Shamrock luck

So with their upcoming tour in the UK this year, I just had to book tickets for all five dates. I just hope they can go ahead. 

Now, onto their new album. Horizons. From start to finish, it’s an album that can make you feel a whole whirlwind of emotions. 

As desperate as I was to listen to the album as soon as I woke up on the day it was released, I manged (just) to resist the urge until I got home from work and had finished sorting the horses. I put on my noise cancelling headphones, cranked the volume up and made sure there would be no distractions. Because that’s the only way to listen to it first time. 

The Breach is the perfect way to start, it pulls you right in. Makes you follow them through the wonderful journey. 

Otherworldly instantly stood out for me, it’s a stunning song that gives me the warmest feeling every single time I listen to it. It always gets turned up extra loud, to feel the music through me. Even now, with probably over one hundred listens it still moves me. I didn’t think any other song in the world would beat my love for Starlight, but of course if there was one out there, it had to be another Starset song. 

Symbiotic is a close second for my favourite in the album. But the heavier songs such as Devolution and Icarus are very close behind. Though it would be so difficult, if not impossible, to try and rank Horizons in order.

Dustin’s voice still amazes me, how he can go from singing so beautifully and calm, to more intense singing and raw screams. 

The length of this album is perfect, the amount of songs and the length of them. I’ve often found myself wishing some songs would never end, and Starset give us that. It doesn’t feel rushed, it’s not over quickly. 

The first thing we noticed on arrival, is that of course Iceland isn’t covered in snow and ice like some may think. It is a vast land of beautiful scenery, very colourful. (Including the buildings!)

After a late flight in the night before, we decided to explore around the city. We found the Perlan, which is a large glass dome with multiple floors and plenty to do. From a real man made ice cave, an interactive model of Látrabjarg with the puffins, to the observation deck at the top and much more.

Our view on the observation deck wasn’t too impressive due to the rain and cloudy weather. But it still gave us a good view over Reykjavik. The man made ice cave was an experience in itself. It was freezing cold – as to be expected – and quite low in some areas. Made with real snow and ice taken from the Blue Mountains. I’d also highly recommend to go with the guided tour, because the guide really knows his stuff and it was very interesting.

We got a bus back to the city and spent the rest of the day wandering around the city. We found a nice little pub called The Irishman. As everyone says, Iceland is very expensive so definitely bear that in mind when going!

On our second day we had booked to go on the South Shore adventure. We booked through Reykjavik Excursions and highly recommend them. The guides are lovely and friendly, happy to answer any questions. They are very informative and added in funny little stories about different places.

While on the bus journey, we noticed that Iceland was very flat. There wasn’t many trees so you could see for miles and miles. One tour guide told us that if you got lost in one of the ‘forests’ they have, that you just have to stand up and you’d be able to see your way out!

Instead of fields of cows and sheep, the main animals to be seen were horses. With the odd field of sheep. What I find amazing is they don't allow any horses into the country, so they don’t have to worry about common diseases like we have here.

They also have it cracked in regards to drainage of their fields. They have ditches around almost every field we saw, to help keep the fields mud free.

Our first stop was at Skógafoss waterfall. Until you’ve seen it, you’ve never seen a real waterfall before! We were lucky that the sun came out long enough to give us a rainbow effect at the fall too. It is spectacular. And also where part of Thor: The dark world was filmed.

Next we went to Reynisfjara black sand beach. It is stunning, yet also fierce. The waves were crashing against the shore with such power, even without the warnings about going too close you would certainly think twice about it! At the beach we also saw the Reynisdrangar rocks and Columnar Basalt.

For lunch we stopped in a lovely little village called Vík. The church at the top of the hill looking over the village was lovely.

On the way back we stopped off at Sólheimajökull and had a short walk to the bottom of a glacier, which has formed a small lake with many icebergs floating down it.  

The last stop of that excursion was another waterfall, Seljalandsfoss. Another beautiful waterfall that you can actually walk behind. We didn’t, however. Not fancying getting soaked! (There was also a small stall there that sold the best doughnuts I’ve ever tasted.)

On our third day we spent more time wondering around the city. We went to the Whale museum. Which, wasn’t really worth the entry fee. It was cool to see the model whales to real size, but there wasn’t much else there to do. But it certainly passed a little bit of time while it was raining.

We had a look around the shops, buying gifts to bring back and souvenirs. There is plenty of nifty little places with different kind of souvenirs to your normal holiday shops.

Our last full day we went on The Golden Circle & Friðheimar excursion. Our first stop was Friðheimar greenhouse cultivation centre, which was really interesting. It’s one of the largest in Iceland. Growing tomatoes using all natural resources that Iceland has to offer. As well as importing hundreds of bees to pollinate the plants. And no use of any pesticides.

Geysir geothermal area was our next stop. We got to see the active geyser Strokkur, which was quite the sight when shooting up water! We had lunch there too and had a look around the various shops on offer there.

Then we went to Gullfoss waterfall. If I thought the two previous waterfalls we saw were amazing, this was something else. It has three different levels to it ending into a deep canyon, and you are able to either look down on it from above or go lower down to the middle area. It was a bit of a hike down a rocky slope, but worth it to get closer to the waterfall.

Returning to the bus, rather soaked from being so close to the waterfall, we then went to Þingvellir National Park. Where we walked along by the Mid-Atlantic ridge which is The Eurasian and North-American tectonic plates pulling Iceland apart slowly.