I LIVE! Well... kinda...

Okay, I'm here in Iceland. Boy am I tired! No, that's not a "I just flew in from Toronto..." joke, I really am beat. As previously mentioned I didn't sleep well Monday night, so I was already pretty run-down Tuesday night when I began my journey. Fortunately I slept really well on the flight over, but that's still only 5 hours of sleep when I was already tired, so I'm cooked right now. I was through security and officially into Iceland by 7:15 A.M. local time, but I wasn't able to check into my hotel until 2 P.M. so I had some time to kill. I jumped on a bus to the Blue Lagoon, since it's supposed to be a pretty major Icelandic attraction. For those not in the know, the Lagoon is a mineral-rich lake formed by the nearby geothermal power plant. The water is bathtub warm and purportedly quite good for the skin. It's a pretty relaxing place to go chill out when you first arrive. Unfortunately the earliest bus to Reykjavik from there is 11:15, so if you arrive at 8:00 you'll be pretty bored with the place long before you can escape to the capital. There's only so much sitting in a hottub that a guy can do.



Of course, having said that, I missed the 11:15 bus. I was hanging out with some travelling students and we got ourselves convinced that the bus was at 11:30. Oops. It's okay though, we hung out and waited for the 12:15 bus, which got us into Reykjavik by about 1:00. After briefly touring around with one of my new friends I went to go check into my hotel. The accommodations aren't anything to write home about, but they'll do, and I'm just happy to be able to finally start my tour of Reykjavik without my full backpack on. The first thing I've done is find a nearby cafe with a wireless hotspot so that I can update my blog. I know my priorities. Unfortunately since I'm not really operating at 100% right now I brought my laptop and the A/C adapter, but left the European plug adapter in my hotel room. Due to the stunning power of my nearly dead battery I've used up half of my available battery life already. Tomorrow I'll try coming back with all the necessary equipment, assuming that I don't get in too late from diving. There's the distinct possibility that I'll be under the radar for the next three days if the diving doesn't get me back at a decent hour.

At this point I'd like to mention that I'm writing from the Reykjavik public library. Shortly before finishing the last sentence of the above paragraph my laptop, till showing 50% battery power, simply turned off. Yay. Now the fun part. I was quite willing to blame my absentmindedness in forgetting my plug adapter to being tired. However, I've got no excuse for leaving the country in the first place with a plug adapter that doesn´t have a ground prong on it. Yeah, that´s all me. So, unless I´m able to find one to purchase here, which strikes me as unlikely, my laptop is only so much dead weight. If that turns out to be the case I should still be able to post from the library, but I won´t be uploading any pictures. I´ll see what I can do.

I´m going to head out now and explore Reykjavik. First impressions indicate that I should have no problems getting around on foot. The main city centre is quite compact, and anything I you could possibly want to see appears to be in easy walking distance. Tomorrow I really get into things as I start my diving adventure. With any luck I´ll be back on to report on that tomorrow evening.