beardedrugby

Holy hell, a couple buddies and I got lost and wound up just a few miles from you.

Back in 2009 we were about to graduate and realized we would no longer have spring break every year. Sunshiny spring breaks are played out and we figured that what with Iceland's recent financial troubles, we might be able to get over there cheap. Sure enough, round trip tickets were dirt cheap so we read up on puffins and headed across the sea. We stayed in Reykjavik as home base, but rented a vehicle and drove out to explore the countryside. On one such trip we headed out to see Strokkur because, we're tourists and that's what tourists do. Twas awesome by the way. Anyway, we loved what we were seeing and being young adventurous Americans, decided to explore a bit. Besides, we had a map, what could possibly go wrong? We saw some of the most gorgeous country I have ever seen, lakes of broken crystal, blasted blackened landscapes, glacial waterfalls. Iceland is easily one of my favorite places on Earth. Of course, there's not much in way of gas stations in the midst of this sheep blanketed landscape. That probably accounts for the precisely one (1) other car we saw whilst exploring. We did see quite a few brilliantly painted houses, but noticed they were all shuttered for winter. The colors were stunning and as we soon learned, functional as they stood out against the landscape and were the only thing we could make out through the blizzard. Oh yeah, there was a blizzard for most of this. Fortunately, the road was not icy or slippery because roads made out of crushed volcanic rock don't get slick like paved roads. Not that all the roads were unpaved, some of the more heavily trafficked ones like this two-way Autobahn were nicely blacktopped. Does that sky look like it's about to rain icy hell upon the land? No, I didn't think so either. We were well fueled as we had a tank of gas and 2 huge bags of delicious trail mix. Of course, the gas tank was at about 3/4 and we had forgotten the trail mix in the hotel. Good thing we had those delicious "pizza sandwiches" earlier. Yes, it's two slices of pizza put topping-to-topping and yes, it's delicious. Several thrilling, white-knuckled hours later, we drove out of the storm and back under that same pacific blue sky and there was much rejoicing. We soon approached this sign from behind. We had to get out and move it to get around and relatively soonish we were back on 1. Turns out we had missed a similar sign at some point and had been driving on closed roads for a couple hundred kilometers. Sadly, we didn't make it as far east as you, we came out in that 208/209/210 web. That said, next time we're driving through, we'll be sure to press on and say hi. Of course, we'll probably be hungry, you guys getting a KFC anytime soon?

Physically, did they seem fit to be soldiers? I know the military in Korea is better fed, but nationwide malnutrition has to be near totally pervasive.

The way you visualize numbers as colors and then are able to transfer the image in your head to a painting is truly incredible. Are any of your paintings for sale or alternatively, have you given thought to doing commissions? I'm sure you've got plenty going on in the rest of your life, but to have an abstract painting by you of, say, of the digits of ones birthday would be amazing.

Also, so jealous of your Icelandic feat of language. I love Iceland and even though nearly everyone speaks English, it would be nice to be able to say more than please and thank you in their native tongue.