Iceland

I spent my Thanksgiving weekend in a most unlikely place: Iceland. For most of my life I've had had a preoccupation with islands. Not sure why, but the idea of a small piece of land surrounded by water has always fascinated me. Doing Robinson Crusoe for a year on some tropical island somewhere was practically a childhood dream of mine.
Iceland is far from tropical. But it is isolated, located in the north Atlantic closer to Greenland than anywhere else. One word stands out when I think of this place: elemental. Water, lava, wind, snow, ice, rock--it is a fierce but not deadly environment. I took tons of pictures, as you can see below. And I learned a lot, some points which include:

• Iceland is heated primarily by geothermal energy, with geysers everywhere, a system decades in the making but bearing fruit now in that the average resident pays anywhere from $50-80 per month in electricity and water.
• Iceland has the world's oldest parliament, founded in 930.
• The Icelandic language is darn close to what the Vikings who settled the island spoke. It has changed so little that literature from the Viking era can still be read pretty easily by modern-day Icelanders.
• Iceland has the highest literacy rate in world at 99.99%. They've only roughly 300,000 people, but still that's impressive. Most Icelanders speak English.
• Reykjavik is the quite possibly the cleanest city in the world. I'll attest to that.
• They eat some pretty interesting stuff, like sheep heads and testicles, pickled fish, reindeer, and ptarmigan (a traditional Christmas food).
• There really isn't much wildlife there, nor trees. Still, there is a beauty all its own.