Skipping the Lights Fantastic

Back from the land of fire and ice - what an stunning place.  A few factoids to keep you amused:

The entire country has a population of just over 300,000 and 75% live in Reykjavik.  Iceland boasts the largest glacier in Europe.  The gulf stream keeps the temperatures relatively mild compared to its Scandanavian neighbours.  The air is frosty, but not overly. Average February temperatures of about 0.  That sounds cold to a lot of you I bet.  Wussies.  Iceland was settled by celtic missionaries from Ireland, and Norwegian vikings.

Boring snoring I hear you say, make with the pretty pictures.

Fair enough.

The first bunch are from our friends Kate and Wes' camera - a far superior instrument to our own shoddy little click machine.  The orange glow comes from the city lights, making it necessary to travel about 30 mins out of the city to cop a proper eyefull.

These next shots were the ones I also put up on Facebook, sent through to us after our trip by our guide.  He was a charming man when discussing the lights, but pretty single-minded.  I'm not sure he was interested in talking about, thinking about, or dreaming about anything but those lights.  I'm pretty sure while Kate and Wes fiddled with both aperture and shutter speed, guide dude was just going to town on that shutter speed - 20 seconds for some.  Hence the startling blue at midnight.

The snow, while lovely, contributed to a more washed-out effect.  According to our guide, who assured us at every possible moment that the activity was 'significant', the full moon and the snow meant that despite the bucket loads of 'activity', the colours weren't as intense as they could've been.

To be completely, totally, absolutely honest, we didn't actually see a whole lot of colour.  I'm sure it was sheer exasperation in the face of our grumbling fellow tourists, (one particularly obnoxious South African woman asked over and over again where the colours were, why couldn't we see the colours?!), that led our guide to dance from one group to the next, hopping wildly from one foot to the other, exalting the greatness of the awe-inspiring lights. While I won't argure that it was pretty cool, I feel it my responsibility to point out that the colours you see on camera are not representative of the visual spectacle available to the naked eye.

And yet, still so beautiful.  Cold, don't get me wrong, standing outside staring at the sky for upwards of an hour at a time in the minuses is not something I would consider under ordinary circumstances.

Worth the numb toes and chattering teeth.