In the End

When I returned from vacation last week, Iceland was still very present in my mind. I was convinced that each evening I would write a post detailing one day of travel. Ha ha. A week later, overcome by the day to day, I've begun to loose the thread. And, of course, there are new things to report. 

So, I've decided to abandon the chronological approach and just see where things go. Of course, I will start with knitting.

My airplane knitting project was a a birthday present and I can't show it yet. Before finishing it, when I came to the nupps section (hint for knitters), my bamboo needle broke. A search for a replacement led to my first visit to an Icelandic yarn shop, in Hveragerði. It's in their mall, right when you come into town off the main highway, on the right. The shop is quite similar to our yarn shops (and so are their grocery stores) except that they have plenty of Icelandic yarn. 

In addition to finding needles, I was anxious to try out Plötulopi, an unspun, 1 ply yarn which is sold in wheels or plates. I had been cautioned to avoid it because of its fragility. Of course, this caution made it the first yarn I looked for. I bought a plate of dark blue and swatched a mitten shape that evening. I had no problem knitting it. It broke a few times, not when knitting, but when I carelessly pulled on it when walking by. It was easy to reattach by rolling the two broken bits together in my fingers. Here's what the plates look like. I frogged it without breaking the yarn at all. One plate cost the equivalent of $2.50 US.

Here's a photo of some carefully cultivated birches in Hveragerði.

On the second day of our visit, after visits to Gullfoss and Geysir under cloudy skies, we experienced our first Icelandic sunset. Here's a photo from Geysir, where there were masses of tourists:

And one from Gullfoss:

The sunsets are gorgeous and go on for hours. We quickly learned to modify our travel plans and follow the sun. This was taken in a churchyard between Selfoss and Hveragerði.