best location, would stop on the side of any road for opportunities, and just went all out. Our tour guide was amazing. She told us how the Icelandic people celebrate Christmas, their holiday stories and traditions, sang us traditional Christmas songs in Icelandic, and told us ghost stories which she collects. We stayed at the first drop point for an hour and had just piled into the bus when someone realized they were there. Just to faint for the human eye. Their camera had picked it up faintly over the mountain though, so we waited a little longer to no luck and carried on.
We hung around by the lake, across the fissure that is the continental divide (technically I spent time in the Americas and then hopped to Europe by crossing the actual tectonic plates.) Then we saw them. There was no where to stop, so they literally dropped us off in the middle of a huge lava field and we all stumbled out, tripping over bits of lava rock to see our first glimpse. Incredible.
We saw them several more times, but it was so cold that less and less of us got out of the bus each stop. After seeing them a couple times I was almost disappointed. It was just a green streak across the sky. Then our guide had the driver quickly pull over. "This one is moving! Get out now!" she hollered back to us.
This was how I had expected the Northern Lights to look. A green, occasionally reddish ribbon rippled its way across the sky, visible movement easy to see with the naked eye. So worth the tour. And when we got back to the city, we saw them again, bright enough to show up over the city's light pollution. It was at this point that I realized it was after 2 in the am again, and that we had spent 6-7 hours hunting them, rather than the 3-5. That and that I couldn't feel my toes.
So I got back to the hostel, took a shower to thaw, and went to bed around 3:30. It is now 8ish, and I am up and getting ready for my new tour which leaves at 10. I will be doing Black and Blue today with Jemma, a gal also staying in this hostel. We will climb down lava fields and go snorkeling across the continental fissure. The water is supposed to be around 2 celsius, but they told me they back us in dry suits so well be plenty warm, but I have a feeling I will need another hot shower tonight.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring! The Golden Circle tour? Blue Ice? the Blue Lagoon? And I still need to go find the hot dog stand by the harbor. It is their renowned restaurant and the line is supposed to be huge. I can't wait to see what is next!