First stop of tour and it's just 4 of us--Andy, Reuben, Spencer, and me.

From the airplane and the bus, Iceland looks barren. Endless fields of lava floes and dimly colored shrubs. Reykjavik is 30 minutes from the airport. It's a cute city, only a few blocks in any direction and you reach the outskirts.

We went straight from the airport to our day-long bus tour of the "Golden Circle." The tour guide spoke fluent Icelandic, English, and German. We had our doubts when at the outset she explained in great detail what causes rush hour traffic in Reykjavik (hint: it has something to do with 9-5 workdays), but she turned out to be fantastic. First we stopped at an indoor tomato farm, where we tried some delicious, fresh tomato soup. The farmer gave an intriguing, detailed explanation of how the farm works. They manually wind tomato vines up a string instead of lattices--they grow just enough to wrap around the string exactly once a week.

Next was the stunning Gullfoss, or Golden Falls. It immediately reminded me of the waterfall in Prometheus (the sci-fi movie); turns out that the one in the movie is in Iceland, but on the other side of the country.

After the falls, we went to see Geysir, where there are several geysers, such as Strokkur, which erupts every 5-7 minutes. Here's a video I took: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifb87KdOIlg

But my favorite geyser was Littli Geysir.

Our last stop was at a huge natural gorge. It made me think of the storm giants the way they were imagined in the Hobbit movie. The walls were many meters high, and the rock beneath our feet showed ripples of once-flowing lava.

We could also see huge snow-covered volcanoes in the distance.

Finally, home to Kex hostel. Here's the view from the front.

The first floor had a really trendy bar packed with locals and travelers of all ages. We searched high and low for affordable meals (none to be found) and finally settled on yummy pizza. Every type of pizza was slightly not what we expected. Maybe it's an Iceland thing. Finally, before heading to bed, we crossed the street to the water to watch the sun set (at 11:30pm!).

We leave for Norway in the morning!