Working Vacation

This weekend, as reported in my last post, an enclave of Team Midge went to the port city of Húsavík (pop. 2200) on a sort of "working vacation." Jamin, Kyle, Bre and I went, and were accompanied by our friend from the field station, Jasmine. We have 6 transects that are not located around our main lake, Mývatn, that we use as controls. These are located throughout the region, and 4 of them happen to be fairly far north so that we travel through Húsavík to get there. And we happen to have friends in Húsavík, which works out nicely. On Saturday, we drove to 3 of the sites (the ones that didn't require collecting live insects) to collect some samples. We made quick work of these sites and thus had some time to stop and do a little touring. We stopped at Öxarfjörður for lunch and to see if we could see some puffins in the fjord below. We did! it was great, even if they were a bit far away to capture well on film. We did have a couple pairs of binoculars which helped. There were some great vistas from the clifftops too.

After lunch we hit one last site, Víkingavatn.


Then we went to Ásbyrgi, a national park which has some beautiful bluffs. They reminded me a bit of a larger version of those along the river at home. This is one of the few wooded places in Iceland, the trees were planted by a youth corps in exchange for use of a clearing for some events. One of my favorite bands, Sigur Rós (they happen to be Icelandic) played a free show in this clearing when they were shooting their film, Heima. It was pretty cool to see where this happened. (also the film is pretty awesome, and even if you don't know the band there is some great footage of Iceland)



We took advantage of the great weather and got in touch with our roots on the playground that was in the clearing. Afterward we took a few minutes to soak up the sun and warmth by napping on the grass. None of us cared that we smashed little mites that left little red dots all over our clothes.

We finally made it back to Húsavík and met up with our friends Yann and Erica and baby BiBi, and shortly thereafter headed out to a meal out at the local N1. N1 is an Icelandic chain of gas stations which happens to serve some reasonably priced food. (resonably priced means $9 for basically what amounts to a Burger King whopper) It was fun to sit in the gas station and watch the Icelandic youths do what they do. They seem to all get in a car, one, two or three per vehicle and cruise up and down the main drag in town. Quite interesting especially considering the price of gas.


We strolled back to the apartment after dinner and commenced the festivities. We were having a great time, and eventually the party (of 7 people total) made it out onto the deck. Not long after the Great Migration the police (4 officers in one SUV) showed up and shut us down! I guess we lost track of time due to the ever present daylight, but it was already 2 am! Good thing bars stay open pretty late in Iceland... we went down to the waterfront and had one last pint before closing time and the inevitable weaving of our way back home to crash on couches and the floor.

The next morning, all of us bearing something of a self inflicted wound, it was back to work. Taking more samples, hiking to sites, and reminiscing about the night previous. We knew we were in for a long day, and that's exactly what we got. But it was worth it. At least we didn't have to count the samples we collected until today...