Iceland May 30th 2022

 The final full day has been successfully completed.  Today has been a tour of the city of Reykjavik.  The town is a surprisingly busy 200,000 people, and the buildings have a unique blend of European and maritime designs.  We walked around the city, stopping for ice cream on multiple occasions.  We spent the bulk of the day in museums as I felt that I had read a book on Icelandic historical events.  I have been mistaken for an Islandic man nearly 5 times today, having to awkwardly reply in English.  I seem to fit in seamlessly with the most caucasian people on the face of the earth.  I'm mistaken as a local in any country where people don't tan.  We went to the museums of Icelandic colonizer history, Reykjavik maritime museum and Iceland's physical history.  We stopped at a little gastro pub and were able to sit on the street.  It was only 15 degrees today, but people were acting like it was summer.  

In the late afternoon, we went to a geothermally heated beach and swam around for a couple hours.  Just some background: most of Iceland's hot water is heated up geothermally.  Due to Iceland's volcanic activity, boiling groundwater is easy to harness and use to heat up clean drinking water.  Companies send this thermally heated water down large pipes to towns across the west of Iceland.  Most houses don't have hot water heaters, and most heating is done using hot water.  Because of this, Iceland can seal a small portion of a beach and pump the hot geothermally heated water into the pool.  It was a very cool experience to be swimming in warm water at a beach while the ocean next to it was freezing cold.  It seemed to be the local spot for the locals to get their sun tanning done.  There were a surprisingly large number of people out tanning on a foggy 15 degrees day.  It was a fun experience to swim in Iceland's tropical ocean water temperature in May.  Lachlan took us out to a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner that I thoroughly enjoyed as I had not had pho since I was in Vietnam.  Nothing like Icelandic pho.  Its been an enjoyable trip, but I am excited to return home and continue my job mowing lawns.  This is the final post until the next trip, whenever that might be.  Until then...