I guess we should be happy...we did TECHNICALLY see the Northern Lights last night, but I think Mother Nature was just phoning it in. All the forecasts said there wouldn't be much going on but there's always that deep down, irrational hope that something strange, extraordinary, and somehow completely unforeseen will happen anyways. We stood outside after dinner, watching and waiting. A green haze slowly appeared in two waves which could best be describes as faint and fainter. They stuck around for a while and we watched expectantly without ever experiencing that "wow" sense of awe I was anticipating. I held onto hope though and came back outside again and again, dutifully layering up each and every time until well past 2am. The lights never got any more impressive or intense but the stars were another story. The last time I ventured out of our warm room I laid on my back (in the dirt) and stared straight up at the sky for a good twenty minutes. I've seen impossibly starry skies before (Saharan desert, Peruvian jungle) but there's something special about the sharp, cold air that made it even more enjoyable. Everyone was asleep, and the silence afforded an opportunity for some intense meditation. I wish I could say I worked out something profound, but I think I spent most of that time humming "It's a Small World". Curse you Disney!

Dragging myself out of bed about five hours later was tough, and I lazily chewed my breakfast like an old cow waking up from a too-short nap. We weren't in the van for long though; our first stop was a black sand beach. I hadn't been all that excited about this part of the tour but it turned out to be incredibly unique and was Brittany's favorite thing so far. We've seen a black sand beach before in Dominica but this sand was so fine it could've been in Clearwater, just black. The clouds were starting to clear and we had a fantastic view of a volcano. Again I have no idea how to spell or say it's name (it's actually famous for being so difficult for foreigners to pronounce) but seeing a snow-capped volcano from a black sand beach was definitely a first for me. Nearby cliff sides were covered in basalt columns that reminded us of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, and massive cave structures had been carved out of the rock face by the crashing waves and brutal ice. It was a heck of a way to start the day and the sunrise was spectacular! I even swiped a few silky smooth volcanic rocks to put in my vegetable garden back home.

From there we were supposed to go to an ice cave, but the weather has been so warm that they cancelled out of safety concerns. Probably a good call (although getting squashed like a pancake by an Icelandic glacier would make for a great story...AFTER the resurrection). A lot of people were really disappointed because it's supposed to be a major highlight of the tour, but we really didn't mind. Our guide was fantastic about the whole thing, and I think we were really fortunate to pick Extreme Iceland out of all the companies out there. Hawk knows this country inside and out, so as soon as we found out the ice cave was a no-go he rerouted to a famous canyon. When that turned out to be closed too, he took us to a hike to see a few waterfalls. We saw our first glaciers on the way there, and stopped to take some pictures of the mountains that jutted up and out of a surprisingly flat horizon.

It was around this time that I was getting anxious because the main thing I wanted to see was a glacier lagoon, originally scheduled for right after the ice cave. My watch said we only had a couple of hours of daylight left, and I was worried we would waste it looking at yet another waterfall. They're pretty and all but, c'mon, who cares about concentrated rain falling on a rock when you can see concentrated FROZEN rain in the SHAPE of a rock?!? By the time we settled back into the bus we still had a 45 minute drive to the lagoon and would only have about 45 minutes of light. As we slowly made the turn into the gravel parking lot I was practically jumping out of my seat, thinking I'd only have a few minutes to enjoy the view. Turns out, the next half hour would be the most memorable so far.

This is where ice meets the sea, and massive chunks break apart and slowly float away. Hundreds and hundreds of glistening icebergs, some smaller than a car, others larger than a house, bobbed up and down in a pool of crystal clear and fast-moving water. You could hear the cracks and creaks of the ice as they collided with each other. At least four seals circled a break in the pack just twenty or thirty feet from shore. Only minutes after we arrived the sun was ready to set, and we were in for a jaw-dropping show. The icebergs themselves were a brilliant blue, but the pinks and oranges in the sky rendered them slightly purple. Every minute or so the position of the sun changed and the landscape in front of us changed with it. I must have taken over two hundred pictures in that thirty minutes. The ice would be gold, then blue, then purple and every shade between. I couldn't get enough of it! On a side note: there were dozens of photographers there setting up massive camera rigs that would automatically shoot pictures every few seconds while they wandered around. I'm no professional, but if you don't push the button yourself it totally doesn't count. Just sayin'. Eventually even our native tour guide came out and met us on the beach, only to say to forget the time limit he'd given us and to stay out until it got pitch dark because it was just too beautiful to leave. He said he's never seen a sunset like that at the lagoon, and that it probably only happens once or twice a year. The Aurora might've been weak and the ice cave a bust, but I'll never forget that sunset on the ice!

Feeling a little high on nature we checked in to our next hotel thinking we might get a double-feature with round two of the Northern Lights. Nope. Same as yesterday. Everyone in our group ooooohhhd and awwwwwed about how we saw them two nights in a row, but me and Brittany both feel like it still doesn't count. I think the others were just amazed by their pictures, which had a super long exposure and were processed to highlight the colors. Well sure everything looks amazing when you do that, but don't pretend for a second that you actually saw that with your own eyes! Oh well, we'll have one last chance tomorrow for some shock and awe (though it isn't looking good) and the trip was worth it already just for the lagoon. If we don't catch the Aurora this time around we'll another reason to go back to Norway.

After (another) nice lamb dinner we settled in to bed to watch our one TV channel, which just happened to be a strong man contest completely in Icelandic. These guys were absolutely GIGANTIC and we laughed out loud as the tiny reporter held his microphone almost above his head o talk with them. I have no idea what they were saying but it sounded strangely similar to "Hulk smaaaaaaash!"