Tomorrow we’ll be in Norway and then have to start paying for internet service. Semester at Sea follows the typical University model where faculty and students get more privileges than staff - in this case they get 200 minutes free internet whereas staff get only 100 minutes free until the end of the voyage in August. This was a bit of a surprise to me since we didn’t know about this ahead of time. At $.40/ minute the difference is only $40/person. I am just continually surprised what organizations do that may seem small, but communicate a clear message to their employees about how they view them. So I don’t know how much I’ll be posting between now and August, but hopefully enough to keep you all updated and entertained. Anyway, enough of my bitterness and on to the exciting things….
My third day in Iceland was rather uneventful until the evening. Reykjavík is known for their night life, so of course we had to experience it. At home my typical bedtime is 10:30pm so when the clubs at home are just picking up around 11pm I can barely stay awake. In Reykjavík no one really goes out until 1am, which is shortly after sunset. So on Saturday I went out with the other RDs around midnight. There was a dance at Café Reykjavik which was a fundraiser for the upcoming gay pride event so we went there. Well at midnight we stopped by and about three people were there, so we went to another bar called Café Solon for about an hour. When we returned to Café Reykjavik at 1am things were just starting to pick up. If I had been in the States I would have been exhausted, but since it doesn’t get dark all night the light plays tricks on your body. We stayed out until almost 4am and had a blast! I was rather fascinated by the whole thing. I barely felt tired and got up the next day at 8:30am. In fact if anything I felt energized and excited. The other different thing is that in a club in the States it is always very dark with few windows, but this place had big windows on both sides and the skylight was pouring in. The music they played was very diverse and included Dolly Parton, ABBA, Bon Jovi, rap, hard rock, and even heavy metal. It was actually a great mix with lots of American music and some Icelandic music. Everyone was dancing and seemed more carefree than in the States, less concerned about how other people were viewing them. It was quite refreshing.
My final day in Iceland involved a trip to the infamous Blue Lagoon. It is basically a section of a river that has been converted to a large hot tub heated by a geothermal power plant. It didn’t really seem like my thing, but everyone was raving about it so I decided to go check it out. Well, it was overrated, but still enjoyable. Here is a photo…
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