Final Hurrah

Finale

It was an amazing experience and I am sad to say goodbye, to the country, to the people, to everything, I will miss it dearly especially National Geographic leaders Erika Skogg and Peter Richards. We are required to make a final post and I am truly worried I am going to breakdown in the Boston airport. I honestly hope and am praying that this was not goodbye, only farewell for now. I have loved the entire journey and hope I can do it again next year. The worst part of every great experience is when you have to say goodbye, but I made amazing friendships that I hope will always stay strong. I’ve gotten extremely close to everyone and will be sad to seniors embark on their new journey into college. But this is farewell for now Iceland; I will miss you greatly, until I move to Hofn of course, but I have loved the experience and journey and will gladly come back.

This picture is actually on Ms. Bottoms blog (http://itsallaboutme-cathy.blogspot.com) but I think its a phenomenal picture that captures a spectacular moment.

That is a Live Horse!

Day 12 (Horseback Riding)

Oh my gosh, I rode a horse, a live one. Oh my gosh, I galloped on a horse, a live one. It was such a rush and I never believed I could feel so powerful and well basically feel so amazing. I don't know why, I guess its just Icelandic logic or something but I, the smallest person in the group got the largest horse? My horse’s name translated to Grey but it was white; the guide said he was probably grey as a baby.

I also found the cutest dog ever! I am going to steal this dog, it was so adorable!

We also got to explore Aukreyri and I finally bought souvenirs, but I still have to buy 4 more stuffed animals and then I am done shopping! I finished all of my mini assignments as well.

Whale, We Went Whale Watching

Day 11 (Whale Watching)

Yesterday, apart from the major disaster of forgetting my DSLR and my point and shoot at the hostel, which was a 2-hour drive away, the day was pretty good. We saw a blue whale, which is extremely rare, I sadly didn't get any pictures of the actual whale but I do have images from the boat which I took with my phone and Alex’s point and shoot, but it didn't have a memory card and Mackenzie’s extra memory card didn't fit for whatever reason, I am pretty sure it was because the camera was outdated.

We also got see Dettifoss, the largest waterfall in Europe which I took pictures of with my smartphone, which isn’t the worst thing that could have happened. I was cold, wet, and tired and was psyched to go to bed when the day came to an end.

Pretty Uneventful

Day 10 (Traveling)

On this day, even though it was a few days ago, it was mainly an uneventful day, but I caught up on some much needed sleep with our 7-hour bus drive to Akureyri, one of the team names as well, we stopped at a car museum and I was too tired to get off the bus, several times. I also found out that I sleep in a ball in an upright position on a bus, I’m not positive but everyone was laughing.

The Hiking Vikings

Day 9 (Hiking)

On this day, though it was a yesterday, we got to take pictures that may be featured for specific companies; we had our Nat Geo guides as our models.

We were hiking to an extremely serene Viking village that Mel Gibson created to film a movie that was never made but may be used in the future. I walked into the dungeon and was super excited that Brianna and I were probably people who could stand up straight in the dungeon and we ventured into an extremely creepy part, which made me feel like I’m in a horror movie because we were using the light from Brianna’s IPhone and there was broken wood planks everywhere and it was really dusty.

The hike there was intense considering we walked around the mountain and its muddy, dangerous terrain rather than uphill. I only almost slipped once. After reaching the four-hour mark everyone was beginning to have doubts whether or not the Viking village actually existed.