#greenprogch1

(above) Strokkur at large. (below) Colloidal effects.

My wanderings around the area.

(1) Translates to "The King's Hot Spring". (2) The rain made it look much less impressive. (3) This is what it usually looks like.

Saw Mt. Laugafell; didn't know we were allowed to climb it.

Unnamed.

Surroundings.

Nervously walking back to the bus, not knowing I wasn't late.

By the way, I don't remember if I already said this, but our bus was a charter bus. However, the company isn't readily identifiable because our bus had the decal "Free As a Bird". Very fitting for the GREEN Program. You'll see it later!

Everyone elses' wanderings (after seeing Strokkur and quickly glancing at the places I went to)

Our next stop was the legendary Gullfoss (translates to "Golden Falls").

It got its name from its golden appearance that occurs when sunlight reflects off of sediment particles in the water. There's sediment in the water mainly because the Hvítá river, which feeds the falls, contains large amounts of glacial water from Lángjökull. This glacial water is very sediment-rich if it isn't filtered by elements like porous volcanic rock. In the early 1900's, the authorities wanted to capitalize on the river's potential for generating electricity by building a dam. However, they did not have the funds necessary to follow up on this and the dam was never constructed.

For starters, mostly everyone went to the falls' lookout.

And then there was me (and probably a few others I don't remember seeing) who went up a fairly large stairwell before approaching the falls (and then went to see them up close).

Before the ascent. (1) Obviously, the Golden Falls weren't too golden that day (cloudy). (2) Part of the stairs to the upper level behind the info board.

The views from above.

Up here I was messing with some video settings on the camera like slow-mo captures, timelapses, framerate, etc. I had it on a small tripod, and while I was messing with it I saw Mumi, Adam, and Conor. They asked out of curiosity what I was doing, and I told them just that (with the settings and all that). Afterwards, I went down to the falls, and everyone else went up.

Gullfoss was probably my favorite waterfall. You might understand why once I figure out how to post videos here.

Falls-level.

Tried pulling the tourist selfie, ended up looking like I was about to sneeze.

When it comes to self-assembled groups for projects, I'm the kind of person that waits until someone picks him. No one picked me until half an hour after it all began, and they picked me only because I made it clear that I was one of the stragglers. But boy, was I glad I was part of that group. We were a group of 6: Hannah, an environmental studies/political science double major from George Washington University; Clare, an environmental engineering major from Cornell University; Rachel, another environmental engineering major, this time from Purdue University; Kevin, an electrical engineering major from McMaster University; Jahred, an environmental science/engineering major from Harvard; and me (chemical engineering, Carnegie Mellon University).

We did about half an hour of brainstorming before settling on a central theme to the capstone: green roofing.

A green roof in Chicago. Helps with cooling the building, combating the urban heat island effect, and improving runoff.

I say a central theme because it wasn't exactly what the project was going to be about. A bit after that, Adam and Conor reached our group (they were coming around to all the groups). The baseline expectation for the capstone as a whole was to develop a sustainability- or renewable energy-based idea that would be possibly marketable in the future. We initially had trouble explaining all of our thoughts to them since they weren't entirely coherent and needed further developing. Nevertheless, the leaders were glad we had reached some kind of consensus and encouraged us to pursue it further. And for another hour, we did. And by the end of the night, we had our capstone idea. It was based on a scenario where the state of California conveniently proposed legislation that promoted green roofing by incentivizing the use of green roofs and offering bonuses to businesses that took an active role in offsetting carbon emissions. Our goal was to (under the guise of one "Urban Canopy", a green consulting firm) analyze the effect that large-scale green roofing in Los Angeles would have on the city's carbon footprint.

Los Angeles, the United States' second largest city, from space.

After reaching that solid idea, we split and called it a day. Before sleeping, I decided I'd pack my bags in the morning. And then once again, dropped like a stone.

I'm pretty sure I relived that day in my dreams too.

Just the GREEN team.

And with the Scuba Iceland team.

The first team in and a small bit of the fissure from above.

I look back and I have no idea why I took a picture of the flippers. However, I do know it was while I was in line, waiting to go into the Silfra.

Back of the line, still incredibly excited.

Courtney and Julia, two fellow Dragons that would be in my group for the excursion. Oh, and our leader (whose name I do not recall, but more on her later anyway).

Pre-tectonic-plate-snorkel selfies? I got that.

Moments prior to the plunge.

First sight. First thought: "Where was this when I looked in from above the water???" (Pinch-me-I'm-dreaming moment #4)

In just a little further.

So now that you have a just a smattering of what I saw, let me explain what I was feeling. Honestly, everything happens so quickly that you don't even notice until it's too late: it took all but 20 seconds for the parts of my face that weren't covered by goggles or snorkel or hood to go completely numb. So cold wasn't an issue. Now, the water seeping into my gloves was a little annoying, but it was nothing that hindered the experience. After all, (in the dive team's own words): "cold is just a state of mind."

Now, enough words. Just pictures for awhile.

A bit of a break. And some frustration.

So I had never been snorkeling before, and had zero luck getting the technique for the flippers down. I also had my camera in one of my hands, so I used one arm to take me from the beginning to here, which is a small lagoon thing about a third of the way through the route we were following. I was kinda pooped here and I was very far behind my group. At this point, the leader came back to get me, and I felt like the team's biggest loser. And by that, I really mean I felt bad for being so slow. This trend would repeat several times throughout the snorkel.

Aaaaand we're back. Those plants were the only life we got to see in the fissure. Now, that doesn't mean that's all the life there is in the water (more on this a little later).

Pinch-me-I'm-dreaming moment #5: The Silfra Cathedral (a picture from the surface couldn't do it justice...)

The end. 

Of the snorkel, anyway.

Between the end platform and the jump, I apologized to my leader a bunch and asked her about where she was from. If I remember correctly, she told me she was from France, and was relatively new to this dive site in Þingvellir (she had been working here for some time, but not too long). She had a pretty heavy accent so conversation was a little difficult. One of the first questions she asked me was if I had tried the water; at that point, I hadn't and was a bit sad. However, I would get another chance.... after jumping off of a cliff.

Okay, "cliff" is a hyperbole. Maybe "relatively large ledge" is slightly more accurate.

I was last to go. And of course I tried something kinda different.

Karate kid or nah?

Between the picture above and the next picture: the plunge was a bit of a shock after regaining feeling in my face from the snorkel. I opened my eyes under the water and the cold licked my eyeballs until I got to the surface. Even if it hurt a little bit, I could see down there just as clearly as I could with the goggles. When I got to the surface, I almost forgot to take a drink. That moment set the bar for my drinking water, and that expectation will not be met by any other water for a long time. And by that I really mean about 4 more days.

After this, we got back into our regular clothes. I met another dive team member from Belgium who had been at the site for a pretty long time now, and he was a great help in helping me get out of the suit. From there we took another group picture with the dive team (can't find it), picked up the Puffins and the Unicorns, and headed back to Hjarðarból for dinner and capstone work.

Next time I go to the Silfra fissure, I will have my scuba license.

First steps, lights on, and there's snow?

Around the corner.

At this point, Mumi had us all sit down and explained a couple things. First off, apparently those things on the ceiling are called "lava titties". They formed at the onset of lava drainage out of the channel: when the lava level in the channel is just below that of the ceiling, the bubbling lava tends to cling to the ceiling and then drip off, thus leaving behind these formations. Second, Gjábakkahellir, which means "Little Girl's Cave", was named after an Icelandic tale that had something to do with a family retreating into the cave for some reason, and the parents realized they'd starve down there so they spared their children a slow death by killing them.... and legend has it that if you're really quiet, you can hear whistles of the children (mostly those of the girl) in the cave. I know, really grim tale, but that's the story. And of course, after telling a scary story, you need darkness. So Mumi had everyone in the cave turn off their headlamps and remain silent. I had never seen such a perfect darkness; the silence wasn't perfect (because of the echoes of dripping water throughout the cave) but it was close enough. And of course someone had to end it by trying to whistle. It was good while it lasted.

Continuing on.

This cave was pretty slippery at times because water leeching in from the cave's openings froze wherever it had a chance to settle within the cave. I also bumped my head quite a few times on some tight squeezes that we had to maneuver through. I don't think I knew how to really appreciate helmets until then.

The light at the end of the channel.

As it turns out, the channel is a loop!

Group picture time.

Just beyond the edge of the viewing area, you can see the rift that opens due to the separation of the plates. Now, entire tectonic masses separating doesn't make a clean cut. There's many, many secondary cracks that open up as a result.

Like these.

Here's another look at the rift.

Overall, we only got to see a small portion of the park, but even what we saw was more than enough to blow minds. For this first portion of the day, we walked around the park.

Walking in the rift.

A small waterfall in the rift.

We made our way around the rift and started walking towards the Silfra, which is a fissure containing some of the clearest water you can dive in on the planet. That water makes up the Silfra River, and it flows in Þingvallavatn, which is Iceland's largest lake. All of the water that flows into Þingvallavatn from one way or another originates from Lángjökull, which is Iceland's second largest glacier.

Silfra fissure.

If you look really closely at the picture below, you see me kneeling by the water's edge. That was me putting my waterproof camera to its first test.

I'm pretty sure it passed. And that's good because I got my first feel of what it was going to be like to snorkel in these waters.

I asked one of the guides how all this water got so clear, and they told me the water that melts from the base of the glacier takes a 30 year journey to filter through the area's porous volcanic rocks and end up here. And you can bet that that water is naturally some of the cleanest in the world. Forget Poland Spring, I'm drinking straight out of Iceland!

After a group picture, we got to see a small settlement generally reserved for the park rangers.

Ranger dwellings.

Þingvallakirkja and its cemetery.

Þingvellir from behind Þingvallakirkja.

Around here, I picked up a discussion with Helga and Mumi about why Þingvellir was important. As it turns out, Þingvellir is a very significant place in Iceland's history because it was where Alþingi, Iceland's first parliament, was held. That gathering was held here between 930 and 1799, and the meeting place was the country's capital at the time. Alþingi was discontinued for 45 years after that and moved to Reykjavík when it returned in 1844. In 1930, the Icelandic government founded Þingvellir National Park as a means of preserving this site, and in 2004, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site (this information is a mix of what they told me and what I found on Wikipedia).