seagulls in the road?

Iceland is a country of many extremes and frequent changes that anyone from the states would consider interesting...

1. The main road of Iceland, route 1, has a very interesting property - these giant sea gull like birds inhabit the road in the summer and when faced with oncoming traffic take the 'I was there first' approach. This results in a spread out congregation of giant sea gulls that are killed one by one as drivers drive down the road. Nothing works to deter the birds from claiming their spots on route 1... not even beeping or swerving.

2."If you don't like the weather, wait a minute"... Iceland's weather is unlike anything I have ever seen. It is completely unpredictable and can change wildly within the course of five minutes. Icelanders don't even carry around umbrellas... they just waterproof themselves. It is not unusual for the weather to go from sunny to pouring rain to crazy winds within the course of 20 minutes.

3. Giant people - I love that the girls in Iceland are giant. I feel right at home, even small sometimes. I would say that the concept of needing to be thin is much less important here - even pictures of models in store front windows show much stockier women. We went rafting the other day and poor Wenjun had to wear a kid's sized fleece while the guides kept trying to give her medium sized clothing (instead of extra small). Rúntur in Iceland (overnight pub crawl) is just a toned down version of the meatpacking district in NY. It's funny to me that New Yorkers would come here for the weekend just to party - it would certainly take much less time to stay in line at the clubs than at the airport. The funny thing is that no matter which country you go to, it seems like the availability of slutty girls in their 20s, with 'all their cleavage hanging out', as my mom would say, dancing on tables is quite profuse.

5. Iceland is expensive. There are no two ways about. It - with the recent currency crisis and the massive devaluing the currency, stuff is really pricy. A good meal will end up costing you a hundred bucks per person. A north face type jacket made by the local company called 66 degrees north will run like 500 - 700 bucks. Its really insane.

6. There is no McDonald's. Because of the currency crisis, McDonald's had to close down. They were importing a lot of materials and because the currency became much less strong, it became really expensive for icelnders to buy McDonald's.

7. There are only 320k people in Iceland. 2/3 of that live in Reykjavik. There are about 8 million people in NYC. For such a small population, this country is quite incredible. The availability of good food, services for tourists, clothing, and nightlife is quite incredible. From all of our tours, it sounds like modern Iceland truly thrived during WW2 when British and American forces were stationed here. Its a sad statement to make that the destruction brought on by the war resulted in such significant growth of Iceland, which was a significant base into Europe.

8. The water in Reykjavik is all geothermally heated. This is pretty amazing - ... 90% of all of Iceland gets hot water and heat from this underground activity. The unfortunate part about this is that it makes the country at times smell like rotton egg from the sulfur.

9. If you can afford it, you should come here. This is the true meaning of vacation. vacationing in Iceland is about experiences, nature, and an ever changing landscape... It's definitely one of the most calming and peaceful experiences I have ever had.