The Next Trip: Portugal (and a little bit of Dublin)

It's been nearly a year since I've posted.  All that means is that I haven't left the country.  It's probably been the longest that's been the case in 20 years.  So it was about time.   As I write this, I am in a lounge in the Dublin airport on our way to Lisbon, Portugal.  I'm traveling this time with Ann, an old MIT friend.   You'll see a picture of her eventually.

This is a particularly wild trip.  We'll be spending 3-4 days in LIsbon and 3-4 days in Porto with a day in Sintra, a small suburb of Lisbon known for its castles.   While everything in terms of transportation and hotels is already organized, what we will see is still up in the air.  I'm looking forward to the food.  This is my first time to Portugal and I don't have a grasp on what's good there.

I had a seven-hour layover in Dublin but between jet lag and whatnot, it was at the edge of going out into town.  There was a little bit of a snafu, too -- if you end up in the departure gates, you can't leave after that.  So Ann was already there so she couldn't go out.  That just left us with the lounge to kill time.  For me, that's fine since I have 22 hours and a night in Dublin on the way back.

I'll also try to resurrect my Instagram account (@nitinkasturi) for this trip.  It was actually hacked since my last trip but I got it fixed... I think.  I'm trying something new for this trip.  I didn't bring my DSLR camera; instead, I'm going to just try using my Google Pixel phone only.  It'll be nice to travel without being encumbered with a lot of things.  We're also staying at AirBNB places, so we'll have access to washers and dryers.  

Another two hours to kill now before our flight.  It'll be nice and warm in Lisbon, so I'm looking forward to that.  More later from Portugal!

Iceland Day 6: Hvitserkur to Stykkishólmur

Another "last one out" start but we weren't in any rush.  We went up to Hvitserkur itself.  It's a rock formation out in the sea -- I think all of these are called trolls by the Icelandic people.  This is a location where seals breed and bask.  We did see a large group across an inlet but no one especially close apart from an inquisitive pup that swam nearby.  But the biggest "highlight" was the attack of the Arctic terns.  I had they were territorial and would swoop down onto you.  And they did, getting within a few inches!  Check out the video!  I was bold and just strode out thinking that they wouldn't actually hit you.  But I learned later that they do actually peck people's head -- people have needed stitches!  Ignorance is bliss!

We drove on around the peninsula and had lunch at a quaint cottage called <>.  There was a turret and it had been built by a Scot.  We both had a spicy seafood soup.  It was quite good.  This was the first time I had anything spicy here.  Not that it was too spicy.  The seafood in this country has been very good!

We tried one more stop at a Viking ruin but when we got there we didn't find anything apart from a modern-era church.  So we ccontinued on to Stykkishólmur.

It was rather nice to get to a town before 10pm.  (Remember that it's never truly dark here and sunset isn't until after midnight.)  After checking-in, we walked down to the harbor and then up the hill to the lighthouse.  I tried a photosphere panaromic picture. Not sure if I can post that here...

In an effort to spend time with the locals we went up to the local bar to watch the Euro 2016 game -- Turkey vs. Spain.  Apparently until recently it was legal for a Turk to be murdered in Iceland.  This dated back to the Turkish Robbery Act when the Ottoman Empire raided Iceland for slaves.  So most people were cheering for Spain.  I had been looking for a beer that uses part of a whale as flavoring but they didn't have it.

We had a nice dinner of blue mussels and saltwater catfish before spending the evening at the hotel bar, talking to the bartender and a couple of his friends that showed up.  It was just five of us so it was kinda fun.  It was one of the first chances to meet the locals...

Iceland Day 5: Husavik to Hvitserkur

Today, we ended up getting a late start, albeit deliberately.   Though we have noticed that we are always the last one out of the hotels.  I guess we're probably the last ones in anyway.   Anyway, we wanted to go whale watching.  Long story short, we ended up going at 12:30.  We wandered through Husavik a little bit but the town isn't all that big.  So a cafe steeled us for the trip on the boat.

We chose the whale+puffin boat ride.  That went out further and had the advantage of going on RIB boats -- Rigid Inflatable Boats.  It's kinda like a large Zodiac inflatable raft with an added wooden infrastructure.   It's bigger, too, and can go up to 50 knots.  You straddle a seat and are packed in tight to be able to handle the bouncing at high speeds.  We were also dressed for the cold. They gave these waterproof overalls to wear over our clothes.  We looked like we were ready for an industrial site!

We first saw puffins.  There's an island full of them.  They're rather ungainly birds who don't seem like they can fly.   They are kinda cute though.  I didn't have my zoom lens so I didn't get great photos of them.

The real highlight was the whales.  We went out and saw mainly humpback whales although we did glimpse a minke whale.  The humpbacks came fairly close to the boat.  And I liked the RIB because it got us lower to the ocean.  At the closest, I'd say a whale was 10 feet away!   We also saw some porpoises and dolphins.  Overall, it was one of my better whale watching trips.  We didn't see as much as in other trips but it was much closer.  And the RIB boat could zoom -- the captain took us in faster and was turning left and right, tilting the boat.  A fun ride!  We didn't even mind the few drops that fell! Oh, we went with the Gentle Giants company.

After our boat ride, we pushed on to Akureyri, only an hour away.  This was the biggest town outside of Reykjavik, although we didn't spend much time there.  We had lunch on a rooftop restaurant.  I went native.  My appetizer was cured reindeer (rather like carpaccio) and lightly smoked puffin -- yeah, they were cute, but I wanted to see how they tasted.  It was somewhat gamy.  I didn't like it that much.  And then another reindeer burger for the meal.

We continued on to Hvitserkur.  It was up an isolated gravel road.  We didn't have exact directions and the hotel didn't have an updated sign.  When we got there, Lilian pushed the door instead of pulling so we thought it was good.  That had us drive up another couple of km up a worse gravel road until we turned about precariously and returned to find our way in!

It was pretty late at this point, but we unwound with some pool and.. Brennivin and "rotten" shark!   They had some small samples that you could get.  It was a cube of white meat.  The shark was caught and then buried in the ground.  The urea in the meat causes it to ferment.  It's supposed to stink but we must gotten a mild piece since it was bearable.  It also came straight out of the freezer.  I didn't mind it so much, although I probably wouldn't go out of my way for it.  Brennivin is the national drink, practically.  It's aquavit.  I liked the taste and will probably pick some up at duty free.

And that's all for this day!

Iceland Day 4: Myvatn to Husavik

Today, I'm getting a head start on the blog entry so hopefully it'll be more interesting.  I'm writing this as my friend drives a stretch of our trip.  (Using a Bluetooth keyboard in a car is surprisingly effective!)

We spent much of the day around Lake Myvatn.  As I think I mentioned, Myvatn means midges, a type of insects.  Sports fans may remember that midges plagued Joba Chamberlain when he pitched for the Yankees against Cleveland.  After experiencing them here, I can completely understand why he got so frazzled that he couldn't pitch.  Midges don't bite but they're attracted to CO2, so they have a tendency to try to get into your mouth and nose (and ears!).  It's quite annoying and there are times where there are swarms of them all around you.  I'm a little glad we're on the road away from Myvatn right now because of those midges!

After eating a breakfast with eggs from the farm attached to the hotel we stayed at, we drove around the island towards the Vindbelgur Mountain.  We went on a midge-plagued hike up 529m to the top.  It was quite steep with scree on the slopes.   At the top, though, we had a wonderful view of Lake Myvatn as well as pseudo-craters -- small round pools of water created by the geothermal activity below the ground.  It was a nice panoramic view although I'm not sure it made up for the midges and the strenuous hike!

After booking through the midges back down the mountain, we stopped by a bird museum on the NW side of the lake.  It was kinda pricey and only had stuffed birds within, so we skipped it.  The lake has a multitude of birds and ducks on it.  I'd recommend bringing a zoom lens or binoculars... the only catch is that you have to be outside and suffer the presence of the midges!

Lunch was pizza -- we wanted something relatively quick.  This definitely wasn't NY pizza.  It was passable.  We got a Coke as well.  Coke here has a strange taste (Coke in each country has a different recipe).  It tasted a little sweeter, too, although I believe they use real sugar (I could be wrong given my poor comprehension of the Icelandic ingredient list).

After lunch, we hit a trio of geological sites.  The first (from the south) was Dimmuborgir.  (Doesn't it sound like something out of the Hobbit?)  There are some impressive lava formations here.  Unlike yesterday, the formations had some height to them.  There were arches and holes that you could even walk through.  After Dimmuborgir, we went to Hverfjall.  There was another steep hike up the side of a crater (thankfully only 10--15m of hiking).  The crater was much bigger than VIti yesterday but there was no lake within.  Our final stop was a brief one at Grjotagja (okay, I'm stopping using the accents on vowels now).   This was a fissure in the earth coupled with an underground pool.  People used to swim in it but magma activity in the area made it too hot for that..

Our last stop in the Myvatn area was to the Myvatn Naturebaths.  Many people may have heard of the Blue Lagoon.  This place is the smaller and less touristy cousin.   Hot water from the area is piped in to fill massive outdoor baths.  Different sections of the pool are different temperatures -- 33-41C.  There's also a sauna that goes even higher.  It's a nice place to go after hiking and roughing it.  It's reasonably priced too -- about $30.   We didn't do it, but you can also get a beer bracelet to drink beer in the pools themselves.

We left Myvatn and backtracked to see a pair of waterfalls -- Dettifoss and Selfoss.  Dettifoss (which Lilian calls "Dental Floss") is the largest waterfall in Europe by volume.  It was impressive -- you could hear it a mile away.

We hurried up to Husavik to slip into a restaurant before the kitchen closed.  I'm continuing to try the local beers (Egil Gull today).  My meal was a Parma-wrapped cod.

I'm off to bed now.  I don't have the energy to see sunset (1:00am) or sunrise (1:45am)!

Day. 3: Staðarborg to Myvatn

Okay, now I'm caught up, so I'm writing almost real-time.

We had a slightly late start today.  I think we're moving slowly from the jet lag and the short night of sleep we had on the red-eye.  It's hard to go to sleep before midnight because it's so bright out.  It's 11:30pm as I write this and I can see outside as if it's 5pm back home.  Or at least 7pm in the summer.  (I know I've commented about this before but, heck, we're close 24 hour days here!)

We left our hotel and went up over a mountain pass.  There was snow on the side of the road but apart from the steep grade and gravel road there wasn't much concern.  I can imagine that this would be practically impassable in the winter.

We meandered our way along with wonderful views of the mountains before ending up at
Egilsstaoir, one of the larger villages in Eastern Iceland.  There was an airport and a nearby seaport!  This was mainly a resupply stop.  We went to 66 North, the outdoor clothing store place here. (66 North is the latitude of the Arctic Circle which is just above Iceland.)  The stuff there was ridiculously expensive.  Socks were $24!  Everything was 2-3x what you'd find in REI at home.  They looked nice but I couldn't justify spending that much.

Our goal (okay my goal) was to find reindeer in Egilsstaoir and we (I) succeeded.  Oh, did I mention, I meant reindeer to eat?   I didn't splurge on the reindeer steak but I had a reindeer burger and it was as good as I remembered.  (Mmm, Rudolph!).  I'm continuing to succeed in my quest to "go local"!

After a stop for gas, we pushed on, making one stop for a hike at a nameless foss (if you remember your earlier lesson, that's waterfall).  Continuing on, we made it to a geothermal power station that supplies 92% of the household electricity in Iceland.  Water is pumped down into geothermal vents in the earth.  Steam comes up that powers turbines that generate electricity.   We went on a small tour of the power station -- it's definitely not what one would stop at normally on vacation.

Beyond the power station there was lava fields and a crater called Viti (Hell!).  We did a bit of hiking around here.  The lava fields reminded me of the area near Lassen in California.  There was bubbling ground and hot steam vents here and at Hverir.  It was pretty cool (well, pretty hot, but you know what I mean...)

On our way to the hotel, we had dinner at a restaurant along Lake Myvatn (interestingly, Myvatn means midges.  I can see some on the window outside.  Not looking forward to that tomorrow!).   The restaurant provided food from its farm.  I had their special plate with smoked raw lamb, dill-cured Arctic char, smoke Arctic Char, Myvant mozarella, and local salad.  It was pretty good.  A nice chance to try some local stuff.  Lilian didn't touch a thing on my plate.  Oh, there was also geysir bread.  They make the bread by cooking it underground in the geysir.

Now, we're wrapping up for the night trying to figure out where to go next.  I'm going to sign off right now to take a picture of the sun.  Yes, the sun.  I'll add a picture of that.  It's 11:44pm!!!

Day. 2: Vik to Staðarborg

This was a long day as we decided to try to push further out so that we'd have some more time in the back end near Reykjavik.  People will probably say that we were too ambitious but I think we did manage to see a lot . The long hours of daylight and the willingness to drive helped. :)

After breakfast, we headed east on the Ring Road.  There were no major sights along the way initially.  The landscape was quite stark with mossy lava rocks and moonscape-like landscapes.  There still were a lot of tourist drivers though it did start to thin out now that we were further from the capital.  But with towns further and further apart you got the sense of how sparsely populated Iceland is out here.

Our first major stop was Fjaðrárgljúfur Canyon.  It was a rift valley with a nice waterfall amidst it.   In order to get there, we had to go on our first gravel road.  At first we turned back, but after asking someone if it would be okay for our car, we went ahead.  It turns out that Ring Road itself becomes gravelly later on.  Had we known, we would have been okay with this road.  Iceland has what are called F roads.  These roads are only passable with a 4x4 -- not our hardy little Civic.   The canyon was well worth it with precarious cliffside views of the waterfall.  Someone even brought out a drone.

Lunch was at gas station(!).  Yes, one would never do that in the US but we heard that the hot dogs at gas stations were amazing.  Frankly (no pun intended), I wasn't impressed.  Still, it was worth trying.  Normal food is otherwise expensive in Iceland so if you come here be prepared to spend money.  (Also, I was irked at my credit card company.  They said that the PIN at self-service gas stations would be my zip code.  Nope!)

After lunch, we continued along the Ring Road, stopping at scenic spots along the way.  The next major stop was Skaftafell National Park.  This park is right next to a glacier -- there were offers of guided tours and hikes on the glacier but we'll hopefully do that later in our trip.  Instead, we hiked out to the Svartifoss Waterfall.  That was another impressive waterfall.  We came back along a ridge with some beautiful views of ice-capped mountains.  The 45F weather was quite comfortable to hike in!  Especially when it was steep...

Our last major sightseeing stop of the day was Jokulsarlon Lagoon.  We knew we wanted to visit and stumbled upon the alternate entrance.  So there was hoopla; just a simple sign.  You climbed up to a ridge and then you suddenly were presented with a lagoon with blue icebergs floating in the middle.  It was quite impressive.  We hiked down to the edge of the water and actually picked up some pieces of ices that floated to the shore.  You could take a boat out to the icebergs but we opted not to.  Instead, we went out to the black sand beach across the way.  Everything is so stark but beautiful in Iceland.

Since this was a long day we had stopped for dinner in Höfn.  I had a local beer that was brewed from water from the icebergs.  Dinner was a local sole and langoustine (lobster) tails.  I'm trying to go as authentic and local as I can while I'm here!

We pulled into the hotel about 2 hours past Höfn at 11 o'clock at night.  And of course it was bright out.  I'll have to take a picture of Iceland at midnight one night to give you an idea of how bright it is.  Of course we are right near the summer equinox...

Day 1: Reykjavik to Vik

I'm a little behind in posting blogs on this trip.  We've been having some long days with little down time.  We're finally got to the hotel at a decent hour.  Although that's 9pm.  It feels like 5pm here because it's still completely bright out.   It never really gets dark here -- the closest thing to true night we've seen was inside a tunnel!  The birds are still whistling away at midnight, too!

We landed after taking a red-eye from JFK so we were pretty dead.  Still, the plan was to pack in a full day.  We picked up our rental call -- a brand new 2016 Honda Civic with 1200 km on it.  (When you rent a car in island you can get standard collision insurance as well as a host of other insurance -- gravel protection, super collision, and the best is SAAP (Sand and Ash Protection)!  We declined them all so hopefully we'll be good..

Our first stop was Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland best known for the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in the 1980s.  It was as I remembered it -- a small rustic capital.  Iceland has a population of about 300,000 people with over 200,000 of them in the capital.  My main purpose was to buy a handmade wool sweater there.  I didn't pack enough warm clothes so I felt I needed a layer so I wouldn't freeze (Although after a few days here I haven't had a need for it.  I've been surprisingly tolerant of the cold even though it's dropped down to 40F.).   We were so tired that we stopped on the way to take a catnap in the car.

The main road in Iceland is the Ring Road going around the island.  Our plan was to go counterclockwise.   On that first day, we saw a series of interesting waterfalls (foss in Icelandic).   There were great views of them with small hikes around them.  I've included a few pics of them in the posts.  For posterity, we went to Seljalandsfoss and Skógarfoss waterfalls.

After the waterfalls we went to Dyrhólaey, a black sand beach with a view of a basalt arch.  We also saw Reynishverfi, another beach with a view of three stones in the ocean called the trolls.  There were also basalt columns -- like Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.  It's amazing that those are natural formations!

Our hotel was a little bit past Vik on the south coast.  Rather than eating there, after checking in, we went back to Vik to have dinner at an oceanside restaurant.  I had the local lamb and the local Icelandic beer.  After dinner we walked out to the beach through a field of arctic lupins.  It was nearly 11 and still bright out when we got back to the hotel.  I promptly crashed and slept like a log...!

The Next Journey: Iceland

My next overseas trip is about to begin and my blog is resurrected for that purpose. After a week or so on the Eastern seaboard of the U.S., I'm now at JFK waiting for our flight to Iceland.  I'm traveling this time with Lilian, a fellow ballperson from my days at the U.S. Open.  This will be my second trip to Iceland. I was there five years or so ago when we tried to travel through Iceland to escape the ash cloud of the volcano with the unpronouncable name. That didn't work out when the winds changed and we ended up having a few days to explore the area around Reykjavik, the capital.  This time, the plan us to drive around the island on the Ring Road.  I'm a little worried that it'll be cold -- one of my first purchases will be an Icelandic sweater.

No pictures this post but stay tuned. I'll also crosspost on Instagram under nitinkasturi.  Comment there or here and let me know you're reading!

Aureum Palace resort -- Inle

This hotel didn't disappoint either. It might have been more impressive than its sister in Bagan.  The complex wasn't as large but the rooms were huge, more like apartments. In fact, I think that it was bigger than any one bedroom apartment I've had.  The bathroom was thirty feet in length and there was a sitting room.  There was a huge wooden bath -- which turned out to be a tad impractical since the water didn't stay warm enough to fill the whole tub.  They had a lot of nice touches too, decorating the beds and creating little man out of towels.  The pool liked out onto the marshes fronting Inle Lake, though it was frightfully cold.

The weather here was quite cold at night. They gave us hot water bottles which were great. The staff in the mornings wore wool coats and scarfs -- even if it was 60F. 

This definitely was a resort complex that was excellent. There really wasn't anywhere to go when you got there. We went on a boat everywhere. There was a street access but we never used it.  We had thought about walking down the street to another hotel for dinner but that was the day that my stomach acted up.

I'll add pictures to this post when I have a chance. The internet connections haven't been great...

Burmese cats

Today, we spent the whole day on the lake, taking a long-tail boat (or motorized canoe or whatever you call it) from place to place.  It was nice to see things beside pagodas and temples although we did have a few stops along the way there. It was kinda neat going to places only by boat -- we would pull up to the place and climb off the boat right there.  The houses were mainly built on stilts at the edge of the lake. The lake is only 3-5 feet deep there. It only gets about 15-20 feet deep in the center.

We visited a silk and lotus workshop. It's impressive how much tensile strength lotus fibers have.  It was pricey too! There was a long shirt wooden from lotus that was $750!  We also visited a silversmith. They had some nice fish earrings that would twist along the body. And then we visited a cheroot factory where they rolled cigarettes. They had regular and an anise flavored one. But we didn't spend much time be there.

But the highlight if the morning was a visit to a Burmese cat sanctuary. There were forty cats there. These cats are very friendly, almost like dogs. They would jump on you and climb into your shoulders!