Comments on: IceWeb on Ice

By: Catherine

Catherine — Tue, 02 May 2006 18:40:09 +0000

I visited Iceland for the first time last year, and it’s held a strange soft spot in my heart ever since – not a place where I think I could live, but so distinct and visually strange and memorable nonetheless. It’s been fantastic reading everyone’s writeups of IceWeb – I wish I could have attended. Can’t believe I’m nostalgic for just one week of travel! I will never forget the big sweeping clouds overhead, the lovely hostel, and all the unexpected street art in Reykjavik.

By: Haukur H. Thorsson

Haukur H. Thorsson — Mon, 01 May 2006 00:26:02 +0000

Just wanted to thank you for an excellent presentation !

Look forward to the next IceWeb conference, maybe you’ll be there?

Who knows :)

By: Finnur

Finnur — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 23:04:21 +0000

It was a great conference yes, to bad I didn’t get the chance to grab some beers with you as well.
Of course there is allways next year :)

By: ralph

ralph — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 13:34:45 +0000

You’re a lucky man to have seen the aurora. I pay close attention to solar conditions (in addition to causing auroras, they affect shortwave radio signals, and shortwave is one of my hobbies), and I’ve only ever seen one from my location here in New Jersey. I read somewhere that only 5% of humanity has seen one.

By: Jonathan Stanley

Jonathan Stanley — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 12:46:05 +0000

I wanted to go up to IceWeb 2006 just as an excuse to head up to Iceland again, having last visted it pretty much exactly 10 months ago. To me, the place certainly has a “Am I on the right planet?” character to it.

Certainly agree on the fact they know how to party… just a pity about the cost of living! Indeed the answer from one of the guides I had, apparently the real answer to “How do Icelanders afford to live here?”, is “We don’t… why do you thing we have huge bank overdrafts!”.

Oh, and kudos on managing to snap some Aurora Borealis… I was there in the summer during a period of perpetual daylight, which meant it impossible to see this particular wonder of nature. :)

By: David Nitzsche-Bell

David Nitzsche-Bell — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 05:01:20 +0000

Eric,

On a whim, I took a 10 day vacation in Iceland about 10 years ago. I had no idea. I just went because Icelandic Air had cheap fares. But, it was the most memorable and most exciting vacation I’ve had. In fact, as I’m wont to say, “Iceland is the coolest place to go!”

During my time there, I saw underwater ice rivers, geysers (we stole the word from ancient Icelandic!), several volcanoes (one of the premier volcanic researchers is Icelandic. He followed his father’s footsteps.), Northern Lights, fjords (as beautiful if not more so than those in Norway), puffins, and more.

I also went to Blue Lagoon, which is the water run-off resevoir of a geo-thermal power plant. You see, Iceland gets all of its hot water from natural resources – it just bubbles out of the ground. It’s so hot, they have to cool it down. The run-off collects in an outdoor pond. It’s open 365 days a year. You can go there, put on your bathing suit, take a shower and then GO OUTSIDE into the outdoor pool. Which is a balmy 37-40 degrees Celsius, depending on where you stand. It’s the best experience.

And did you know that Iceland, even the capital Reykjavik, is where the tectonic plates from the USA and Europe meet? The line apparently goes right through town. So, when Reagan met Gorbachev there way back when, it was literally where East meets West.

Third largest glacier in the world, skiing, snowmobiling, a island was born (yes, born!) off the southern coast about 30 years ago, no trees (they’re above the tree line, you see), friendly, literate people, 180,000 population and they ALL speaking excellent english. They even publish two english language daily newspapers!! Weekend pub crawls. Björk. I could go on.

You can tell how excited I am. If you haven’t been to Iceland, I can’t encourage you enough. It used to be that Icelandic Air had cheap rates to Europe and allowed a stopover of any length. In fact, when I was there, invariably people asked me what my final destination was. They were incredulous when I told them I had just come just to see Iceland.

I guess that was more than $0.02.

Glad you liked it, Eric.