Sunday 9/4/16

It was another beautiful sunny day today.  I hope our luck can continue through tomorrow as we are going on a whale watch.  Our first stop this morning was to see the Godafoss waterfall.  It was a smaller version of Niagara Falls - about 42 feet high and 100 feet wide.  It was pretty spectacular and to top it off, there was a rainbow in the spray.  We also went to the hot springs and saw boiling mud and fumaroles.  We went to see Dimmuborgir which is similar to Bryce in a way, but instead of eroding sandstone, this was volcanic rock formations - very interesting and it was fun to use your imagination to find witches, ogres, etc. in the formations.  We went for lunch in a restaurant next to Lake Myvatn and then walked across the street to hike among the pseudo craters - formed by hot lava meeting water underground.  The landscape here was covered in them.  On the way back to Akureyri, we stopped at the botanical gardens and had a lovely walk.  My favorite part was the fall flowers section - lots of purples and yellows.  We came back to the hotel for a little down time and then boarded the bus again to go to our home-hosted dinner.  The group was split into two and our group, 7 of us, were hosted by a family of six.  The three older boys were not at home, but the 13 year old daughter was.  The mom is an occupational therapist and the dad teaches English at the university.  She is Icelandic and he is a Palestinian from Israel.  They met in England at the university.  The meal was wonderful.  She served cod, potatoes, pasta, salad and lots of small dishes of different raw veggies.  The dessert was rhubarb crumble.  I asked her for the recipe as it was the best I have ever had.  I just hope she remembers to email it to me.  We had just returned and I will stay up for a while to see the Northern Lights.  Tonight it is cloudy, but sometimes that is when you get the most movement.