On September 2, 1998 I went to Iceland for a short vacation. I had booked a air/hotel package with Icelandair leaving from Baltimore and staying in Reykjavik for three days. I usually do not book a packaged tour, but in Iceland this can be a way of saving some money, as Iceland can be quite expensive. As a price comparison an extra-value meal at McDonald's cost about 10 USD in Iceland versus 4 USD in the Washington, DC area.

The flight left Baltimore and arrived at Keflavik (Iceland's International Airport and Military Base) without any problems. It was only later that I learned that Swissair 111 had crashed near Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada, which was close to the flight path I took to Iceland. It was a little bit disturbing to be close to an air disaster while flying.

Iceland is a volcanic island and most of the 40 minutes journey from Keflavik to Reykjavik crosses over the plains covered with volcanic ash. It is a very strange site as for miles you see nothing that is alive and everything is just shades of black and gray. It was also raining at the time, which made the mood even darker. I arrived at my hotel, took a nap (I arrived in Iceland early in the morning, and spent the afternoon walking in downtown Reykjavik.

My first stop in Reykjavik was to see the Volcano Show, a series of movies about the volcanoes in Iceland. The highlight of the show is seeing the volcano that erupted near Heimaey in 1973. This volcano erupted without much warning and caused the town to be quickly evacuated. Later the lava flow from the volcano threatened to close off the harbor of this fishing town and the Icelandic people began to try to divert the flow of lave. This was the first time anyone had tried to influence a volcano. After the Volcano Show, I went to Hallgrimskirkja, the central church of Iceland. It is very interesting looking and is suppose to look like a volcano. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around town and window-shopping.

The next day I took the Golden Circle tour, visiting several sites in inland Iceland. After crossing over some lava plains our first stop was at a two-story waterfall called Gullfoss. It was quite amazing to see some much water move so quickly. The next site was some hot spring and geysers. The Stokker geyser went off about every 3 minuets and produced a stream of water about 25 feet in the air. After the geysers, we headed back to Reykjavik. While on the way back the bus driver played a CD that sound vaguely familiar. It took me a few minutes to realized it was the soundtrack to Grease and that the lyrics were in Icelandic. Very strange.

I spent my last full day in Iceland in downtown Reykjavik, buying some souvenirs including a wool sweater. There was not much happening that afternoon as Iceland was playing France in a European Cup qualifier. Iceland ended the game in a tie which given that France had just won the World Cup, was quite an accomplishment. The next morning I took the bus back to the airport and headed off back to the US.

I took these photos with a borrowed Canon EOS SLR and used slide film. The camera was useful but overkill for most of the photos. The only time it was useful was when took the pictures of Stokkur. The first time I tried to photograph it the Auto Focus could not get a fix and prevent me from taking any photos. I turned off the auto focus and took the pictures seen below.The photos were digitalized using Kodak's Photo CD and were cleaned up a bit with Adobe PhotoShop Elements. Additional Camera Information