Iceland Part II

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

I awoke at 12:50 PM.  I missed half of daylight. I obviously needed the sleep but the days get significantly shorter very quickly through November and December. On Tuesday when I arrived sunrise was at 10:24  and sunset at 16:04. On Wednesday it was 10:27 and 16:01, already 6 minutes less than the day before.  And by the time I left on December 2 (9 days later) sunrise was at 10:48 and sunset was at 15:46. A full 42 min loss of daylight from the day I arrive. So know that if you’re not up during midnight in the winter, you’re most likely going to miss daytime. If you’re curious about the sunrise sunset times check out this cool site.

I signed up for a Northern Lights Tour.  There are a lot of companies out there and it’s all with the experience you want to have with it.  I myself ended up going with Grayline.  Unfortunately, due to weather my tour was canceled, and so I re-scheduled for Thursday.

By the time I got dressed and out the door it was late.  I chose to spend the rest of the afternoon at the National Museum of Iceland.

A lot of times I don’t spend a lot of time actually inside of museums while I am away.  I’m more of a get out and just see the city and meet people.  But I don’t know a lot about Iceland and so I thought it would be good to do some learning. I had 2 hours and 45 minutes until the museum closed for the day.  I only go through 1 room of the museum. I read every plaque, read every book, and watched every widow. I was completely engrossed in everything I was learning. Here’s a couple facts for you folks:

1. Vikings did not wear horns on their helmets.
2. Vikings who became the Icelandic people were mainly peaceful people who fished and farmed.
3. Iceland was pagan, than Christian, before turning to Lutheran which they mainly are still today.
4. Iceland may have been partially settled by people from Ireland and Scotland.

There’s still much I did not see or learn yet and would love to go back and continue soaking up the knowledge of the people.

That evening I met a couple girls from New Jersey who were going out that night and I decided to join them.  Though it was a Wednesday night and bars still closed at 1:00 be decided not to head out until 23:00.

We met up at a bar called Boston Bar (I’m really not sure what’s with all these names, Boston Bar, American Bar, English Pub, etc.). It was another quiet night out as it was late on a week night and the last week of the month. I learned in Iceland most people get paid once a month at the end of the month and so to make that extra spending money stretch through the end of the month can be difficult for some of the people.