April 1st….April Fool’s Day UPDATED!!

Well today came with a rude awakening at 830am……after a night of limited sleep this surely was a little rough, but I got up and got dressed and rushed downstairs to leave for our day trip on the Golden Circle sightseeing tour.  There are a ton of pictures that have been taken, all of which will get uploaded to facebook.
First off we went to the Parliamentary Plains, then the natural hot water geysers.  The geysers were truly amazing, that such a natural phenomenon takes place and they are not completely able to explain it all really is awesome.  I have a video and photos of the geysers, especially of the geyser that spews water up every 5 to 10 minutes in different sizes, one of them I was watching went up so high and the wind took it to the right and it splashed a few teammates, well it soaked them, not splashed them! LOL!

After this we went to the water falls………….which a farmer back in the day sold the rights to an English power company and they were going to build a power plant on this land, however, his daughter fought this company and was successful in defending the land and preserving it for Iceland’s use, which is why the waterfalls are there today.  And they were extremely beautiful……..breath taking.
While at the waterfalls we went up a LONG flight of stairs to a place we were going to eat lunch at.  Yummy traditional Icelandic lamb soup it was so extremely tasty.  We also had a chance to go souvenir shopping so I got a couple things.
Then we were back on the road and stopped at a church which was the first to have an Icelandic bishop at it  way, way, way back when!!  And in the basement there is a cement coffin of a Bishop, the story is in the pictures I took, the coffin was found when renovations were made in the 1950’s.  And then we were off on the way back to the hotel.

In Iceland the tour guide just said that everyone is insured against natural disasters in this country it is paid for with a part of their taxes.  The town we just drove thru is very prone to earth quakes and is near to an active volcano.  The houses that are unable to withstand the earthquakes, the older houses, are not been repaired but replaced with extremely robust houses that are able to withstand the quakes.  Seems completely insane to me.  This town is the horticultural center of Iceland and only about 300 people live here……..wow!!!  In the pictures I took you can see the number of spots with steam rising up as more and more earthquakes take place these spots are opening up.

After this we stopped at a spot in the mountains that had fresh (well sort of fresh) snow on the ground and a bunch of people got out of the bus to play in it………….if only they knew…….hehe!  It’s EVIL!!!!!!
This is as far as we have got on our day so far and we continue to head towards Reykjavik again, which should take about an hour!!

We are now back at the hotel and waiting for the bus at 7pm…..dinner, last game of tourney and then closing ceremonies!!  Hard to believe its all already over!!

Well its now 12:28am on what is technically April 2nd…….had an awesome last hour or so talking to my Jeanna Marie on skype!!  Dinner wasn’t great……but still tasty!!  And the game with Korea vs Iceland was good, Korea won.  There was a sweet penalty shot that #2 for Korea put away convincingly….of course, she’s awesome!!
Then the closing ceremonies, packing up our bags and getting out of the rink!!  Really not much news at all from tonight….sorry this is kinda boring!!
The noisy, extremely annoying New Zealanders have just arrived back up here and that means it’s time for me to hit the sack!!  Tomorrow its back home I head………..well start my journey!!