Gudfoss means Gold Falls in Icelandic. They are the largest (not tallest) falls in all of Europe. We went hiking down to them and were drenched by the mist flowing through the canyon... thus the rainbow. As a side note, Ost means cheese in Icelandic. Gud and Ost are the extent of my Icelandic vocabulary. |  |
 | And this is me being stupid. Jon kept saying, "get more into the light Matt, the camera is not picking you up". I may be stupid enough to go and stand next to falls like this, but I came to the conclusion that standing on the slick wet rocks for the sake of the photograph was a generally bad idea. |
It's hard to be more "in the middle of nowhere" than in the centre of Iceland's lava plains. Glaciers surrounded us on all sides, truly stunning. |  |
 | Me, Jon, and "Cute French Girl Whose Name I Have Forgotten" all had a lovely conversation regarding the importance of a university education in a mixture of broken french, english, and german in these natural hot springs. |
Once the girls left and the hormones turned off, Jon and I got around to looking at the springs which were feeding the pool we had been hanging out in. The whole area felt a bit like Yellowstone. The key difference was the scale. Yellowstone has much larger thermal pools and many more geysers. I suppose the protection of the thermal areas in Yellowstone is also much greater. You would never be allowed to swim directly in a US national park hotspring or get as close to the geysers as we did. |  |
 | Speaking of geysers... |
As the day wore on and the dark clouds moved in, the thermal pools and geysers lost a lot of their color. |  |
 | Great moments in natural selection. The view from up there was worth the reasonable chance of death. |
Iceland has SO many waterfalls. And we visited several in the outstanding Icelandic weather. (note we are all soaked) |  |
 | The southern section of the island reminded me a bit of Hawaii... only colder. I suppose this isn't all that suprising since they are both volcanic islands. |
Lots of narrow cliffs and steep climbs. |  |
 | This particular trail climbed the bottom end of the canyon through this nifty series of caves! I think they were once lava tubes. |
Jon's family was lovely. From left to right are Jon, Gudni (his dad), Ella (his sister - she spoke fluent spanish!), Solrun (his mom), Kiddy (his younger brother - who spends countless hours playing computer games and dreams of someday attending Imperial College), and me. |  |