Santa's Here

This morning, we get to sleep in. We have a tour in the afternoon. We have breakfast in the Hudson today. Laura can get a gluten-free meal prepared just for her. Today is bacon, eggs, breakfast potatoes, and toast. They have a system here where you can order your specialty meals the day before so the chef has some warning of what to prepare. Laura is quite happy that she can have basically whatever she wants gluten-free and cooked to perfection. I think she ordered Eggs Benedict for tomorrow. So we have breakfast and head back to the room to finish booking our excursions for the trip.

Today, we are in Akureyri. Akureyri is a large town with a population of 20,000. That is huge for Iceland. They have all the modern amenities from outdoor swimming pools (geothermally heated) to hospital, police, high school, and university. A booming place! The sun is shining and it is really warm out, 17 celcius. We head off at noon for a trip to a botanical garden, Santa's house, and a local museum. Spring has not really sprung here yet, so there are not many flowers out. Apparently, this garden was started by some of the local ariticratic women back in the 1950s. It was later taken over by the town. It is a nice walk, and many locals are here getting some sun. Next up is the highlight of the tour. It is a little Santa Village created by one of the locals. It has three little stores with everything from candy apples, sweets, cookies, and Christmas ornaments to tea towels, homemade soaps, jams, and knit wear. They have done a wonderful job in creating the area, and their products are very nice. After a few purchases, we head on to the museum. Here, we learn a little about the settlers of the area and how they lived. They started off in peat houses and then moved to wood houses. After a few fires, they were outlawed, and all houses were made from cement after that. The houses are heated geothermally. They have large pipelines that run along the side of the road carrying hot water from holes that they drill into towns. Genius! If their homes can't be heated by geothermal methods, then they have electric heat, which is created by waterfalls all over the island.

We head back to the ship in time to leave by 4 PM. The sun never really sets here, so when we leave, we the sun is still shining on the mountains.もっと詳しく